“The Secular Saints in Our Time”

Brian H. Smith
Professor Emeritus of Religion
Ripon College, Ripon, WI

Presentation to Open Circle, Unitarian Universalist Association Fellowship

Fond du Lac, WI
July 24, 2022

Readings from Singing the Living Tradition. Unitarian Universalist

Association, Beacon Press, 1993)

#582 The Divine Justice (Amos 5)

#588 To Loose the Fetters of Injustice (Isaiah 58)
#668 Faith Cannot Save (James 2)

Story for All Ages:

“The Emperor’s New Clothes and independent Thought”
(YouTube, 4 min 55 sec)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Ym0u-KweN4

Introduction: The Sounds of Silence Among Clergy Today

Today we have little prophetic inspiration from leaders in organized religion

to address many of the most critical social and political issues of our time. A half-

century ago we had several prominent clergy challenging us by word and example

to confront

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injustices in civil rights, poverty and war-making– Martin Luther King, Jr. Fathers

Dan and Phil Berrigan, Rev. William Sloane Coffin, Fr. Groppi, Rabbi Abraham

Heschel, to name but a few.

Where are they now? Why the deafening silence from clergy on so many vital

issues of our day? There are a number of reasons.

Retrenchment of Catholicism and Protestantism

One reason for the silence in the Catholic Church are the priorities of John

Paul II during his quarter-century reign as pope between 1978 and 2006. He

believed that in the opening the Church to service in the world emphasized by of

Vatican II in the 1960s pulled Catholicism away its traditional mission of preserving

doctrine and administering sacraments. He felt clergy had become too entangled in

worldly concerns and that distinctions between the sacred work of clergy and the

secular responsibilities of laity had become blurred. In his view the reforms of

Vatican II had gone too far to the detriment of traditional Catholic core elements and

wanted to pull it back from involvement in social and political issues.

He demanded the reorientation of seminary training of future priests to

inculcate in them a conviction that they had a special sacred calling different from

laity and should eschew involvement in affairs of the world. A new generation of

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young men who signed up for priesthood, and continue to do so, often desire to be

seen as doing holy work holy work that lay persons cannot do.

Unlike his predecessors, Popes John XXIII and Paul VI, John Paul II

appointed a new generation of bishops throughout the United States for over 25

years with backgrounds in seminary education, canon law or theology, with

experience in chancery offices, and known for their loyalty to Rome rather than for

being pastors with extensive experience as parish priests or in social work.

Condemnation of abortion and denial of rights for LGBTQ persons have

become the preeminent moral concerns expressed by bishops and priests in their

preaching and writing for more than a generation. Social justice concerns are given

lip service in episcopal statements and documents but not as central to being a

faithful Catholic as is voting for candidates opposed to abortion and civil rights for

gay people.

And then came Mr. Trump. Many bishops and priests openly or tacitly

signaled to Catholics that despite his moral failures he would (and eventually did)

appoint Supreme Court justices who would overturn Roe vs. Wade. The deal was

sealed, and social justice issues of poverty, civil rights, racism, gun violence, the

environment were downplayed even more by Catholic clergy in their preaching.

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 In Protestantism by the 1980s and 1990s evangelical churches began to

surpass in numbers mainstream Protestant denominations that had been in the

forefront of social justice campaigns in the 1960s and 1970s. New evangelical

megachurches and local community churches offered havens from the world. They

promoted an individualistic style of piety along with charitable programs but

downplayed more controversial topics requiring commitments to structural changes

in the economy and politics to promote justice.

Evangelicals also created political movements like the Christian Right, the

Moral Majority and later Christian Nationalism. Regaining Christian influence in

government against what they perceived to be a steady growth of secularism was

their goal. Condemnations of abortion and LGBTQ rights, as in the Catholic

Church, became the most important moral issues these evangelical churches

emphasized rather than challenging unjust social and economic policies

undermining the common good of all.

For evangelicals, as for Catholics, Trump became political catnip. Many

evangelical pastors have come to identify him, despite his many faults, as God’s

chosen one – some calling him the new “Cyrus my anointed” the Persian general

who saved the Jews from Babylonian exile in the 6th century BC. Trump promised to

restore Christian dominance in government and culture. Today there are several

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evangelical pastors holding rallies in their churches to put Trump back into the

White House. They are not only happy with recent Supreme Court decisions

chipping away the wall between church and state but are doing their best to

demolish it completely.

