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What's the difference between politics and social action? If you don't define these terms, most people at Eliot, and I bet most Unitarian Universalists, would say church supported social action is one of the reasons churches exist, and that partisan politics ought to be kept out of church life, and probably out of the pulpit, too.

So if one of these we support as part of the mission of the church, and the other is anathema, it becomes pretty important to define whether an issue is social action or whether it's politics. The October newsletter column by my colleague, the Rev. Martin Woulfe, of Springfield, Illinois catches this problem neatly:

When does a topic become overtly political? It's a proverb among preachers that when one discusses contemporary issues from the pulpit, two reactions are typical. If a member agrees with the views expressed, he/she will describe the talk as "spiritual." If, on the other hand, a member disagrees with those same views, he/she is apt to respond that the preacher has crossed the line into politics. The ear of the listener is the arbitrator.

Legally, churches can't endorse a candidate or political party, but there are plenty of religious issues with political implications and vice versa. Many churches take stands on various issues from school bonds to reproductive choice issues.

Most religious liberals feel it's important to have their public actions line up with their private religious concerns: "Deeds not creeds", is a famous UU saying.

Most religious principles sound broad, but give you an idea how to behave: treat your neighbor as you would want to be treated, for example. If an old lady fell into a ditch, the liberal and conservative alike would stick out their arm to help her out.

If a young lady got pregnant, the amount and kind of assistance the liberal and conservative would offer would likely vary quite a bit.

If a Unitarian preacher called on her parishioners to pull people out of ditches, there might be murmuring assent in the congregation; if she called on her parishioners to support or deny funding to Planned Parenthood, there might be murmuring dissent in the congregation.

Let us look at a bit of the history of social action and politics here at Eliot Chapel. As many of you know, William Greenleaf Eliot, founded the first Unitarian church in St. Louis, and it is from him that we get our name - Eliot Unitarian Chapel.

Eliot helped found Washington University and Mary Institute was named after one of his daughters. He was involved in all sorts of civic ventures. He worked to get a tax passed to raise money for schools. His biography notes:

In later years Eliot credited the successful passage of the tax largely to members of his congregation who went door to door canvassing voters (p38). Eliot once said that the passage of the school tax marked the true beginning of the St. Louis public schools. A school for the poor was one of the earliest charities of [his] Church (p39).

They probably thought of their efforts as charity, not as politics, but it would surely be seen to have political overtones today.

Eliot described one of his experiences of slavery, which was deeply rooted and ever present in his St Louis:

I was startled by a terrible scream, and going to the window, saw under an open shed a young mulatto woman tied up the joist by her thumbs, so that her feet scarcely touched the ground, stripped from her shoulders to her hips, and a man standing by her with cowhide whips in hand. He had paused for a moment from his scourging to see if she would "give in." I opened the window to call out to him. He told me to "shut up and mind my own business." But he feared publicity just enough to untie the victim and stop his brutality for a time" (p39).

The reality of slavery and Eliot's reluctance to publicly confront an unjust social system were a rock and a hard place for him.

I have been in St. Louis fourteen years, in which time no one subject has been so often in my mind as slavery. Upon no other have I been more anxious to do what is right. My detestation of the system is very great, my sense of wrong to the black and the injury to the white very deep. I never pass by the slave jails on Olive Street without saying almost, sometimes quite loud: "May the curse of God abide on this vile traffic!" Yet I have spoken of it in public comparatively seldom, only once or twice each year (p40).

Why the reluctance? According to Eliot:

The primary object of [Unitarian] Christianity is not to change the external features of society, but to regenerate the individual soul, which must be done, not by direct acts of superior power, but in accordance with the law of voluntary action. One must labor for social reform, by moral means, by individual reform. Mere changes of institutions will do little good.

Eliot thought sudden changes were never as good as gradual ones. That's why he favored gradual emancipation rather than immediate abolition. He also had the fact that, unlike most other Unitarian pulpits, his was very diverse in its politics.

Eliot told a Boston audience after the war that his congregation "had been composed of diverse materials from all parts of the country...with all shades of political opinion; with extreme diversity of social prejudices, from the pro-slavery secessionist to the abolitionist of the most ultra school" (p53).

