As some of you may know in August I went to Saudi Arabia again as part of my consulting practice. I confess that I have reservations about going to Saudi. The apparent oppression of women there in some ways seems little different than apartheid. Women cannot drive and are rarely employed, they must wear special clothes. The building I served as a trainer in, did not even have women's rest rooms. Of course women don't have the vote, but then neither do men. So why do we as a people tolerate, nay support Saudi Arabia, when we condemned South Africa?

The skeptic would say that we do so because the Saudis have a great deal of oil and we use 40% of the world's oil and produce less than 20%. The South Africans have less interesting natural resources. Of course, there might be something to this. But we have endured an Arab Oil Embargo and the Saudis do need us as much we need them. From a less skeptical perspective, we do not complain of these practices in Saudi Arabia because the Saudis have these social policies for "religious" reasons - and our sensitivity to freedom of religion begs us to respect this. This perspective says something about our perceptions of religion.

The position of women is part of a religious discipline for the Saudis which includes, for millions of dedicated Moslems, daily prayer, daily dress, daily cleansing personal hygiene practices and dietary restrictions. Many of these practices seem obsolete, archaic and that people would perform them so, well religiously, seems incredible, beyond belief. But Islam is about devotion, which requires daily application of acts of faith.

One of the reasons I continue to go to Saudi is that for me at least, there is something to this idea that their practices are religious. The embargo against apartheid was able to work in part because the South Africans could be shamed - they knew their system was wrong and the boycott served to accelerate the inevitable. There is no sense in trying to shame the Saudis - they believe they are right. They believe their cultural practices to be part of a discipline which protects the moral and religious character of their culture.

They will be required to be persuaded. I believe a boycott of the Saudis would only serve to isolate them and emphasize our differences. I've thought my visits in a small way, would show them a moral, reasonable American and lover of freedom. Of course I'm willing to entertain - in fact be told that - this is rationalization for my business opportunity. I don't know...
In the sixties and seventies, as the Kingdom used many Westerners and their expertise to build their oil empire, the Saudi people endured or enjoyed a great influx of Western ideas and practices. Women executives in high heels and skirted suits - western music - western problems. In response, in the time between the Iranian Revolution and the Gulf War, the monarchy instituted a cultural revolution. The number of Western professionals and their families were systematically reduced. The men and women returned to traditional Saudi abayas and thobes. Women were marginalized from the workforce. Islam was governmentally affirmed and other religions became once again illegal.

As of this most recent trip, I hadn't been to Saudi in five years and I was surprised - maybe I shouldn't have been - our culture can be pretty persuasive. The West is back in Saudi - McDonalds, Starbucks, TV shows including Dharma and Greg, Buffy, and Baywatch, Internet Cafes. The Rolling stones and Led Zeppelin on the car radio. The traditional dress is still there, but the culture is easier. However, business meetings, meals, television shows, and shopping are still interrupted by prayer times - during which all other activity in Saudi Arabia - stops. A daily reminder of faith, for everyone, not just the faithful.

Just a few hundred miles from Saudi is Israel. Now, for a long time I had this opinion about Judaism, - Interesting religion - maybe much more appealing than my cultural religion of Christianity. Deep heritage, interesting sacred texts - especially the Psalms and Job. Great stories. Fundamental values - including gratitude, humility, repentance without fear. Somewhat abstract Deity. The only problem with Judaism is that you cannot really merely adopt the Judaic religion To be a Jew is as much a cultural identity as it is a religious one. The Jews, like the Saudis have entwined their religion with their culture. It really doesn't work to take one without the other. For these faiths - religion is culture ...

Perhaps it's just my degenerative incurable maturity, but I'm slowly coming around to this point of view. The religions I'm coming to respect the most are those which live in their followers. They imply a deeper belief, a deeper commitment. The UU minister Forrest Church said that when he first became a UU minister he could not say that he believed in God, but he "believed in believers".

They say, the only thing you need to do in order to become a Moslem is to say "There is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is his prophet" - and say it four times a day kneeling on a carpet with your nose on the ground. Most of us would recognize that to be a Moslem, or a Jew, or even a Catholic is something that your heritage and lifestyle practice indicates that you are - not just a set of facts you believe.

