You may wonder why anyone would try to use the word “fascism” in a serious discussion of where America is today. It sounds like cheap name-calling, or melodramatic allusion to a slew of old war movies. But I am serious. I don’t mean it as name-calling at all. I mean to persuade you that the style of governing into which America has slid is most accurately described as fascism, and that the necessary implications of this fact are rightly regarded as terrifying. That’s what I am about here. And even if I don’t persuade you, I hope to raise the level of your thinking about who and where we are now, to add some nuance and perhaps some useful insights.

The word comes from the Latin word “Fasces,” denoting a bundle of sticks tied together. The individual sticks represented citizens, and the bundle represented the state. The message of this metaphor was that it was the bundle that was significant, not the individual sticks. If it sounds un-American, it’s worth knowing that the Roman Fasces appear on the wall behind the Speaker’s podium in the chamber of the US House of Representatives.

Still, it’s an unlikely word. When most people hear the word "fascism" they may think of the racism and anti-Semitism of Mussolini and Hitler. It is true that the use of force and the scapegoating of fringe groups are part of every fascism. But there was also an economic dimension of fascism, known in Europe during the 1920s and '30s as "corporatism," which was an essential ingredient of Mussolini’s and Hitler’s tyrannies. So-called corporatism was adopted in Italy and Germany during the 1930s and was held up as a model by quite a few intellectuals and policy makers in the United States and Europe.

Originally delivered by Rev. Davidson Loehr on 7 November 2004

The text for this and other sermons can be viewed online at
http://austinuu.org/sermons/

36:35

One of the scariest things we can imagine is a machine-like thing with a will, that seeks to harm us, and feels nothing when we suffer, cry, or die. Think of those android-type men in the “Matrix” movies, for instance. Or the Orcs and Sauron in “Lord of the Rings,” or The Terminator, that robot programmed only to destroy until it was destroyed...

...Why am I talking about persons who are not real persons, psychopaths and scorpions whose nature is to destroy, even if it also destroys them? What on earth does this have to do with a respectable church sermon?

It’s a way of introducing the business of trying to understand the powers that have largely taken over our American society and are on the verge of taking over the world. That sounds so dramatic it almost needs a science fiction movie with special effects to make it scary enough.

But I am talking about a person that we have created, a person that is not a real person, that has immense power, more money than God, and which, like the invasion of the body-snatchers, is seeking to, and succeeding in, destroying the compassionate qualities of both societies and real people.

You’ll think I’ve badly overstated the case when I say that this dangerous person who is not a real person is the corporation. So let me try and persuade you.

Originally delivered by Rev. Davidson Loehr on 25 April 2004

The text for this and other sermons can be viewed online at
http://austinuu.org/sermons/

39:59

I hardly ever do sermons on old theological arguments — especially on topics as arcane as whether we are saved by faith alone, or whether we’re to be judged by our works as well as by our words.

It really is an old argument, in both Eastern and Western religion. Eastern religions are pretty clear that your deeds determine your karma, and the kind of reincarnation you’re likely to have. They usually don’t give a lot of credit for just thinking good thoughts.

Judaism has always taught that the two great commandments are to love God with heart, mind and soul, and to love your neighbor as yourself. Those teachings didn’t originate with Jesus. He learned them as a Jew. Even on their day of atonement, which they celebrate on September 15th this year, it is made clear that in order to make atonement with God, you must first make peace with those friends and neighbors you have wronged.

And Catholicism has also taught that it takes both faith and good works — plus a little grace — to be saved, and that the grace is most likely to come to those who have done good works. All of these teachings came from times when the vast majority of people were illiterate, and almost all teaching was done through stories passed down from generation to generation.

But after the printing press was invented and people began reading, things changed. Martin Luther began the Protestant Reformation nearly 500 years ago by teaching that we are saved by faith alone. We need to read the book, to know what we believe, and we are saved by faith alone without the necessity of doing the good works to earn it, he taught. I’ve always thought Luther was dead wrong there. But since I’m one of those people who likes to read and think, I’ve also always hoped he might be right. It’s easy for me to slip into believing in salvation by bibliography. Like if I can just get all the footnotes in the right places, I’ll be ok....

Originally delivered by Rev. Davidson Loehr on 8/24/03

The text for this and other sermons can be viewed online at
http://austinuu.org/sermons/

26:10

About fifteen years ago, I was visiting a small rural Presbyterian church one Thursday, and before lunch I overheard a small group of Presbyterian women talking. They were trashing Catholics or Baptists, and one of them said "Well, I’m glad we’re Presbyterians!" After a little silence, a second woman said "We’re not supposed to be Presbyterians. We’re supposed to be Christians." After more silence, another said "Even that sounds arrogant. We’re supposed to love one another, that’s all."