One might say that Eliot Chapel, today is "diverse in its social prejudices."

And yet, in the end, Eliot did make public proclamations calling for the end of slavery. "In 1861, the [slavery] crisis at hand, Eliot showed little hesitancy to use the pulpit to express his political convictions" (62).

A century after the Rev. Dr. Eliot gave his sermon, Eliot Unitarian Chapel called the Rev. Webster Kitchell as their first minister. Forty-four years later, there are still folks here who remember him.

Some considered him a radical liberal, outspoken on political issues. At one point he ran for city council in Kirkwood. Some church members went knocking on doors to support his campaign.

A church member who was a politician from Webster Groves, left the church, and a few other Republicans from Webster went with him, and the story is that the next year's canvass shrank dramatically.

In 1973, the congregation called the Rev. John Robinson. John was much more politically conservative than Rev. Kitchell, and I understand he tended to avoid talking about politics from the pulpit. Among other things, Rev. Robinson went a long way toward repairing Eliot Chapel's reputation in the community.

During the period of the El Salvador refugee crisis in the 1980s, some at Eliot wanted to make Eliot a sanctuary church, they certainly wanted Eliot to take a public stand. After all, Unitarian churches in the east and west were doing this. And there is the history of eastern Unitarian churches acting as stations on the underground railroad during slavery times.

Providing sanctuary in churches was popular with some churches at the time. These were victimized refugees who feared for their lives should they be forced to return to their native country. But giving them sanctuary was also against the law.

Rev. Robinson believed that you shouldn't compromise some members by foisting on them the political views of others in the congregation no matter how virtuous they seemed to be. The sentiment was that we shouldn't be critical of those in the congregation who don't want to go against the federal government.

Fast forward 20 years. Bonnie and I were called as ministers to Eliot Chapel two years ago. Last March, in response to a series of events, I performed the first public gay marriage in the Midwest.

Under the circumstances, a decision had to be made quickly as to whether I would agree to perform the requested ceremony. I believe it was the right thing to do at the time.

I also regret the distress that the suddenness of my decision caused. I know it caused distress because two months later at our annual meeting, a surprise resolution proposed

1. To abolish the tradition of non-member gay weddings at Eliot Chapel
2. To prevent Eliot ministers from seeking out gay couples for weddings and
3. To prevent Eliot ministers from naming gay unions as marriages.

This item may come up for discussion - but not a vote - at today's Town Hall Meeting. Voting is reserved for the annual meeting.

I have to say that I believe my actions were exercised as part of the freedom of the pulpit. I also have to say that it is up to the congregation to say how its buildings and grounds shall be used.

But what is freedom of the pulpit? And if there is freedom in the pulpit, what other freedom is there?

• Freedom of the pulpit means religious reflections passed through the fire of thought, the minister is to preach the truth as the minister sees it.
  
  
• Freedom of the pew means the right of individual conscience in the pew.

Without such freedom, it would mean the preacher must preach the ordained dogma and the pew must accept this at Truth - this is creeds, this is orthodoxy. The essence of the free church is the right of individual conscience, and the right to live out one's conscience. In our 4^th principle we say: the free and responsible search for truth and meaning.

The free church does not mean a lack of political implications in one's speech and deeds; in fact, on the big social issues of a particular age, one expects free church pulpits to offer an opinion as to how liberal religion views a particular issue.

Every major social issue in the history of the United States - and plenty of minor ones - have received comment by free church pulpits. While the resolution brought up at the last annual meeting still hangs in the air, it has had some additional effects on me.

Many of you will remember Amendment 2 to the Missouri state constitution. The amendment says that a marriage shall only be defined as being between a man and a woman. Amendment 2 passed overwhelmingly this August, in some part due to how well the religious right was organized. They heard it in their churches all across the state. They were organized, they went door to door, they strategized in their churches on that issue.

Before the annual meeting, in the back of my mind, I had thought maybe there will be some in the congregation who will want Eliot to take a stand on this issue and then go public with it. Due to what happened in May, I felt that was unlikely, and also that perhaps I shouldn't be as outspoken as other St Louis liberal ministers.

