The State Of Spirituality 2011

My wife for the past couple of months has been trying to get me to take one of those online personality tests. She’s taken it and she thought it would be fun for me to take it, to compare results. I just don’t like taking personality tests. I’m afraid they’ll come back and say, “I’m sorry, sir, you don’t have a personality.” But I know it’s important to her, so I will take it soon.

As a chaplain, I know the importance of examining our lives. Perhaps we should do it every now and then; maybe we should do it every day. To look at where we’ve been, where we are, where we’re going. To examine things we’ve done right and maybe things we’ve done not so right. That’s also important for faith traditions to do – Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, what have you. It’s good to examine where the faith tradition has been, where it is, where it’s going. What it’s done right, what it’s done maybe not so right. That’s what I want to do with this sermon today, entitled, “The State of Spirituality 2011.” It’s kind of like the president’s State of the Union Address. Of course, I’m not the president and we’re talking about religion and not the state of the union.

An interfaith minister told me a story a few months ago. She said she was part of an interfaith group that was going to do a worship service. There were going to be interfaith clergy there from Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam and others. She was part of the planning committee, trying to determine what to do exactly. She volunteered to read something from Ralph Waldo Emerson, a Unitarian minister and, obviously, a famous writer. But a Unitarian minister in their midst said, “Oh no, I won’t allow you to do that because you’re not steeped in my tradition.” Hopefully, as we look at the state of spirituality, it won’t be mired in the feelings of, what is surprising to me, a fundamentalist Unitarian. I didn’t even know one existed.

A mosque at Ground Zero, and the controversy that surrounded it, was the number one religion story of 2010. You’ve heard of this: the Imam wanted to take a closed Burlington Coat Factory and turn it into a mosque, or really a cultural center. There was controversy about it. People were upset that Muslims were going to build a cultural center or a mosque near Ground Zero because, of course, it was Muslims who flew those planes into the World Trade Center. But when you think about it, if somebody wanted to build a Christian church near where the Oklahoma City Federal Building was before it was blown up by Timothy McVeigh, a Christian, would anybody object to that? I don’t think they would. Now I’ve been to a mosque. I didn’t see people plotting terrorism. I saw people praying. I think the state of spirituality for some is about freedom. The state of spirituality for others is about fear.

Terry Jones is a so-called Christian pastor down in Florida. You remember how he was going to burn Qurans on 9-11. Many people objected to that. Even people who are Islamaphobes said, “Whoa, that’s even a little too extreme for us!” I wrote an email to Pastor Terry Jones last summer urging him, as the chaplain of Interfaith Congregation, not to burn Qurans. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates called him and said that burning Qurans could cause an international incident, could put US soldiers, US citizens around the world at risk. As you probably know, Terry Jones decided not to burn Qurans. I’ll leave it up to you to decide whether he did that because he got a call from Secretary of Defense Robert Gates or because he got an email from me. [Laughter] Again, the state of spirituality for some people is fear.

Are you smarter than an atheist? There was a religion survey released last year that said that atheists and agnostics know more about Christianity and other faiths than people of those faiths. In some ways I suppose it makes sense, because somebody who is a Christian accepts their faith, often, on faith. They don’t really need to know the particulars of it, they just need to accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior. But somebody who is an atheist or an agnostic wants to know what it is they are atheist or agnostic about. So they learn more about Christianity and Buddhism and different faith traditions, which is a good thing. So the state of spirituality for some people is about knowledge and understanding.

I saw a fish the other day on the back of somebody’s car. It had Jesus’ name in the middle of it. I got to thinking about how you see other fish that have Darwin’s name in the middle of them and usually with a couple of feet protruding from it. It’s an indication, I suppose, that the state of spirituality is still one of contention between people who believe in creationism and those who accept evolution.

The Genesis Code is a movie that just recently came out, made in Grand Rapids, about the debate of evolution and creationism, told from a kind of fundamentalist Christian point of view. The reviews I’ve read and the opinions I’ve heard from people who’ve seen it saw it as more of a ham-handed way of trying to show that science and chapter one of Genesis are compatible. I’m not sure how successful they were at doing that. I don’t understand why Christians don’t just say, “You know, I can accept evolution, but God created evolution, maybe in six days, I’m not sure.” The state of spirituality for some is about knowledge and understanding.

Skeptics meet in Holland one night a month. Skeptics in Holland? Oh, my! They meet at a bar. I went there this past week and the bar was full of people, but for some reason I could pick out the table of skeptics. They look like the cast of “The Big Bang Theory.” They’re affiliated with the Center for Inquiry, which used to be called the Free Thought Association, so I felt right at home. I mean, I think I’m a free thinker, or at least open-minded and think rationally and reasonably. It was a great group of people; there were about 8 of us. Eight people in Holland who are free thinkers!

