Thursday, 1:30PM
Dear friends, I wrote this blog post less than 24 hours ago. Today, with events in Washington seeming to crowd out most other concerns, perhaps I should cobble together a quick response and trust that you will wait for greater depth from me in good time. But I think this is still a good message for us, even today…for us and for others.
Some of you will be joining the protest at the Courthouse at 4 today. Others may chose to gather in the Channing Room from 5-6:30 for community and prayer.
Take a deep breath. And another.
Bill
Evil People
“These are really evil people! Evil!” The President’s latest rant against those raising questions about Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s fitness for the Supreme Court may not surprise you. Repeated assaults on our sensibilities have worked to anesthetize us to the outrages. As minister, I try to refrain from frequent reactive comments about his all too frequent tirades. But his invocation of morality and his attempt to claim the moral high ground mean that he has entered religion’s territory. He is playing on our court.
First, let’s pause over the naming of people as evil. Our theology holds that all people, all of us, are capable of evil acts. We all and always have the choice to bless or to curse the world. BUT…we hold that none of us are inherently evil. None of us are evil at our core. It is that bedrock belief, coupled with our ability to choose, that allows us to believe in the power of love and the possibility of forgiveness and even redemption.
The possibility of forgiveness and even redemption. A lifetime of theology and the presence of hope are packed into those few words.
To name a group of people as “evil” is the shallow and crass separation of the human family into the saved and the damned, the sheep and goats which our liberal religious tradition rejected as one of its first principles. “The inherent worth and dignity of every person” calls us to resist that formulation…even when we might agree that the acts committed are to be condemned.
To name a group of people, with whom the President disagrees, as “evil” is also an exercise in power and privilege. How did we come to have a political leader who is so intent on dividing “we the people” and who has never made an effort to embrace…or even accept the presence of pluralism and diversity. The fear of “the other” — women, people of color, immigrants, queer folks, disabled folks — must be potent for him. Who knew we had such power?
I am guessing that my discussion above is familiar territory for most of us religious liberals. That is why I rarely engage in this kind of reactive response, though I must confess it can be cathartic.
Although we reject his use of the term “evil” in this context, there are evil deeds being done and evil realities to be confronted. An example:
Former Secretary General of the UN, Ban Ki-moon, last week “denounced the US’ health care system as politically and morally wrong.” As evil.
This is a moral judgment based on harm done not to the privileged few, but to the vast majority of our citizens, more of whom now have no insurance coverage and all of whom now pay more for what little they have. All of us, I should say. The “harm” to the privileged few, even when deserved, fuels a politics of grievance. If you want a practical definition of male fragility and white fragility, I present this as exhibit #1.
Ki-moon pointed out our excessive spending on health care (20% of GDP), in comparison to countries that provide universal care like the UK (10%) as well as our poorer health results. He named the powerful corporate interests that are preventing the US from moving toward universal health care. And he named the truth that our nation is abandoning the poor and people of color.
A reasonable person would find it hard to understand “why a country like the US, the most resourceful and richest country in the world, does not introduce universal health care.” Failing to provide that coverage is not only ”politically wrong, but morally wrong and unethical.”
An ethics based on the harm or the good done to the human community and the planet can point us toward the Beloved Community. At the least, it would abort the downward spiral into hate and greed that the President’s attempt at morality encourages.
And, BTW, it should come as no surprise, that the most important issue for voters, reflected in all the polling to date, is the cost and coverage of healthcare. Our moral choices as a nation, the acts we have taken, are evil in every reasonable understanding of that term for me. The American people know this.
We need to get our politics to respond to the moral outrages of broad scale harm being done, not the politics of grievance deployed by the privilege few to maintain their power.
Thank you for reading. I hope this helps to put some of the news in a liberal religious frame. And I must admit, the catharsis has helped me. What I know is that the challenge to our moral sensibilities is far from over. But, at least for today, the questions of good and evil clarify for me why we do what we do. The standard and the language of Beloved Community feel substantial and very needed in response to the evil deeds we are asked to confront.
Blessings,
Bill