© Ministerial Intern Dawn Fortune 2014. All Rights Reserved
Mission Peak Unitarian Universalist Congregation
October 26, 2014
It is tempting to try to draw a straight line from our seven principles to the ancient list of seven virtues. It’s possible, of course. It would also be inaccurate and wrong.
Before we can explore a topic, I find it helps to understand a little about the origins of the idea.
Ancient Greek philosophers Aristotle and Plato identified four cardinal virtues as above all others: temperance, wisdom, justice, and courage. Later, the theological virtues of faith, hope and charity were added by church leaders, after the books of the New Testament had been compiled into a canon in the fourth century.
As often happens, the work of philosophers and those who studied rhetoric was later adapted by religious institutions to serve the needs of those institutions. The original seven virtues eventually were morphed into the seven we know today: chastity, temperance, charity, diligence, patience, kindness, and humility.
So, why develop list of virtues? To create a set of moral ideals to which “good” citizens could or should aspire. Like it or not, humans need rules and boundaries, sometimes if for no other reason than to rebel against them.
Churches used to be the legal authority. Governments were often theocracies, and where government offices were lacking, the authority of the church permitted accusation, trial, judgment and punishment to be carried out independent of any state control.
These ancient notions of virtue are problematic by today’s standards.
Too often the virtue is equated with the concept of self-denial, a kind of asceticism that requires that we must forgo pleasure in order to be virtuous. This makes a life of virtue a really hard sell, so it was often enforced through threats of jail, public floggings, ostracism, or eternal damnation in hell.
The notion of self-denial is an ancient one used in many religious traditions. The Buddha, before his enlightenment under the Bodhi tree, is said to have survived on mere grains of rice each day. Gandhi denied himself pleasures of the flesh in order to strengthen his faith in God, even to the point of sleeping in a bed with attractive young women to test his dedication to sexual chastity. By all reports, everyone’s virtue remained intact during those trials.
Saint Augustine of Hippo wrote volumes on sin and virtue. As a young man, Augustine was a student of rhetoric (or philosophy) in Carthage, where he excelled in Latin but not Greek, which made the formal study of philosophy at that time problematic, what with all the philosophers tracing their lineage to Plato and Aristotle. But still, he studied hard, made something of a name for himself, and indulged in all the pleasures available to a young man away from home in a big city. That experience is not so far removed from what a young person might experience presently in their first semester at Berkeley, I’d wager.
At one point in his adventures, Saint Augustine is credited with what I have often cited as my favorite prayer: “Lord, grant me temperance and chastity; but not yet.” It is perhaps the only thing he wrote with which I can agree.
Augustine went on to articulate the theological concept of original sin, and he held a pretty dim view of humanity and its capability to behave in a virtuous manner. Due largely to his own struggle with indulgence, he began to pen the volumes that led to an ethos of institutional asceticism in the Catholic Church – in his effort to be more mindful about the suffering of Christ, he created the documents that founded a movement that came to equate suffering with virtue.
And that is the problem with so many of the classic virtues – they shifted over time from being worthy ideals toward which people ought to strive to being unachievable mandates for which punishment was meted when people failed to meet them.
Think of it – Chastity has gone from relational integrity to complete abstinence from sexual activity and purity culture in which people who are sexually empowered are shamed as “damaged goods” unworthy of love, marriage, or salvation. And it’s not a new idea, either. Down through the centuries, people – usually women – have been punished severely for sexual behaviors. In the last century, Magdalene Houses were run in Ireland, where “fallen women” girls who were pregnant without benefit of a wedding ring, sometimes victims of rape, were sent for penitence and rehabilitation. They were forced to do manual labor and were treated brutally, even killed. In previous centuries, women have been tortured and killed in a variety of horrific ways, all for falling too far short of the ideal of “chastity.”
Temperance got less dramatic treatment, perhaps because punishment is usually meted out by one end of the spectrum against those at the far end, and temperance, by its nature, means “moderation.” Can one be too moderate? If moderation means keeping to the middle when two sides of a battle rage around us, moderation can look like former Senator George Mitchell travelling to Ireland to broker a peace treaty between Ireland and England. On the other hand, if being a moderate means we stay out of the fray for risk of angering either side, that is not virtuous at all.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu reminds us that if we fail to confront injustice, we have chosen the side of the oppressor. I think there IS such a thing as too moderate.
Charity is a curious thing – it seems to be valued most by those who are closest to needing it. Per capital charitable giving in America is divided between the haves and the have-nots in stark numbers. When the numbers for giving as a percentage of per capita income are figured, guess which state has people who give the highest percentage of their income to church and charities? Mississippi. And guess which state’s people give the least amount of their income to church and charity? Connecticut. Charity is valued by the poor, and paid lip service by the affluent. You and I will have longer conversations about giving as the stewardship season rolls around. But for now, the simple answer to charity is that if you’ve needed it, you are more likely to value it and act charitably.
Humility is one of my favorite virtues, but it, too, has been perverted. Too often humility has been replaced with humiliation. We relish the public failure of a big shot. We live in a world where cell phones are ubiquitous and videos go viral in an instant. We immediately cast ourselves into one camp or another, quickly creating an “us and them” scenario. We offer opinions about the personal and public, in the anonymous world of the internet, a safe distance from the reality of the people whose lives are being dissected for our amusement and entertainment. Monica Lewinsky was the first person whose life and reputation were quite literally demolished on the world wide web. She described the experience this week in an address to a group of the nation’s top young leaders at an event called the Forbes 30 Under 30 Summit. She talked about her experience of disconnect between the person she knew herself to be and the person she saw portrayed in the media, on the evening news, and, in a new news medium – the internet. That disconnect can lead to anxiety, depression, self-loathing, she said.