One guy told the story of his son who is in the second grade. He goes to a charter school, which is, of course, a public school, they get taxpayer money. The kid’s teacher held up a fossil and said, “This fossil is thousands of years old.” This guy’s kid raised his hand and said, “No, ma’am, that fossil is millions of years old.” She said, “Well I don’t believe that.” Yikes. It seems to me you can teach your kids at home whatever you want to teach them. You can teach kids in Sunday School class whatever you want to teach them. But if you’re a public school teacher getting taxpayer money, you can’t teach that the Bible is a scientific textbook. I think it’s even against the law in Michigan; that’s what the kid’s father said. But maybe there’s hope for the state of spirituality if a second grader is willing to speak truth to power and maybe there’s hope for the next generation if that second grader represents the future.

I went to jail the other day to visit an inmate at the Ottawa County Jail. The way it works is, you go in and there’s a woman behind the glass and you say, “I’m Pastor Bill Freeman. I’m here to see inmate so-and-so.” Then she calls back and the guard brings the inmate to a room. They buzz you into a big room and there’s a series of little cubicles there with a glass divider. It takes about five or ten minutes for the inmate to come in. During those five or ten minutes I sat there thinking of some weird Twilight Zone plot, where the inmate comes and we talk and then I get up to leave and my door’s locked. I look across the glass and the inmate’s in street clothes and he just walks out the door. I look down and I’m in jail garb and a guard comes and escorts me back to my cell. Yikes!

I didn’t think anything more of that, it was just a goofy idea, until after I’d spoken with the inmate. I left and he left and I went to the front desk to set up an appointment for the next week. There was a guy standing there in a suit. He had a big briefcase bag with all kinds of files in it. He said to the woman at the front desk, “I’m here to see inmate William Freeman.” Yikes! [Hums Twilight Zone theme.] True story! I’m not making that up! So he goes into the room and I say to the woman at the desk, “Well, I’m William Freeman, but I’m a pastor, not an inmate.” She said, “Apparently we just have a guy by that name in here.” But still, what are the odds? The state of my spirituality at that point was scared half to death!

It’s at the jail that I hope, in the next few weeks, to start a meditation group for inmates. A meditation or contemplation class. I googled “meditation prisons” and all kinds of stories came up from Oregon, Alabama and other states, where they’re doing meditation in prisons. There are many benefits for the inmates. It calms them, it sometimes lowers blood pressure and cholesterol levels and it gives them hope for the future. So I hope to make that proposal in writing to the jail administrator soon, who then will pass it on to the sheriff. I hope that happens in the next few weeks, because I think it will improve the state of spirituality for the inmates.

The breakfast that we serve at the Community Kitchen every Saturday morning is one year old this month. You all should be proud of what you do, either by giving your time, talent or treasure to feed the needy in Holland. As you know, they have a breakfast on Sunday, they have lunch Monday through Friday, but they didn’t have anything on Saturday and so we do that. As I say, you should be proud of that because I think that improves the state of spirituality for those in need and for those who volunteer their time, talent and treasure.

“Don’t ask, don’t tell” has been rescinded by the Congress. The military will no longer kick gays and lesbians out for being gay or lesbian. The military still has to implement that, but as I understand it nobody now is being kicked out for being gay or lesbian. I think that’s good for morale of the gay and lesbian troops who no longer have to hide who they are, but also for all their comrades in arms who no longer have to report that their colleague is gay or lesbian. I think it improves the state of spirituality in the military and I think it improves the state of spirituality in America. We’re now on a par with other civilized countries that allow gays in the military.

President Obama says that the defense of marriage act is essentially indefensible. The Justice Department will no longer try to defend an act of Congress because Barack Obama – a constitutional scholar (he didn’t own some baseball team in Texas, he taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago) – says it’s unconstitutional, I believe citing at least the 14th Amendment’s “equal protection” clause. I don’t think it’ll be too long before all across America there will be gay marriage. I’ll talk about that next week. I think this decision by the President is good for the state of spirituality in our country.

Next year, if I preach a similar sermon to this one – The State of Spirituality 2012 – I hope to be able to comment on good news. I hope to be able to say that in 2011 the City of Holland passed a gay rights ordinance. I also hope to be able to say that Hope College in the City of Holland rescinded its anti-gay policy. I think if those two things happen, the state of spirituality in Holland will be very good, very good indeed.