Sunday, October 26, 2025
By Rev. F. Vernon Wright V
Reading followed by the sermon, Beyond a Sightless Faith. Text after the video.
Reading:
Man once surrendering his reason, has no remaining guard against absurdities the most monstrous, and like a ship without rudder, is the sport of every wind. With such persons, gullibility, which they call faith, takes the helm from the hand of reason, and the mind becomes a wreck.
—Thomas Jefferson Memoirs, 4: Correspondence and Private Papers (ed. 1829)
Beyond a Sightless Faith
Good morning! Today I want to talk about the importance of reason, both in community and in individual conduct. The quote today is from Thomas Jefferson. Now I know he is no paragon of virtue. He was, however, a great defender of reason. Liberalism, in its enlightenment definition, is fundamentally linked to reason. Because of Jefferson’s and other founding fathers and mothers’ thought, the foundation of US democracy is in some ways far more liberal than it is conservative. As a liberal faith, we owe much to enlightenment philosophy.
It used to be that both major political parties for the most part employed reason. Women gaining the right to vote and body sovereignty, and minorities of all kind claiming more equality, were hard fought, but reasonable ideas espoused by people both in the Republican and Democratic parties.
What to do? Those opposed to such gains felt betrayed by reason. Nixon’s Southern Strategy appealing to law and order, Reagan’s idea of the moral majority, were both steeped in strategies emergent from the red scare to empower conservative religion: to appeal not to reason but to prejudice steeped in scripture. From the 1940’s onwards, a careful alliance between religion and millionaires sought to supplant the Social Gospel movement which saw Christ’s message as being in solidarity with the poor, with a different message: socialism was evil and godless, conservative scriptural faith is superior to reason, and God rewarded the virtuous with wealth, better known as the prosperity gospel. These views became so widespread, due to the millions of dollars pumped into this effort by groups like the National Association of Manufactures, that people began to assume that this was naturally true. Indeed, Ronald Reagan himself was trained and made into a political animal by NAM before he became governor of CA. Later, News outlets like Fox News normalized this perspective.
The sad truth of this successful effort to undermine the role of reason in American politics is this: facts no longer matter to a very large swath of the American electorate. Virtue does not belong to reason, it belongs to very conservative views of religion. Liberal, the idea that birthed our very nation, has become a dirty word.
Here from this pulpit, I cannot offer any easy solutions other than to remind us that we have plenty of virtue here! Within these walls we can fully celebrate who we are, and give each other comfort and strength. But ultimately, we can and must persuade others. We need to let one of the best kept secrets out. We can say things like: “I like faith, but I like reason too! I love my country because it was founded on the principle of reason! If the vast majority of the world’s scientists tell us that COVID or climate change is a great threat, it is the duty of responsible government to take prudent action. I’m not radical, I just believe that reason rather than prejudice should have the upper hand.” This kind of radical verbiage may not persuade the Nick Fuentes brand of conservative influencer, but is should work for many others who are more nominally conservative.
Ours is indeed a liberal faith through and through. You are welcome to deny the existence of God here, but to the many, including myself that do not, reason is equal to faith. This has been true from our beginning when William Ellery Channing denied a dogmatic view of the Trinity in favor or the more reasonable view of Unity, or when John Murray denied the view of special salvation and embraced an understanding of Universal Salvation. Unitarian and Universalist views came to be when people started viewing scripture with reason rather than dogma. “So where does it say anything in the Bible about the Trinity? Nowhere? Okay then!” “So where in the Bible does it say that you have to be explicitly Christian to be saved? No where? Okay then.”
So far I have painted reason as a guiding principle for communities, and it is. But reason also is something exceedingly personal. Each of us has experiences that reveal to us in our changing nature and personal growth, newer more complete notions of the true nature of reality. A woman or a man caught in an abusive, or even demeaning relationship can decide to no longer be in that relationship. An individual finding themselves to be in the thrall of alcohol or other substances can stop using or depending on those substances. Learning that a diet causing heart trouble or blood sugar problems, can cause one to change that diet. Finding through therapy that one has neglected ones own family by focusing too much on professional development can make one more present and loving. Reason is the only thing we have that can cause us to grow and change our behaviors in light of a changing world. Reason one of the most important faculties we have. We should celebrate and encourage reason in everything we do. As Jefferson would write
In fine, I repeat, you must lay aside all prejudice on both sides, and neither believe nor reject anything, because any other persons, or description of persons, have rejected or believed it. Your own reason is the only oracle given you by heaven, and you are answerable, not for the rightness, but uprightness of the decision. (Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Peter Carr (1787))
Reason is the foundation of our nation, the communal life of organizations such as this church, and it is the foundation of our personal health and well-being. Reason is how we see trouble ahead and steer a course of safety. Ours is not a blind life and faith, but one that has eyes to see. It’s time to let the world around us know the sane, very plain, but very convincing, truth of what we are!
