Power Sunday: Leveraging Our Collective
TikTok says men think about the Roman Empire daily, but it’s the American Empire that has my attention. Mirroring the innocence of the mid and late 20th century, I grew up believing that the United States is the best nation that has ever existed. That opinion came from my white immigrant family grateful largely for opportunity and the freedom of economic prosperity. But, over time, our democracy has begun to fade, and whether or not children are told this is the best nation in the history of nations doesn’t alter our current downward trajectory.
As much as we like to say we’ve been a democracy since 1776, or maybe from the ratification of the Constitution in 1788, we’ve mostly been a democracy in process until the full realization of our potential with the passing of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. With the codification of inclusion at the ballet booth, the United States of America became worthy of the admiration of democracies, both realized and struggling, around the world. Our system of government, standing on a strong foundation of law, had the full support of our nation’s people and our institutions, creating what we thought was an unbreakable network ensuring equal access to our founding promise of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
But as we approach the 60th anniversary of that peak moment, most Americans are aware that our democracy is on a downward slide. There are many key markers that support this suspicion including our decline on the Polity Index that moved us below the threshold of full democracy in recent history. President Joe Biden warned us just a few weeks ago that democracy is at risk, that the threat to our institutions and our Constitution is serious, noting extremism and increasingly disturbing threats of violence on our leaders. Of course, we don’t need scholars or even our President to tell us what we can see and hear for ourselves. The words “chaos” and “dysfunction” and “in-fighting” have become common in our national headlines as our government grinds to a halt over and over again.
Strong, healthy democracies require what we call civil society. Civil society consists of all the voluntary organizations where people gather, autonomous from the State. These groups might have some state support, funding or interaction, but they are independent of state controls and have their own agendas and goals. They are concerned with public ends, but they aren’t seeking state power. They exist for many reasons, but one is to influence law, culture, and the ways we live together. They are part of a larger piece of community living, valuing pluralism, inclusion, and a wide range of life experience and thought.
The organizations that populate civil society include educators who advocate for curriculum development to train the next generation of thinkers and leaders, and climate activists who push against corporate influence, and librarians who ensure access to a diversity of ideas, and workers who leverage their collective power to ensure fair wages and protections. Civil Society includes museums that preserve our history, dance companies that celebrate self-expression, and community theatres where new philosophies are given language and an audience.
Cults aren’t part of civil society because they want to separate people from the mainstream and yoga groups don’t generally qualify because they have no interest in influencing public life. Churches, on the other hand, do. So do all of our UU organizations like Ministry for Earth, state action networks, and UUSJ, our UU voice on the Hill. All of these institutions are part of the fabric of civil society, without which we don’t have an authentic democracy.
Scholars tell us that democracies don’t collapse because of a single, influential person. They collapse because the people who should know better align themselves with stronger, more dangerous, personalities. They, themselves, aren’t fascists, communists or extremists. They’re just too weakly committed to democracy and are ultimately opportunists who say what they think they need to say to get or keep power. Civil society is one of the key levers to keep these people in check. Groups that are themselves run democratically, giving everyone the experience of having a voice and a vote, with deep membership rosters of concerned and engaged citizens, or public forums for open discussion, become a counter-balance to self-serving individuals. These organizations create occasions for influence and can reward opportunists with the popularity or power they seek without requiring them to compromise their commitment to democratic systems. They can also create and engage systems of social accountability that keep some of these people in check.
Totalitarian nations have no civil society. The more civil society in a country, the more democratic it can be. There are very few fully totalitarian nations, but we can see these systems of government increase as civil society decreases. North Korea is completely totalitarian with no visible counter to the current government. China used to be more complete, but civil society has been growing there. When nations like Russia want to increase governmental control, they shut down parts of civil society as does every autocrat seeking to consolidate his or her power. Voluntary organizations are a crucial part of any healthy, transparent, and legitimate democratic system. We can determine the vitality of a democracy by the integration of these groups in the fabric of the nation.
Faith based organizations are historically some of the most difficult to terminate because they are often seen as the moral centers of the community. Shutting them down forces the government to admit a lack of concern with morality, an act most citizens find alarming. Instead, many authoritarian regimes work to befriend religious institutions, seeking to align religious power centers with their own. We can see this happening here in the US with Evangelical churches who have become supporters of some of the more dangerous factions in our current system. This makes our own position as a liberal religious denomination all the more necessary in our current political climate. We continue to have the moral authority to counter the current trajectory and can stand against the wave of conservative religious alignment with the radical right-wing political movement. Our existence, our internal health, and strength, is an essential part of what can turn the tide of American democratic legitimacy. It is our witness to pluralism, an embrace of science as a source of truth, our own democratic structures, our collective voice for choice, for education, for inclusion, and our training of a new leadership class that demonstrates the need for
our witness and the centrality of our voice as part of civil society right now, at this moment in history.
Sadly, this comes at the same time religion is on a steep decline in American culture. Across the country, Unitarian Universalist churches have seen a dramatic reduction in membership. We’ve lost 18,000 children from our RE programs over the last 10 years. We’ve lost 100,000 members over the last 50. In 2020, the average size of a UU congregation was half the size as 20 years earlier. We’re not alone in this freefall, and as liberal religion declines in national influence, so does American democracy.
I don’t think these things are unrelated. Just as people are turning away from institutional religion, the demons of authoritarianism are gaining ground. When the moral centers lose influence and can no longer claim to be our collective conscience, it’s easier for alternatives to take root. Our voices get weaker and are harder to hear.
But lets not pretend we’re inaudible. There are close to 200,000 people in UU churches. We have not given up our space at the table nor our moral authority, even if the tide of totalitarianism hopes to wash over us. This is evidenced, at the very least, by your decision to bring this service to your own congregation today, as so many other UUs congregations are doing. We are interdependent, interconnected, and committed to holding up our shared liberal religious values.
Power Sunday comes from UU’s for Social Justice. UUSJ was founded originally by a circle of UU churches in the Washington, DC area who wanted to leverage their geographic location to influence the federal conversation. About two years ago, UUSJ broke out of that model and opened to UUs around the country to become our collective voice, not just those positioned so closely to DC power centers. UUSJ is a small organization with no full time staff, like so many of our UU groups doing the work of our faith, but with the help of their Executive Director, have had an outsized influence in federal policy conversations. This worship service is designed to get the word out about both our UU potential as a faith community through the work of UUSJ in these national discussions and to hold up one of our own institutions, also part of civil society, in need of support in these fragile days of our democracy. In future years, Power Sunday will include an opportunity for advocacy so we as UUs can leverage our collective power.
Scholars might tell us that American democracy is deconsolidating, but it is far from collapse. Even through significant challenges, the system is holding. With the kick-off of Power Sunday, UU congregations can step into our moral authority in partnership with each other and other liberal religious members of civil society to hold strong against the tide of authoritarianism. Through our connection with UUSJ, the building of our collective power on the Hill, and as a partner with other denominations also holding back the waters of authoritarianism, Unitarian Universalists play a key role in keeping our democracy strong.
Today, in churches around the country, we are raising our shared consciousness, holding up our critical place in the democratic fabric of our nation, tuning our collective voice, and reminding Unitarian Universalists that we are necessary, that we are not alone, and that in this fragile moment of American history, we are powerful.