There is no indication that these trends among both Catholic and Evangelical

clergy are going to change soon. So where do we look for moral inspiration and

leadership in facing the critical social and political challenges of our day? Certainly

not from most US clergy today as we could do sixty years ago.

No Distinction Between Sacred and Secular in World Religions

It is important to remember that in none of the major religions of the world is

there a distinction between the sacred and the secular. Holiness is to be practiced by

everyone 24/7 and never has been the monopoly of clergy.

Making a distinction between the sacred and the secular is a recent

phenomenon in Western culture. It began in the 18th century during the

Enlightenment by political leaders to solve century-long conflicts between church

and state. They crafted a separation of the two institutions to protect each from

meddling in the affairs of the other.

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 Biblically, however, God acts everywhere and is in everyone (Genesis 1:27).

God commands all to “be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy” (Leviticus 19:2).

Prophets such as Amos and Isaiah, as we heard in the readings, condemned prayers

and ritual sacrifices purportedly honoring God by those with blood on their hands

from exploiting the poor. There is no distinction between the sacred and the secular

in the Torah or Prophets.

Jesus taught that a compassionate act in life done to another human being is

a sacred act done to him since he identifies especially with those who suffer (MT

25:31-46). The second chapter of the Letter of James also read today says a

religious faith without works is dead, and the works he is referring to is behavior

outside church buildings – pursuing justice for the poor.

Persons are not made holy in synagogues or churches who in everyday life

neglect human suffering of the neighbor. In fact, in both biblical testaments when

push comes to shove working for justice in the world is a far more important sign

that one has a relationship with God than performing religious ceremonies in

places of worship.

In Buddhism all sentient beings are joined spiritually in one profound

reality. There are no sanctuaries that have a monopoly on reverencing the holy. In

Hinduism, a piece of Brahman or God resides in the atmans or souls of every

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person. Gandhi felt those neglected the most – the harijans or children of God, as

he called the untouchables --

– were the ones who needed the greatest love since they were suffering the most.

He like the Buddha and Jesus of Nazareth spent time in streets and fields where

they all witnessed to the sacred in their compassion and mercy for the suffering

and neglected.

Why should it be any different today? Why do we not see and affirm the

sacred in lives of heroic love for our fellow humans?

Secular Saints in Our Time

The ones who are addressing most consistently and in word and deed poverty,

oppression, gun violence, environmental deterioration, discrimination based on race

or gender, uncivility and lying-in politics are lay persons and many unbelievers in

their lives beyond institutional religion. Today new forms of the sacred or holiness

which were once considered the domain of institutional religion are visible in the

public lives of many citizens. We just need the vision to see them.

In times past in our own country we witnessed women like Sojourner Truth,

Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott and Dorothy Day all bringing the religious

and moral values of their traditions to bear on pressing social and political problems

of their times. They were all laypersons living outside the authority structures of
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organized religions and witnessing to critical social ethical values in their times –

often to the point of significant risk to themselves.

Today there are a growing number of NONES between 18 and 40 who have

no religious affiliation, and they make up 40 % of younger American adults. Many

are acting courageously to confront injustices to people of color, to the poor, to

LGBTQ persons and to the environment. Many of these young NONEs are appalled

by the silence by the leaders of organized religion in their failure to address

adequately the causes to which many of these young agnostics are dedicating their

lives – serving the suffering and saving the environment

(https://www.nunsandnones.org/).

As I have spoken about before here in your community, there are many

Catholic sisters (some retired) who are reaching out to these idealistic young

NONEs in dialog, shard meals and meditation, even engaging in some communal

living experiments with them. These sisters (over 300 throughout the United States)

are not clerics and they are not trying to “save” the souls of these NONES from the

evils of the secular world.

The sisters see in these NONES something of themselves many years ago

when they as young women entered religious life to serve the poor and sick and

educate the disadvantaged. The sisters are unafraid of growing secularism in the

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world since they see the presence of God in the lives of idealistic young NONES

often criticized as being religiously lax by many bishops, priests and evangelical

pastors.

These sisters follow the theology of German Jesuit theologian prominent at

Vatican II, Karl Rahner, who taught that the ordinary way to salvation is outside, not

inside, the Church since that is where most people live and where the Holy Spirit

works in powerful ways.

