"These days it is easy to despair of liberalism's weaknesses, so it is of consequence to be aware of our present and potential strengths. One of these is our enduring function of living on the boundaries - between mind and body, the internal and the external, freedom and necessity, individual and community.
"We have never had a better opportunity to live as partisans of both left brain and right brain, mysticism and empiricism, intuition and rationality, piety and society, nurture and nature … as boundary dwellers, at home on both sides of the borders: pilgrims of the reconciliations that must come if the human race is to survive." From Being Liberal in an Illiberal Age, Jack Mendelsohn, pp12-13
Good morning. I'm delighted to be again at Emerson Chapel, and to see so many familiar faces. I've come before you as church musician, lay speaker, and now as an ordained minister. I remember when you shared an aluminum out-building with the Kol Am congregation at Clayton and Schoettler Roads. And look at us now, changed, and in this beautiful space.
My topic this morning is "religious liberalism, reason and the imagination." I delivered this sermon at Sage Chapel, an independent, liberal religious congregation in West County, on November 6th. I was trying out for their minister, and I thought I'd better let them know who I am, and where I'd want to lead them, if they called me to their pulpit. This topic is vast, and I apologize in advance for not covering it in depth.
This sermon started with a greeting card I found at a gift shop in Grafton a month or two ago, when the family and I were on our annual apple-picking trip to Illinois. The card has the picture of a thin, colorful, winged figure on it, accompanied by this inscription:
"In my dream, the angel shrugged and said, If we fail this time, it will be a failure of the imagination, and she gently placed the world in the palm of my hand." Right away we know we are invited into the imagination, into a dream world of angels and of an Earth small enough to fit my hand.
This is about us, us religious liberals. We believe we are responsible for the world, for its welfare, and for all its creatures. A great icon of our time (you have it in your vestibule) is the picture of Earth from space - a circle of blue, white and brown, ringed by a thin layer of atmosphere, surrounded by the immense blackness of empty space. There is no god to save us. There may be an afterlife or reincarnation, but our focus is on the here and now. Our goal is to progressively increase human freedom in thought and action, and to resist structures of oppression. We volunteer for obligations, rather than inherit them as immutable duties. We believe that Truth is made up of many partial truths representing our different perspectives; that Truth is relational. We religious liberals, as Jack Mendelsohn said, live on the boundaries, holding the tension of opposites.
THE ANGEL SHRUGGED...
"The angel shrugged … ". Why does she shrug? Maybe she wishes we were stronger, more capable partners. I am reminded of what Einstein said would be required to control the power of the atom: that we must fundamentally change our thinking. Perhaps we can't fundamentally change our thinking.
"The angel shrugged and said, If we fail this time …". Have we failed before? Have we failed to oppose oppression, to save the earth and her creatures? Perhaps she means, "If we fail now, at this time …".
I believe we are at a critical juncture in history, upon which the fate of the earth depends. The old worldview, of a mechanical universe, is collapsing, but the new worldview is still emerging, not yet taken its place. In May when he was here in St. Louis, Houston Smith spoke of the power vacuum forming at the heart of scientism, but he warned that there is no guarantee of success. His was a liberal call-to-arms, that the current worldview could be replaced by a more oppressive one.
The gap revealed by the culture wars in this country widens weekly, it seems, with stem cell research a new battleground, and the old standby, evolution, back in the fray. Fundamentalism is on the rise worldwide, not just in Christianity but across religions, in reaction to modernity, to the liberal perspective we hold dear. There is precious little middle ground between the extremes - you can either believe in dead matter, secular materialism, or you can be a spiritualist, believing in the supernatural.
Another example comes from my studies of the Bible at Eden Seminary: I could either approach the Bible as being literally true, the inerrant word of God, or I could perform textual criticism, which is studying word usage, the context and history of the texts, in order to determine who wrote what, when, why and to whom. For me, both are poor options, neither approach resulting in vibrant images of Abraham or Jesus with whom I can relate.
IMAGINED IMAGES
"If we fail this time, it will be a failure of the imagination." By imagination I mean the world of images that appear in dreams, fantasies, poetry, mythology, fairy tales, and in the body. As adults we think the word "imaginary" means "unreal", but just watch our children as they "pretend". My eleven year old, when she's pretending to be a horse - the herd is as real to her as the furniture in the den where she's playing. We outgrow this capacity, or dismiss it as unimportant. Think back to the last novel you read, especially if you didn't finish it at one sitting. Remember how vivid the characters were, and the sense of setting and time. You walked around in your regular life, but part of you was captivated by that novel. Imaginary characters can be more real than memories of your life, or of friends you once knew. Commerce cannot thrive without imagination: architects imagine the structure before drawing the plans; corporations and churches develop vision statements to guide them.
I am now going to articulate a set of belief statements based on my studies and experience, which I propose to use as the basis for building a vibrant liberal religious congregation:
"In my dream, the angel shrugged and said, If we fail this time, it will be a failure of the imagination, and she gently placed the world in the palm of my hand."
What I'm advocating here is that we build liberal religious congregations that marry reason with imagination. I contend that through such a marriage we can create the middle ground that's missing between the oppositions we've inherited. The role of the imagination in such a congregation is to bring forth images and their meanings, to balance reason with soul, juiciness, the unconscious, creativity. The role of reason is to test the value of these images in the world, and to hold the amoral impulses that arise with these images against broad ethical principles. We would explore private and communal images in sermons, worship services, and seasonal celebrations. We would welcome images from all the sources I've mentioned, religious and non-religious, as well as non-traditional sources such as the Tarot and alchemy - areas already highlighted as useful by Jung.
In conclusion, my wish for us religious liberals is to accept the almost superhuman responsibility of saving the world by partnering with the images of our imagination. The inscription under the name of our congregation might read: "In our dreams, the angels shrug and say, If we fail now, it will be a failure of the imagination, and they gently place the world in our hands." May it be so, amen.
Return to top THE ANGEL SHRUGGED... IMAGINED IMAGES
Posted: 1/10/06