I notice that among many other things that happened on this last day of the year, that in 1999, Elliot Richardson died.
For me he is most notable as the Attorney General who refused President Nixon’s order to fire Special Watergate Prosecutor Archibald Cox as he was coming dangerously close to the president’s deeply guarded secrets.
Of course this was simply one marker on a distinguished career. Richardson was a genuine hero during the Second war, he served as Massachusetts’s’ Lieutenant Governor and Attorney General. Later he held various cabinet offices including secretary of HEW and Defense before becoming the country’s Attorney General.
Elliot Richardson was a Republican. And he supported President Nixon’s war strategy. He ran afoul of the president only on matters of ethics, not policy. In fact he would hold several prominent places in the Ford administration, including ambassador to the Court of St James. His name was also, I believe seriously, bandied about as a potential presidential candidate on the Republican ticket.
And, Elliot Richardson was a life-long member of what was then called First and Second Church of Boston, the Unitarian Universalist congregation in the back bay.
While I am in near complete agreement with the political trending of the majority of Unitarian Universalists today, I find Elliot Richardson’s life and politics, provides a caution for me and for all of us.
First, Richardson’s faith was no doubt a significant part of his life. But, it led him to a different view of how to serve than seems obvious to many of us within the liberal religious movement.
Yes, it was a form of Republicanism that has all but disappeared. Perhaps the two sitting senators from Maine share his political perspectives, but the list dwindles away after them…
But, the loss of that wing is a loss not only to the Republican party and the American nation, but also to Unitarian Universalism.
While Unitarian Universalism does indeed enjoy the greatest diversity possible theologically, we include a range from theist to atheist, sometimes comfortably, sometimes not. Heck, we even invite Buddhists into the fold. It is our contention that faith should be challenged, and so we need that diversity to find the deeper truths. It is the secret to our way of life.
But we also tend to be the church of the well educated. I’ve long thought we have absolutely no problem with inviting black or Hispanic or Asian members, so long as they have a master’s degree. This narrow range of class is a serious problem, I feel. It narrows our possible engagement, and the range of views that are informed by our particular situations in life.
And it is just as true in our political views, which congregate at the left wing of the American political spectrum. The only significant divergence among us is a significant minority of libertarians. But, these days very, very few of us register Republican or vote that way.
And this is a loss.
It is a loss to the possibility of that powerful alchemy of faith where those who do not agree come together, and covenant to stay together, and which leads, I truly believe, to the possibility of authentic depth.
It leads to the possibility of, as one Christian thinker said, to be “surprised by joy.”
The Unitarian theologian Francis David famously said we need not think alike to love alike. Actually I think it slightly more complex. I suspect to find genuine love, to dive to the depths of love, we need a diversity of opinion that expresses that love in differing ways.
Each becomes a signpost.
And each of us may need a different sign post.
So, losing people who find a Republican expression of that love (and here I very much think of Elliot Richardson) is a loss of a way to depth for many in our little denomination.
A sad thing.
A loss…
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