FROM THE PULPIT

Dear Friends of Trinity,

 I was struck by the New York Times columnist David Brook’s column a week or so ago, and it prompted these reflections.  The article is, in a way, a review of a recent book, Liberalism as a Way of Life.  I wish the author had chosen a different term, since “liberalism” suggest to many people a particular set of political beliefs, which is not what he is writing about at all.

 He is thinking of “liberal” in the sense of free, broadminded, and tolerant.  This Brooks argues, has become the defining value system for most people around the world.  “We (who think this way)”, he observes, “respect autonomy and personal space, dislike hypocrisy and snobbery, and strive to achieve a live-and-live tolerance.” What’s not to like?  This attitude certainly beats bigotry and tolerance. 

On closer scrutiny, however, this stance, or attitude, seems lacking in two crucial areas.  First, it tends to avoid the ultimate questions of meaning and purpose:  “Why are we here?  Who made the cosmos?” Because we can’t agree on the answers to these questions, liberal philosophy argues, let’s not discuss them at all.  But, of course, people do care about these questions nevertheless, and the answers they arrive at matter a great deal.

Second, as Brooks says, “Liberal societies can be lonely.  By putting so much emphasis on individual choice, they attenuate social bonds.  An invisible question lurks behind every relationship:  Is this person good for me?  Every social connection becomes temporary and contingent.” As the ethicist Tim Sedgwick points out, every relationship becomes transactional:  “What’s in it for me?” It is no surprise that many people are put off by this.  They look for a creed that embraces “the loftier virtues, like bravery, loyalty, piety, and sacrificial love.”

Our religious attention has a vocabulary to describe what is going on here.  The great Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, Brooks notes, “explained the difference between the sort of contracts that flourish in the world of individual choice and covenants that flourish best in those realms that are deeper than individual utility:  ‘A contract is about interests.  A covenant is about identity.  It is about you and me coming together for form an ‘us.’ That is why contracts benefit but covenants transform.” (Rabbi Sacks was the Chief Rabbi of the Orthodox congregations in Great Britain for over twenty years.)

Brooks’ conclusion resonates with my conviction as a person of faith:  “For societies to prosper they need to rest on institutions that precede individual choice – families, faiths, attachments to a sacred place.  People are not formed by institutions to which they are lightly attached.  Their souls and personalities are formed within the primal bonds to this specific family, that specific culture, this piece of land with it long history to my people, to that specific obedience to the God of my ancestors.”

People’s individualism and isolation from one another has seriously eroded religious belief and membership in religious congregations, as most of us are well aware.  I find that I don’t worry as much about this as I used to.  People who feel adrift in a culture like ours have many options.  Some will give in to some sort of fanaticism, and there are, unfortunately, many fanatical and intolerant forms of belief on offer.  Others, however, will ask themselves those ultimate questions of meaning and purpose and seek out a community that respects the freedom and dignity of the individual precisely because of our covenant relationship with God who calls us to care for ourselves, for one another, and for the whole created order.  This is what we commit ourselves to every time we recite the Baptismal Covenant.  If we truly seek to carry out those promises, I am assured that God will take care of the rest.

Faithfully,

Fr. Steve Sedgwick