Over the summer, I had gone to clergy meetings with St Louis area rabbis, priests, and ministers. They were Reform and Reconstructionist Jews, liberal Lutherans, Episcopalians, and United Church of Christ.

Those clergy encouraged overt political action on this issue by their congregations. They showed videos on how to recruit door-to-door. The spoke out and took congregational stands.

For now, the legal issue of gay marriage is at rest. And while our fellow UUs downtown have been largely silent on the issue of gay marriage, they have not been quiet politically. My colleague, the minister of the First Unitarian Church of St. Louis, the Rev. Suzanne Meyer, in her October 9 newsletter column, writes:

I passionately love my country and the values upon which it was founded. I consider myself to be a patriotic American. I am also a devoutly religious person who takes my faith with me into the voting booth.

She is concerned that the issues she wants discussed aren't being discussed. She laments the lack of civilized political discourse. She is disgusted that "the only individuals who seem to be speaking from a faith perspective are the more radical voices of the religious right. Who speaks for me? She wonders. Rev. Meyer has joined a group called "All God's People." Again, from her newsletter:

We take very seriously the separation between religion and the state, as well as the right to freedom of conscience. We are not advocating for a candidate, a party, a platform. If we are partisan, it is on the side of the most vulnerable Americans: the working poor, children, and the ill.

I don't know about you, but it doesn't seem to take much to figure out which candidates, party, or platform more fully supports those values, and thus, we have partisan politics all over again.

Do we risk taking a public stand, and thereby attempt to mold history? And if we do take a public stand, what about the Eliot members who will feel compelled to end their membership here because they disagree with the stand?

And if we begin to take public stands, do we thereby impose a political litmus test on current and future members?

On the other hand, if we don't take public stands, does our religion - which remains pure from the taint of politics - thereby become purely irrelevant?

When it comes to social action and politics in our church, let's look at the rock and the hard place.

In the liberal church, it is expected that there will be a diversity of opinion on any issue, particularly issues with broad social or political implications. To take a public stand on an issue could prove to be divisive or it could prove to alienate those who do not hold to a particular view.

Further, people come to church for religious education, guidance, and consolation, so offering to engage the congregation in taking political stands may take time away from those ends. There's the rock.

And yet. There is also an expectation that the free church express itself on the larger social issues of the day. For if the free church does not express itself, then one has to assume that church supports all of the status quo. There's the hard place.

If the church does not speak out on issues for which its religious principles have a direct, consistent, and historical bearing, then the church squanders its opportunity to be heard in the public square.

If the liberal church does not speak, the orthodox church is glad to monopolize the air time. If the liberal church does not speak, then it has no prophetic voice.

Some will say that if we really believe in democracy, we should simply follow the democratic process. After all, we use the democratic process for the budget, and people get upset about that every year. Is democracy okay for the budget but not for public witness? How do we decide as a congregation?

If we never speak out as a congregation, outsiders are safe to assume we support the status quo. The reality is we cannot be apolitical. To do nothing is a choice by itself. To be silent is to give assent. And let's face it: we already perform religious deeds with political implications

Here at Eliot we have housed the homeless, fed the hungry, donated money to other charities, promoted literacy, helped to register voters, sold fair trade coffee - every single one of these actions redistributes money or power - this is a classic definition of politics - redistribution of power.

If we were to take congregational stands, perhaps we should require no more than oner per year and that a super-majority vote of 75% should be required to take a congregational stand. But if we did that, what if 10% were passionately opposed to the congregational stance? What if it were 10 people? What if it was just you?

What's the difference between social action and politics? I think we feel like we know it when we see it. I feel this congregation supports its ministers even when it disagrees with them on an issue.

I think whether or not this congregation should take a stand occasionally on an important issue of the day is a mighty big question. A question stuck between the rock of possibly alienating a minority of members and the hard place of letting churches on the religious right monopolize the conversation in America.

You have heard some of my thinking on this. At the conclusion of the 2^nd service today, I'd like to hear your thoughts. Let us recall the words of Unitarian James Russell Lowell:

Once to every soul and nation comes the moment to decide,
in the strife of truth with falsehood, for the good or evil side...

Hymn: Once to Every Soul and Nation, #119.

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