“The greater the distance between the you people want you to be and the you that you are, the greater will be your anxiety, depression, sense of failure and shame.”
Humility must be an organic and internal move to become right-sized. It cannot be imposed upon someone from the outside, for that becomes humiliation, and it can be deadly.
I could go on about the rest of the rest of the virtues, but we haven’t got the time, and frankly it can become an exercise in humiliation that I seek to avoid in church. Church should never be a place that humiliates people.
What does it mean to live a virtuous life? Last week Jeremy spoke of sin, and of how it does not exist outside of a context. Indeed, one would typically think that jumping on a wobbly drunken man and punching him repeatedly is not virtuous behavior. But if you’re the guy in the black cowboy hat and the drunk guy is assaulting a man because he suspects the man is gay, then jumping on the drunk guy may in fact be a virtuous act.
Filming the event is a good way to provide public witness to an act of hate and a subsequent act of advocacy, but what happens when this image of the intoxicated man goes viral and the backlash is every bit as vicious as his hateful words? Does the filming then become an act of humiliation, having captured this man at a moment neither his employer nor his mother will be impressed to see posted all over the internet? Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. taught us that an eye for an eye only leaves the whole world half-blind. Hate does not stop hate, only love can do that.
Context is everything.
As Unitarian Universalists, we base our authority on our integrity. We do not look to centuries of tradition to elevate our moral standing in the world. We do not rely on ritual and history for our authority as do our Jewish, Catholic and Episcopalian neighbors. Nor do we look to scripture as our sole measuring stick for virtue. We do not typically describe transformative and dramatic experiences of the holy spirit that set us on a path to virtuous living, at least not in the way typically experienced by our Pentecostal and evangelical friends. We are the religion that bases our moral authority on reason and intellect. Yes, we can – and do – have personal experiences of the holy, and yes, we can – and do – look to scriptures for guidance, but for us, our primary source for authority is our reason, our intellect, our education, and our integrity. We base a lot on our emphasis on transparency, the democratic process, and covenants entered into freely and consensually by all.
In that atmosphere with such emphasis on transparency and personal integrity, it does not pay to have a private persona and a public persona, as Lewinsky described. The ideal is to have the two entities be in synch as much as possible. Imam Suhaib Webb of the Islamic Center of Boston spoke recently about how Islam can be hyper-critical of itself, instead of hyper-supportive. His remarks came in response to criticism of Islam from television host Bill Maher. “If we don’t stop criticizing each other to the point where undermine our ability to grow, we are going to have very serious problems,” he said.
In his sermon, Imam Webb said that the Quran offers two pieces of advice for Muslims when they are criticized: increase their prayer, and attention to how they are perceived in the world.
The Quran, he said, emphasizes the importance of the public image, but with an interesting caveat. The virtuous man, he said will not compromise his principles to protect his public image, and will not compromise his public image to protect his principles.
In all things, there must be temperance, communication, mutuality.
Being convinced that you are right, Imam Webb said, can lead to apathy. “Hope in the truth that leads to apathy is contrary to the truth itself” and that truth in Islam holds true for us. How easy it can be – convinced of our own “right-ness” it is easy to sit back on our laurels, to rest in the knowledge that we’re right about so many things – climate change, recycling, progressive politics.
Moral authority – that “rightness” the Imam spoke of, can sometimes present itself to others as authoritarianism instead of authority. “We do not need to be authoritarian. We need to be prophetic,” said Webb. “Public image is important to our ability to do good.”
So how do we lead virtuous lives in this modern era, when so many of the classic virtues have become perverted into tools of oppression? How do we define virtue today?
I find it curious that those classic virtues lack some of the things I think of immediately when I consider what a virtuous life looks like. Honesty is not on the list. Accountability is not there, either. Nor is justice. Or compassion. Or mercy.
I wonder sometimes if we hold ourselves to that impossible standard of excellence, that thing beyond our reach, and judge ourselves harshly when we cannot achieve it. We would not be the first to do such a thing, certainly. Last week Allysson spoke with the children about covenant, and Jeremy mentioned it in his sermon. Covenant allows us to make mistakes and keep going. It sets goals and lofty intentions, yes, but it anticipates our humanity and permits us to have faults. We aspire to be our best selves.
Imam Webb finds the same message in the Q’uran. There is a difference between a model and an inspiration, he says. Models are prefect, presenting an unachievable standard that has people considering artificial means to achieve it, but an inspiration offers the opportunity for improvement. The Prophet Mohammed, said Imam Webb, “is a reminder of the potential for us to be better, to challenge ourselves to be better, even though it might make us uncomfortable.”
It is worth asking ourselves: Are we a model or an inspiration? Do we leave room for our flawed humanity in our quest for right living?
The virtues, it turns out, are largely over-rated, at least in the form they have been handed down through the ages. We can do the things we typically associate with virtue, without engaging in the toxic culture of perfection and the failure and shame that come with it.
We can lead virtuous lives. We can act with intention. We can be in right relations with each other. We can speak our truth in love and compassion. And most of all, we can covenant to not give up on each other when things get tough or we make mistakes.
May it be so.