For this reason we might look on these faiths a little differently than we do many Presbyterians and Methodists, who seem to treat their religion as little more than a collection of facts - facts that we can't seem to see the truth in and they don't seem to reflect in their lifestyles. By example, how many "mainline" protestants who worship weekly in a church celebrating "the Prince of Peace" include peace in their daily lifestyle. Don't many gleefully pay taxes to support a bloated military, carry a concealed weapon, curse traffic, and go home to watch Scharzenegger blow things away on the TV?

Religious practice, is just that, practice. It is a discipline of repeated action which is intended to create "religious fitness". A reminder of fundamental values and morality - humility, gratitude, compassion, peace, hope, faith, love. Many protestants including most UUs limit their "religious practice" to attending church once per week.

Now behind a rigid and frequent practice may be a less hopeful or optimistic view of the "human" than most humanists hold. Maybe it does reflect a view of the world as full of temptations for our weak vessel - a world we must be "prepared" and fit for. Most humanists feel we are so inherently good that we don't need so much practice at it.

But today, doesn't our culture and world present many temptations and challenges to our goodness? Are we really so far above some kind of discipline to provide us with more than weekly reminders? The point of physical exercise is often to create definition in our bodies. For many in the nineteenth century who ate necessarily organic vegetables everyday and worked with their backs in the field this was unnecessary, but in today's world of TV remotes and fast food - many need a trip to the gym. Is not the part of the point of religious exercise to create definition in our character? Do we need this less now?

The Saudis and, and to a lesser extent, the Israelis have so closely bundled their religions and cultures that they've joined their faiths and their governments. In some ways this seems logical - the state is both an expression and shaper of culture.

For those of us in this room there is hardly anything more holy than separation of church and state. How do we reconcile this - that religion is culture and the state is culture - but the two can't mix?
In some ways, in America, we, and I mean UUs, have already done this. More than any other, our religion is pluralistic - to each his own... UUs were integral in the founding of this country. Unitarians: Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Universalists: Benjamin Franklin and Benjamin Rush who had unique religious views and believed not just in freedom among religions, but personal religious freedom, founded a state with this as one if it's guiding principles.

Subsequently, every religion which came to these United States has subjugated itself to this principle. Freedom of religion is virtually unquestioned in the United States. As I noted with regard to our relations with the Saudis - it even extends to our foreign policy. We have a very pluralist culture that in macrocosm looks a lot like a UU church. Because religion is culture we sometimes have to work things out, but holding tolerance and freedom as high standards - we carry on.
So hey, we've won! Why don't we feel like it? Our numbers are small - almost inconsequential. Many among us are constantly expressing worry about the influence of this or that minority fundamentalist group. Thomas Jefferson believed that Unitarianism would become a de facto national faith. For such a smart guy, he seems to have missed that bet.

We've all heard that the mainline Protestant denominations are collapsing. Fifty thousand leave these church pews every Sunday. The Methodists lose more each year than we have. To try and stop this hemorrhage, some are using their amassed capital to open new churches, but it isn't working. At the same time, churches that actually expect something of their followers are increasing in numbers.

An analogy can be seen in civic organizations. Many of these too are declining in membership. Cultural heterogeneity and the distractions of more complex workplaces and family life are taking their toll. An exception is the Rotarians. Rotarians are expected to attend the breakfast meeting - every week - wherever they are. Participation in public service projects is expected - a requirement of membership. The Rotary Club grows because membership requires something more than just saying you are a member and paying your dues - it requires being a Rotarian - it requires practice - devotion.

Devotion. An interesting idea. Devotion is more than belief. If you have a religion that is a collection of facts you say you believe in - is that a "whole" religion? Doesn't this collection of facts need to guide your life - to "live" in you? Doesn't this imply spiritual discipline, a practice. We say we want to be a faith of head and heart. To hold a collection of facts as "true" or maybe true is all about our heads. If that is the search for truth then it is not enough. I believe to have a true religion of head and heart we need to go beyond the search for truth - beyond belief.

So how can I remain a UU? It seems like this faith requires the least life practice, devotion if you will, of any religion...

