Past Sermons by Rev. George Smith, Retired

Straddling Democracy: A Look at the Fifth Principle

March 21, 2004

Reading: We the member congregations of the Unitarian Universalist Association, covenant to affirm and promote the right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large.

Reading: That government is strongest of which every person feels themselves a part. Thomas Jefferson

Reading: There will never be a free and enlightened Sate until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly. Henry David Thoreau

I hate to say it but deep down I’ve come to realize that I’m not very accepting of the democratic process. I understand this as an issue of the ego. Because I have a good solid ego then I know the answers to the decisions that I need to make. They obviously are the right ones and no one should challenge them. Going through a democratic process is just a waste of time. What I am saying is that we as individuals do have a hard time with the democratic process. We have a hard time accepting and processing diversity of opinion. And quit frankly that is a sign of a healthy ego. It means we have to be conscious of our unconscious desires and interests so as to listen to others, so as to be willing to really hear another side of an issue.

I do not want to dwell on the following point but often, all too often the democratic process is used as a tool to cover up some more nefarious kinds of activities. For instance the now extinct Soviet Union did in deed vote and had large turn outs but they were a shame representation of a democracy. There are times in small groups when there is a democratic process in place but in name only. “We all know who makes the decisions.” For a long time local politics has been of this sort. Another aspect of this has been the all too easy exploitation of the process with influence peddling, trading votes, etc.

So in some respects because I know myself and I know the system, I see the flaws and am not always enamored with the democratic process as it operates in reality. It is from this stance that I want to look at the democratic process and the influences on it and our need to inculcate the real process in our decision making activities in our religious and by extension into our secular communities.

It is a matter of how do we make decisions? There are a variety of paths. In our previous religious lives the decisions were made on a basis of authority, an outside authority usually, such as a minister or a holy book or a dogma. These external sources told you how to make decisions by a prescribed set of orders. These may have conflicted with your own views about an issue but that is no importance in that kind of a system. The authority usually rested in a minister—the person who had the power to decide for you, the one that you looked up to, the one who embodied the very essence of the dogmas, his or her voice was the one to be listened to and not to be contradicted. There may also have been a board of elders, some group that was the sitting lay embodiment of the church community. The holy book was one of the other outside authorities. It derived its power from some supernatural being who gave these words to the faithful. So to be faithful one must follow those words. The dogmas were the pronouncements from humans that were in concord with the supernatural being and the holy book. These were not to be questioned and were to be followed in all of their extensive detail. This kind of church authority works most effectively in an episcopal type of church governance. It is top down in its structure and the people are more or less the followers. This kind of authority gets confusing when it is superimposed upon a congregational system such as in the Baptist Church. Here you have an external authority with but with a local even individual mandate to make your own decisions. No wonder that the Southern Baptist Church has grown more by division—an internal fight in the church over the external authority and how it plays out is which prompts some to leave the church to start their own. This makes them one of the fastest growing protestant denominations.

In our system, congregational without external authority—we are independent of the national organization. They have virtually no control over us. You will understand this if you go to other congregations their governance structure may and most likely will be different from ours. The UUA can only suggest. When the General Assembly takes a position on an issue it is only making that decision for the national organization and not for each individual congregation. We do have our principles and sources as some sort of outside influence. But as the principles indicate they are more of a covenant held together by a loose acceptance by the local congregations than a requirement. When you join this church, you just join this church. You do not ascribe to a set of doctrines or even a set of principles. But we hope that the principles are guide posts for you. We do not excommunicate and we have free and open membership. What I have set for you is the fact that we are very free to operate in our own manner as a local entity. Decisions that we make are our own.

There are a variety of ways to make decisions with regard to what one does and or how one operates in a community. One way is by one’s own power. This is to take control for oneself. We see power in a variety of circumstances, such as the power of the tyrant to do as he or she pleases. Decisions are made according to what he or she wants and desires and to enhance his or her own ego. Another way is authority. Control is given to another, not taken. An individual has been given consciously or unconsciously some kind of control. The decision here is made on the basis of a variety of factors; ones own desires, the desires of the community, the majority, the minority. So authority can be given via the vote, by choice from some power broker, by special interests, etc.

This is all a prelude to considering this principle, and now for the principle itself.

There are two parts to it, the right of conscience and the use of the democratic process. Both come out of our Anabaptist background. This is the same tradition that flows in the veins of our Baptist brothers and sisters. Both aspects of this principle are very important for development of a truly diverse community. In that there comes to the for a balance between the authority and power of the community and that of the individual.

The right of conscience, the right to speak your mind in other words is absolutely necessary for any truly meaningful democratic process to occur. It is the right to speak your mind without recrimination or rancor, to be listened to, and to know that you were heard that is essential for true democracy to function. It is the hall mark of what we are as UUs and it is the struggle that has been a part of our faith since its founding. We can go back to Transylvania where in the 16th century Bishop Francis David encouraged king John Sigismund to enact religious toleration laws. These were not just limited to his own religious beliefs as many of the laws in the American Colonies some 200 years later would enact. But these laws worked toward true religious toleration. And inevitably lead to the founding of the Unitarian Churches that still exist today. The Anabaptist of northern and western Europe was a peculiar religious group. Though conservative in their religious faith as compared to our standards of today, they we very radical in their social thinking. They believed in the right of the individual to make their own choices. They developed religious groups without dogma. Social relations were egalitarian, peace was a primary objective of society, they were for the most part pacifists, individuals could speak their own minds. In the words that echo Thomas Paine, democracy was really democratic to the Anabaptist because it was open to all not just the elite.

The whole of who we are and how we do make decisions is crucial to what we can become as a community and what we can create as a society in which the greatest possible involvement can be achieved in making decisions where minority views are considered, valued, and even cherished by the majority before a decision is made. It is a process that considers the issue of diversity as being of great importance. It is a struggle because we live in a society dominated by privilege as we learned in our welcoming committee weekend. We make decisions based on that privilege. We listen most easily to those who have that privilege. We more easily discount those who do not have that privilege. It is not an easy thing to create a truly democratic decision making process.

We have the history. We have the talent. We have the structure. But it is not a given that these make for a truly democratic process of decision making. This can only come about by the vigilance of our members and a willingness to keep before us this idea of the right of conscience. The right to be heard. The right to appreciation. With this we can continue to pull these together to create a truly open, free and democratic culture within our community.

We meet together, we share together, we decide together. This fosters a struggle that makes our form of governance so difficult at first for those who are new to us. We want you to be informed. We want discussion on issues that come before the community. We want to know the minority point of views. And governance is not a matter of me as the minister being in control, nor the leaders of the church, nor of any single individual. It is a matter of us all together being in this process of listening and hearing each other. It is a joint effort, worked on from a variety of points of views. It is democratic in that privilege is not the reason for deciding, nor external controls, but what it is that we are held together by our desire to know each other. As our quote at the beginning of the order of service says, “A group is strong if it supports the individuality of its members.” It is up to us to make this real.