There is a whole graduate-level course in the difference between religion and a special club in that little interchange. Social clubs are about who we are, what we believe, what is distinctive about us. So this includes political parties, fraternities and sororities, college boosters, and parts of all religions. But these identities are always about who we are. I think of them as roosters crowing to draw attention to themselves. They’re not really doing anything, just crowing.

Originally delivered by Rev. Davidson Loehr on 6/15/03

The text for this and other sermons can be viewed online at
http://austinuu.org/sermons/

28:18

I began writing soliloquies for the characters in Jesus’ parable of the prodigal son in 1988, as a more creative way to explore the many depths and insights of great stories.

As all who write stories learn, the characters have their own integrity, and once you’ve found it, the characters determine what they will say, not the storyteller. So the exercise of trying to put yourself inside the spirit of different characters is almost always eye-opening, and the stories usually lead to unexpected places.

This was especially true with these four soliloquies. I wrote them in order of increasing difficulty — the older brother’s story is the easiest to tell, because everyone identifies with his complaints.

The hardest to write, and the most surprising, was the soliloquy for the Prodigal Son. It has always seemed to me that his father’s actions put him in a tough place, living out his life among people who thought he was a shiftless cheat. As I got into him, it became clear to me that this parable — at least as I read it — contains the essential message of the man Jesus, at least as I understand it. And the lack of an ending to the story also seems to have been true to Jesus’ message: that this revolution can not be finished by one person or one God, that it is a conspiracy against the ways of the world into which we are all invited. This gave me a new appreciation for how unpleasant and unwelcome a message like this would be, in any time and place.

Originally delivered by Rev. Davidson Loehr on 6/1/03

The text for this and other sermons can be viewed online at
http://austinuu.org/sermons/

30:38

I began writing soliloquies for the characters in Jesus’ parable of the prodigal son in 1988, as a more creative way to explore the many depths and insights of great stories.

As all who write stories learn, the characters have their own integrity, and once you’ve found it, the characters determine what they will say, not the storyteller. So the exercise of trying to put yourself inside the spirit of different characters is almost always eye-opening, and the stories usually lead to unexpected places.

This was especially true with these four soliloquies. I wrote them in order of increasing difficulty — the older brother’s story is the easiest to tell, because everyone identifies with his complaints.

The father was hard to write partly because I had to forget the confessional spin traditionally put on it: that the “father” is really God, so we must build this part up to be wonderful and wise. When I could finally just see him as the father of these two sons, he turned out to have a very different perspective on the story: less wise, perhaps, but much more human.

Originally delivered by Rev. Davidson Loehr on 5/25/03

The text for this and other sermons can be viewed online at
http://austinuu.org/sermons/

27:18

This sermon came as a request from some of our members who attend the Sunday Night Live service. When we announced a monthly bring-a-friend Sunday, they wanted to know what they could tell their friends this place or this religion were about. They know that many Christian churches talk about the Good News they have for the world, and they want to know what good news we have to offer.

Originally delivered by Rev. Davidson Loehr on 5/18/03

The text for this and other sermons can be viewed online at
http://austinuu.org/sermons/

18:16

Not Fit to Live? Capitol punishment

Before moving to Texas, I never gave much thought to the death penalty. Here, in a state that executes more criminals than almost all countries, it's hard not to think about it. As I read and listen to the standard religious arguments against the death penalty, I'm not convinced that there are any problems as simple as those religious prescriptions. The best I'll be able to do in this sermon is to expand the horizons of thinking, and explore a variety of arguments of varying persuasiveness. But for now, I'll confess that my guiding thought is that the quality of human lives follows a bell curve, with saints at one end, most of us in the middle, and some truly evil people at the other. Perhaps this will give us all the chance to re-examine our feelings and values on this complex and emotionally loaded issue of the death penalty.

Gods aren't "Critters in the sky," like big cartoon characters, even though it's common to speak of them that way. Gods are those central concerns that our behaviors show we take very seriously. We commit our lives to them, we are driven by them, and in return they promise us something we want, or think we want. Whether what they promise us is good or bad is a measure of whether the god involved is an adequate or an inadequate one....

Originally delivered by Rev. Davidson Loehr on October 8, 2000

It's surprising, the number of times the study of religion seems to have three levels, three stages of understanding:

In a recent USA Today poll, people were asked what one question they would most like to ask God. The overwhelming response was that they wanted to know the purpose of their life. That says at least two things. One is that they don’t know the purpose of their life; the other is that they haven’t found it out from God, either.

Some of this is a comment on our times. In ancient times, even medieval times, people felt that they had encounters with the gods regularly. They provided places for it to happen. They had shrines, where there were statues of the gods, fires lit to them, temples you could go to be in their presence. But today, about the only place people still feel the overpowering presence of the old gods is when they fall in love, and are connected either with Aphrodite, the older kind of love, or Eros, the adolescent kind.

