A DEVELOPING COUNTRY A sermon by Galen Guengerich All Souls NYC Online October 4, 2020 In 2003, when Rolling Stone magazine first published its list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, three of the top five albums were by the Beatles. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band held the number one spot. In the words of the magazine’s editors, “Sgt. Pepper formally ushered in an unforgettable season of hope, upheaval and achievement: the late 1960’s and, in particular, 1967’s Summer of Love.” “But no list is definitive,” the editors go on to say, “tastes change, new genres emerge, the history of music keeps being rewritten. So we decided to remake our greatest albums list from scratch. To do so, we received and tabulated Top 50 Albums lists from more than 300 artists, producers, critics, and music-industry figures.” Two weeks ago, they published the new list. The Beatles still have one album — Abbey Road — in the top five, but the album in the top spot has changed. The new number one is Marvin Gaye’s 1969 masterpiece What’s Going On. The album began as a reaction to police brutality. As Rolling Stone tells the story, the bass singer for the Four Tops, Obie Benson, watched television coverage of hundreds of club-wielding cops break up protests in the People’s Park in Berkeley. Repulsed by the violence, Benson began writing a song with Motown lyricist Al Cleveland. Together, they tried to capture the confusion and pain of the times. The result was the song “What’s Going On.” Benson tried to get the Four Tops to record the song, but the other three Tops weren’t interested. He then tried to get Joan Baez to record it, but that didn’t work out either. But Marvin Gaye, by then one of Motown’s biggest stars, was looking for a way to express his own feelings of frustration and despair. He was grieving the death of his frequent duet partner Tammi Terrell and mulling over his brother Frankie’s horrifying tales of his time in Vietnam. After some hesitation, Gaye recorded the song “What’s Going On,” which became an instant hit. Motown Records founder Berry Gordy gave Gaye a single month to craft an album to accompany “What’s Going On.” Gaye met the challenge. “I work best under pressure and when I’m depressed,” he told the Detroit Free Press at the time. “The world’s never been as depressing as it is right now. We’re killing the planet, killing our young men in the streets, and going to war around the world. Human rights … that’s the theme.” In the title song, Gaye sings: ~ 1 ~ © 2020 Galen Guengerich Mother, mother There's too many of you crying Brother, brother, brother There's far too many of you dying You know we've got to find a way To bring some lovin' here today Father, father We don't need to escalate You see, war is not the answer For only love can conquer hate You know we've got to find a way To bring some lovin' here today Fifty-three years later, we are still killing the planet. We are still killing our young men in the streets. We are still going to war around the world. Too many people are still crying, and too many people are still dying. It’s probably not true that the world’s never been as depressing as it is right now, but it’s certainly depressing enough — enough for us in our time to take a look at what’s going on. Last month, the organization Social Progress published their latest annual quality-of-life index, which was summarized by Nicholas Kristof in the New York Times. The index collects 50 metrics of national well-being — nutrition, safety, freedom, the environment, health, education, and so on — to assess a country’s quality of life. As you might guess, Norway, Denmark, and Finland sit atop the rankings, with South Sudan, Chad, and the Central African Republic languishing at the bottom. In the first compilation of the index nine years ago, the United States ranked 19th. In the years since, we have slipped to 28th — even lower than Estonia, the Czech Republic, and Greece. Only two other countries — Brazil and Hungary — are worse off now than nine years ago, and their declines were smaller than ours. We now rank 91st in access to quality basic education, 97th in access to quality healthcare, and 100th in discrimination against minorities. Michael Porter, a Harvard Business School professor and the chair of the advisory panel for the Social Progress Index, told Kristof, “The data paint an alarming picture of the state of our nation, and we hope it will be a call to action.” He added, “It’s like we’re a developing country.” That’s what’s going on. One reason we find it difficult to come to terms with the sobering state of our nation is our deep-seated tendency to view decline as something that happens elsewhere. Liberalism, the centuries-old tradition of political thought on which our nation was founded, tends to have a forward-looking view of history and an optimistic view of humanity. Religious liberalism, the equally-storied theological tradition of which ~ 2 ~ © 2020 Galen Guengerich we are part, doubles down on liberalism’s optimism. Religious liberalism rejects the Calvinist view of human beings as totally depraved. Instead, it generally believes that growth is inevitable, progress is irreversible, and human beings are perfectible. On these terms, there are no really bad people in the world; only people who, because of ignorance, negative influences, or lack of good options, end up doing bad things. Looking at human history from the perspective of Darfur, however, or Rwanda, or Bosnia, or Auschwitz — this list could go on forever — it’s hard to believe that growth is inevitable, progress is irreversible, and human beings are perfectible. During the 1930’s, a Unitarian theologian from the US named James Luther Adams spent a considerable amount of time in Germany, where he observed firsthand the rise of Nazism. He made friends with a few religious leaders who covertly worked against the Nazis, even as he saw most German church leaders succumb to Hitler’s demands. Adams’s experience convinced him that the basic tenants of religious liberalism needed to be revised. Adams spent 20 years on the faculty of Meadville Theological School in Chicago, before joining the faculty of Harvard Divinity School for the remainder of his career. He went on to become the most influential Unitarian theologian of the 20th century. In light of the crises we face in our nation and world today, I’d like to mention two things of which Adams made religious liberalism aware: the tragedy of history, and the necessity of power. In his essay titled “The Changing Reputation of Human Nature,” written in 1941, Adams says, “When we say that history is tragic, we mean that the perversions and failures in history are associated precisely with the highest creative powers of humanity and thus with our greatest achievements… The very means and evidences of progress turn out again and again to be also the instruments of perversion or destruction.” Adams gives several examples of this paradox. The national culture of a people — their language, their poetry, their music, their common social heritage — is their most cherished treasure. Yet, he says, “Nationalism is also one of the most destructive forces in the whole of human history.” Progress in transportation has helped raise the standard of living, yet it has also brought a new rootlessness and instability. Improved access to literacy has been a powerful instrument both for education and for demagogy. Adams concludes, “Certainly, if there is progress, it is no simple configuration of upward trends. At times, it looks more like a thing of shreds and patches. The general tendency of liberalism has been to neglect this tragic factor of history.” Because of this tragic factor, Adams insists that religious liberalism must come to terms with the necessity of power. He puts it this way: “Anything that exists effectively in history must have form. And the creation of a form requires power. It requires not only the power of thought but also the power of organization and the organization of power.” For Adams, both justice and injustice are forms of power. Injustice is the wanton abuse of institutional power, and justice is the lawful exercise of institutional power. ~ 3 ~ © 2020 Galen Guengerich Despite the tragedy that bedevils history and the necessity to wield power in response, Adams believed we have the resources available to make meaningful change in our world. These resources, in his view, justify an attitude of ultimate optimism. I agree. There’s always reason to hope, because there is always the possibility of developing — as individuals and as a nation. What are the resources that justify optimism? The ability of human beings to work together toward a common purpose. Adams says, “It is through group participation that sensitivity and commitment to values are given institutional expression. It is through groups that social power is organized. It is through groups that community needs are brought to the focus that affects public policy. It is through groups that the cultural atmosphere of a community and a nation is created." We will achieve meaningful change in our time through the power of organization and the organization of power. We have worked together before to make a difference, and we will do so again.