While most clergy today would be hesitant to identify as saints the

nonreligious persons committed to social justice, a case can be made for doing so,

even if one must tweak a bit the traditional meaning of the word. The classical

definition is “a person acknowledged as holy or virtuous and typically regarded as

being in heaven after death.” In Catholicism since the 13th century this requires a

formal papal declaration affirming that a person exhibited” heroic charity” in life

before he or she can be considered a saint in heaven.

I think we should be able to identify several in our time who have shown

“heroic charity” and courage in their lives in the world. John Lewis spent his life

“making good trouble” to end of racial discrimination and nearly died for his

courage as a young man on Edmund Pettis Bridge in Selma in 1965. Today the

movement Black Lives Matter has taken up his challenge and many of those

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involved in the movement have incurred vituperation and calumny from some

clergy for not being sufficiently respectful of religion.

Liz Chaney is risking her reputation and career in politics to save our

democracy. She is avoiding the “groupthink” described in the video that eats away

at independent thinking. She exhibits more courage in denouncing lies and

conspiracy-thinking than most clergy and at considerable cost to chances for her re-

election. Adam Kinzinger her ally serving on the same Congressional Select

Committee investigating Jan. 6th has received numerous scurrilous phone calls, e-

mails and tweets -- some threatening the lives of his wife and child – because of his

attempts to uncover the culprits of sedition trying to throw out the results of the

2020 elections by a bloody assault on the Capitol.

Arizona Speaker of the House, Rusty Bowers, said before the Select

Committee recently that “he didn’t want to be used as a pawn in Trump’s scheme”

to replace legitimate electors from Arizona with a false set of electors favoring

Trump after the 2020 election. In conscience and before God, he said he could not

do so. He received thousands of texts denouncing him, was accused publicly of

being a pedophile and experienced verbal attacks from demonstrators in front of his

home, some with guns menacing himself life and his family.

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 Manuel Oliver whose son, Joaquin, was murdered in the Parkland school

shooting in 2018 has visited every scene of mass shootings since then to identity

with and console families of victims. He speaks out continuously on behalf of gun

safety, interrupting a speech by President Biden in early July telling the president

touting gun reform legislation that it does not go far enough to get automatic

weapons out of the hands of those bent on bloodshed. He was then physically from

among invited guests at the speech. No “group think” virus in his soul.

Dr. Roy Guerrero a pediatrician in Uvalde, TX bound the bullet wounds of

children massacred in school by a shooter. He speaks out in a clarion call for the

reimposition of sales of assault weapons throughout the country. Without doubt he

faces strong criticism in his home state of Texas where many citizens consider belief

in guns as sacred as belief in God.

These are just a few people recently who secular saints in our time are.

Whether they are formally religious or not makes no difference. In the framework of

all world religions, they are doing God’s work whether they are conscious of it or

not. Their dedication to alleviate pain, uphold truth and move the arc of justice

forward at great cost to themselves makes them deserve of the title. We need the

vision to see the sacred in them, we need to support them, and we need them to

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continue as an inspiration in our lives to do likewise. When the clergy are silent, the

Spirit calls forth others in moments of moral crisis to show us the way.

In early Christianity for many centuries there was no formal investigative

process to determine if one was a saint. If someone lived an outstanding life of

heroic charity or courageously witnessed to the teachings of Jesus, they were

acclaimed saints by vox populi – the voice of the people. Many of the early heroes

and heroines in Christianity never received an imprimatur of official sainthood but

became so in the memory and acclamation of those whose lives had been

profoundly inspired by them. Such was sufficient for them to be called saints in

popular culture.

The vox populi path to sainthood continued well into the Middle Ages.

Benedictine German Abbess Hildegard von Bingen in the 12th century was known

for her compassion for the poor and ministry to the sick with herbal medicines. She

sternly warned a bishop of the pains of hell awaiting him for punishing her

monastery of women with interdiction of the sacraments because they mercifully

offered Christian burial to a repentant but clerically unshriven sinner on monastery

grounds. The bishop also forbade the sisters from the hourly singing of the

Scriptures throughout the day and night, something central to their spirituality.

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 Hildegard’s speaking truth to power after bucking episcopal authority kept

her from ever being proclaimed a saint by Church authorities after her death. Over

time, however, her name mysteriously appeared on the official list of saints because

of the overwhelming acclaim ordinary lay people continued to give her for centuries

after her demise.

It is time to reclaim this tradition of acclaiming without church approbation

living saints who today are doing sacred work in the world. They need our

affirmation and support, and we need their continued inspiration in our struggle for

social justice.

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