September/October 2003 Editor's Viewpoint
From the Editor: Spirituality and Politics

by  

Miriam Knight

I expected, indeed hoped that some of the articles in our last issue would stir up some passion. I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised, therefore, when one subscriber cancelled her subscription because she was outraged that a supposedly spiritual paper would take a political stance – one presumably that she disagreed with.

The rightness of separation of Church and State is a cherished ideal for Americans. Our Founding Fathers fled religious persecution in Europe and were determined never to allow those dark forces loose in this precious new country. The Founding Fathers meant to separate Church and State, but I don't believe they ever meant to separate America from spiritual values.

Thomas Jefferson was the fiercest defender of the rights of the people. A giant intellect and a true Renaissance man, Jefferson fought to add amendments to the Constitution to put limits on the power of the government. Not yet easy that they afforded enough protection, he pushed through our Bill of Rights. He had a clear-eyed historical perspective on the cynical use made of religion by the power elite, and strove to protect us from such things:

"But a short time elapsed after the death of the great reformer of the Jewish religion, before his principles were departed from by those who professed to be his special servants, and perverted into an engine for enslaving mankind, and aggrandizing their oppressors in Church and State."   --Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Kercheval, 1810. ME 12:345

But there is a difference between religion and spirituality. I suggest that one distinction is that religion is specific to a particular group and generally considers other religions as somehow flawed; spirituality, on the other hand, encompasses all that is universal in each religion – indeed, in each human being. Spirituality looks at the spirit that unites and permeates all creation, regarding all with compassion.

As for mixing spirituality and politics, I would suggest that it is the very absence of spirituality in today’s politics and politicians that is responsible for so much of the pain and despair we see in the world today. It is up to people of conscience to exercise their rights as citizens and return this country to the path laid out in the vision of the Founding Fathers. Jefferson was acutely aware of the tendency of those in positions of power to be corrupted and of the populace to be too absorbed in making money to worry about it.

"The spirit of the times may alter, will alter. Our rulers will become corrupt, our people careless. A single zealot may commence persecutor, and better men be his victims. It can never be too often repeated that the time for fixing every essential right on a legal basis is while our rulers are honest and ourselves united. From the conclusion of [their] war [for independence, a nation begins] going down hill. It will not then be necessary to resort every moment to the people for support. They will be forgotten, therefore, and their rights disregarded. They will forget themselves but in the sole faculty of making money, and will never think of uniting to effect a due respect for their rights. The shackles, therefore, which shall not be knocked off at the conclusion of [that] war will remain on [them] long, will be made heavier and heavier, till [their] rights shall revive or expire in a convulsion."   --Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia Q.XVII, 1782. (*) ME 2:225

One man amongst those currently presenting themselves as candidates for the presidency is taking a courageous stand for reviving these rights of the people. Congressman Dennis Kucinich is consciously trying to put spirituality back into politics and put the needs of human beings ahead of the profits of corporations and moneymen. In an interview with Tikkun Magazine (Mar/Apr 2003) Kucinich said:

"We can take great comfort from our Founders' commitment to matters of the Spirit. They insisted on the self-evident truth of equality—and this was a spiritual principle. In the Declaration of Independence, the Founders recognized Nature's God, Divine Providence, and a Creator as the organizing principle in the universe. The Founders recognized Liberty, which is a spiritual principle, and Life which integrates with Spirit to find fullest expression.

The essence of our Constitution can be understood to be expressive of high principles, not only of law and ethics which subsume those principles, but of Spirit. Whether we look at the first motto of the United States, E Pluribus Unum (out of many, one), which is a spiritual principle, or in the latter motto "In God We Trust," we have to recognize the Founders were immersed in contemplation of a world beyond our experience; one of spirit, of mysticism, one which saw the potential of the country as unfolding in a multidimensional way, both through the work of our hands and the work of our hearts."

I think Mr. Jefferson would be pleased…