The myth of the quest for the holy grail began in the 12th century, the time many identify as the beginning of the modern world. One famous quote says that the winds of the 12th century became the whirlwinds of the 20th century, so this story may not be as foreign to us as you might think.

It’s the story of the wounded Fisher King, of Parsifal’s search for the Holy Grail, of fair and Hideous damsels. It’s a kind of salvation story, especially for men, a story of what’s wrong, where modern men find themselves, and a prescription for what to do about it. It is a spiritual story, with deep roots into what we today call depth psychology of existential psychology.

I want to talk with you about this old myth. I’ll move back and forth between real life and the old myth, kind of tying them together from the inside out. It will be a little like walking the Chartres labyrinth, where we start way out, seem to move quickly toward the center, then get directed away from it, winding up a long way from the center before finally reaching home.

We need a fresh way of looking at the importance of our lives. We need better stories, more interesting plots to live out.

I gave four talks on a theological argument for abortion where I got over an hour's worth of questions, almost all of them hostile....

One young man told me that it didn't bother him that some local 15-year-old girls were having their second child, or that Lubbock led the nation in births to teen-aged girls who can't care for the babies, because If even one of those babies comes to know the Lord, it will have been worth it. Worth sacrificing thousands of human beings who, in his story, just don't matter.

In some ways, this is a problem of organized religions, which have been in denial since the loss of the supernatural world. When God can be no more than a concept, the concept has had trouble competing with other, sometimes better, concepts, and stories to live by....

Since I didn't grow up in a conservative religion, most religious jargon isn't loaded for me. So I usually think of the word "God" as a symbol for our highest ideals and values. And I think of the word "salvation" in its original meaning: as health, wholeness (it comes from the same Latin root as 'salve'). For me, the terms are kind of safe and abstract.

But when I hear many of your stories about why you left the churches of your childhood, or why your family avoided churches altogether, I realize that in the real world, "salvation" had a very different meaning, and not a very positive one. It meant getting a group's or a church's acceptance only as long as you agreed not to think outside the lines drawn by their orthodoxy. Neither my definition of God or of salvation would have worked in those churches. That's partly why I grew up unchurched: I didn't respect the few churches I tried....

How often have you even thought of reconsidering the concept of God?

God is discussed in our culture like a cartoon character, like a Critter. Almost the only 'theological' question anyone thinks to ask is 'Do you believe in God?' That's a question that only makes sense if God is a kind of Critter. Then it's like a simple true-false quiz: 'God is a big Critter living up there somewhere: Yes or No? And that's really dumb.

So let's get straight from the beginning. God is not and has never been a Critter, or a 'being' of any kind that would have weight or occupy space. That's Disneyworld, not religion. God is an idea, a concept. And theological questions are about the content and style of the concept, and it relevance to life....

Those of you who heard the Rev. Donald Wheat preach here on December 29th will remember he said one reason liberal religion loses out to the many more literalistic varieties is because we don't have a good story. He meant a story of creation, of human nature, of the human condition, and of prescriptions for the yearnings and fears that always seem to arise for those of us in the human condition.

Last summer, my 16-year-old niece had an even more pointed accusation. She's a Christian fundamentalist, and she and my brother visited me in Quebec while thousands of UUs were mobbing the city for their General Assembly. She studied this odd tribe as though she were doing fieldwork in a foreign, and weird, island. She engaged some of them in conversation, just gathering data, I suspect.

On about the third day, she announced "Uncle Davidson, I know why your religion is such a miserable failure." "Well," I said, "that would be interesting to know." "It's simple," she said: "You don't have a Book...."

The theme of this series of four sermons is "What's the true story of our origins, our human nature, the human condition and what we need?" Never mind what different religions may say, what do we really believe to be true? The sub theme is "How and why have the religious teachings of our society strayed so far from the truth?" The truth is empowering, it can set us free. Bad creation stories, false pictures of human nature and unhealthy concepts of God diminish and demean us. Part of the road to salvation is learning to tell the difference between religious stories that empower us, and those that enslave us; between healthy and unhealthy myths.

Last week I began by talking about the true story of creation: how the universe got here, what it's made of, what life on earth is made of, and how deeply it's all related. We're made of stardust, the stuff of the universe. And here on earth, life is made from just five chemical building-blocks that make up DNA and RNA. We are more deeply related to one another, more deeply a part of one another, that we can begin to imagine. The dynamic powers of the universe are within us, if we will see them and free them. We are part of a linked continuum of life; we should expect similarities with all other life on earth.

And yet the creation story in the Bible distorts this, takes the power and dignity away from us and gives it to the Hebrew God who was created as a projection of an ancient tribal chief. For historical reasons we can understand, the ancient writers turned it from a true story of empowerment to a false story of enslavement and obedience to the priests who spoke for the God they had constructed.