Recently, a Christian web-site weaver on the internet, found something about me on UU web-sites and asked me comment on "rewards and punishments in the afterlife" from the perspective of Unitarian Universalism. I gave him what I think he might have considered a surprising answer. I wrote him back - "I'm not too sure about the afterlife - as a Taoist/American Transcendentalist I would say there could be "degrees" of afterlife..., but I'm pretty sure there isn't such a thing as Unitarian Universalism."

Of course, I'm serious. We have these seven principles - but we may not even have those in some ways - the principles are agreements between congregations they are not expected of members. Even in the principles, although some of the core values I would expect of a religion are there: compassion, peace (mentioned in passing), respect.. Other things, like gratitude, family, and charity are not. Of course there is nothing about devotion or spiritual practice. Really the only thing holding us together is tolerance, and maybe something else...

So I assert that Unitarian Universalism is not a religion. There isn't enough there. Here we have Sarahism and Davidism and ....ism but we don't have a shared religion. We have a place, a structure, a community where that community provides nurturing to our own spirituality. Community which every spirituality badly needs. Because religion is cultural and to have culture you have to have a community.

Religion as culture can be frustrating for UUs. UUs want to be more inclusive... we want to have more ethnic minorities - we'd like to have religious minorities in our discourse. But America is more divided on Sunday morning by race and class than at any other time during the week and the reason is simple. Religion is about culture and on Sunday morning people turn to their cultural heritage to find assurance and direction. We here, mostly share a cultural heritage of courageous application of freedom and confidence in intellectual rigor. We find assurance and direction from what we find here.

Now those of you that know me know me to be a vegetarian and somewhat of a pacifist and sometimes it seems that it would be great to belong to a religious group that reinforced these values. One that was willing to oppose American governmental and cultural violence from the pulpit - and expect a peaceful discipline of it's followers. In fact, this place can be frustrating, because in our pluralistic devotion to freedom we seem to expect nothing of each other. But at least here I'm free to hold my values without a bunch of other doctrine - and of course, it isn't boring here.

Actually, we are not as free from this religion as culture thing as we might think. And we are not completely free of devotion...

Firstly, many UUs are dedicated to social change and work for it. This "Faith in Action" recognizes that if we are not to just hold beliefs, but to live them. It recognizes that talking about religion is not faith - that we must reflect our values in our lives and try to imprint them, if only by example, on our collective life - our culture.

Secondly, if there is one thing that unifies UUs - it is that they are moral. Everyone here. Even though we don't have morality codified, there is simply no reason in heritage, logic, or fear to be a hypocritical UU, it isn't worth it. I'm not trying to be a big back-patter, but the folks we find here are remarkably honest and well-intentioned.

The truth is, in a faith criticized because it does not ask you to believe anything - We are here because we believe.

We believe in something that a skeptic - a non-believer - might find hard to believe..

We believe that participating in this makes our lives better - that it helps our children, that it can improve our communities - even make our world a little better place. We don't have any other reason to be here - not fear - or eternal reward - our even habit of heritage. It is this faith alone. And we come together because it is not just personal - it is cultural work we do here. We come here to be reminded every week that freedom can be moral, that people can be trusted, that hope is reasonable and beyond reason.

But I have asserted here that our religion may not be able to be whole without devotion. Devotion - how can we act based on belief when our eternal struggle for truth questions everything?
The answer, of course, is Faith. Faith is to act, or at least hope, anyway - even when we are unsure. Not just to act heroically to save a baby in a runaway carriage or the planet from a colliding meteor - but more, to risk being the rationalist who turns out to be the cosmic fool by acting everyday
- to recycle, vote, say hello - even though we are not sure one person can do any good- to repent even though no other knows of our offenses

- to show gratitude and say "grace" even though we do not know that our blessings might not be accidental

- to trust another - even though you don't know them - to trust enough to form a community of dependence - economic dependence, political dependence, emotional dependence - even spiritual dependence.

- to love - yes love is an act of faith we do not fully understand and yet we all do...

- to adopt a discipline of devotion - to live our religion - even though it is incomplete...

And if in our pluralistic way we are patient, we can find a devoted practice that defines each of us. Maybe together, we can find a way beyond belief....