Dharma World Buddhist magazine

Partners in Prayer and Peacemaking

An Interview with Rev. William G. Sinkford, President of the Unitarian Universalist Association

Rev. William G. Sinkford was in Tokyo in November 2006 to attend the ceremonies celebrating the centennial of the birth of Rev. Nikkyo Niwano, the late founder of Rissho Kosei-kai. During his stay, DHARMA WORLD interviewed him on the significance of self-examination by people of religion in today's troubled world and the approach of the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) to the religious diversity in American society.

We have learned from several websites of member congregations of the UUA that self-examination is an important element in their religious activities--in their ministries, education, peacemaking, and so on. Could you describe the role that self-examination plays in the UUA, as a measure of actions by people of faith?

The stereotype of Americans is that we are very action-oriented, and as we are always busy it is hard for us to move into a space of reflection and self-examination. Indeed, that stereotype is true to a certain extent. I think it can be said that this characteristic accounts for some of the success that the United States has had. But it is also one of our great challenges. Like so many strengths, there is a downside to it. Unitarian Universalists share that characteristic--we are deeply American, and therefore self-examination is not the easiest discipline for us. If anything, we err on the side of self-congratulation, rather than honest self-examination. Changing this is one of our greatest challenges. But Unitarian Universalist congregations always try to include a space for self-examination and personal reflection in worship. Some congregations call it meditation, and many congregations call it prayer. For me, personally, it is in my prayer life that I do my self-examination; that is the space in which I can be most honest with myself and take the time to allow the best truth I can find to enter my spirit. More and more Unitarian Universalist congregations are taking advantage of that discipline. I think we have much to learn from our international partners about what that space can mean, and about the role that self-examination and prayer can have in our lives.

These days, I am thinking much about the truth and reconciliation process that was used first in South Africa and now in Latin America and other places. This process calls one into that space of truth, and forces one to avoid self-congratulation and to accept the reality of our history. So, for example, the oldest Unitarian Universalist congregations in the United States are on the East Coast, in New England. Many of our congregations have members whose families in previous generations were very important in the slave trade, the bringing of Africans to the United States as slaves. It would be easy for those individuals and congregations to forget that past, to bury the memory, but more and more of our congregations are actually taking the time to remember their past and they are coming to learn that the money that built some of our churches came from profits in the slave trade. Thus, our congregations are using that truth to move into a space of reconciliation, and they are asking themselves what they are called to do as a result of their history. So it is a healthy development for us, even though it is very hard to acknowledge the reality of evil done in one's past.

Was there any visible resistance from among members?

Some. It takes the form mostly of fear, because some of the families that are in our congregations today are families that, hundreds of years ago, were involved in the slave trade. And for those families, it is most difficult for them to look back, and they fear it. But most of them are able to do it.

We believe that humility based on a keen awareness of the vulnerability of human beings is at the root of all religions. How can we emphasize that concept again in today's troubled world in which confrontations prevail?

That's a wonderful question. I wish that I had a simple answer. Speaking from the Unitarian Universalist perspective, it seems to me that if we are able to move beyond self-congratulation, then this can allow us to enter the space where failure can be acknowledged. And if we are not able to acknowledge failure, then we are caught in a trap in which we believe that we should be perfect, and therefore we think that everything we do is perfect. It is much healthier religiously to be able to acknowledge failure. It seems to me that one of our central purposes, and something that is very important to the religious community, is to be able to offer forgiveness. Rissho Kosei-kai does this as well as any religious group I've ever seen. We need to be able to say that we are not perfect, that we fail. The religious community can forgive us for that, and help us to forgive ourselves. Then we can move forward. There is so much that the human community has to ask forgiveness for.

When I was last in Japan in 2003, I had the opportunity of going to Hiroshima and of beginning to ask the question of how the Japanese people could ever forgive the Americans for having dropped atomic weapons on their country. I think that is still an important question. Right now, in the United States, we have an enormous amount to be forgiven for. The invasion of Iraq is a tragedy, and it would be a very healthy thing for the American people to acknowledge that it was a mistake and to ask the world community for forgiveness. That's the direction in which we should be moving.

With an increase in the number of immigrants of various religious backgrounds other than Christian, America is now becoming a multireligious country. What does religious pluralism bring to American society?

Another excellent question. America has become, we believe, the most religiously pluralistic or diverse society the earth has ever known, or at least one of the most diverse. There are not just Methodists--there are Mormons and Muslims; not just Baptists, but Buddhists and Baha'is, atheists and agnostics. Twenty-five percent of the American people consider themselves "un-churched." So there is tremendous diversity, both in belief and in lack of belief, within American society. And it is a strain.

Unitarian Universalist congregations have learned some things about pluralism, because in our congregations it is absolutely ordinary for a liberal Christian to be sitting next to someone who follows a Buddhist meditative practice, sitting next to an atheist, sitting next to a pagan. That is normal for us, and we believe that we have learned some important things. The first is that such diversity is not easy to live in. It is much easier to live in a homogeneous religious community. But we have also learned that enormous benefits can be gained from regularly dealing with diversity--with pluralism--and this has to do with how we approach the "other." It is easy to view the other as a threat and a danger, and if we are able to move beyond that, it begins to be possible to see the other as a blessing.

In the language of my tradition, to meet another person is an opportunity to meet God, to meet the divine spirit. And so the benefits are enormous. Getting from here to there is not easy at all. And in the wider culture of the United States, we are finding that more, rather than fewer, disagreements are popping up.

There is a serious conversation that is being led by the fundamentalist Christian community that claims that the United States is a Christian nation and that it was the intention of those who founded our country that it always remain Christian. Now, of course, that doesn't leave any space for Buddhists or Baha'is or Taoists, or any of the many other religious traditions that are part of our society.

Did you know that Unitarian Universalists believe that we actually invented American democracy? Some of the founding fathers of our country were Unitarian, including Thomas Jefferson, who framed the language of the separation of church and state. So, we believe deeply that no single religious point of view should become required in our political life. We also believe, however, that it is very important that religious faith, religious belief, inform how we behave as citizens.

And one of the great values of the long-standing friendship between Rissho Kosei-kai and the Unitarian Universalist Association is that we believe all religious people of goodwill will bring to the public square the same qualities of openness and respect that we try to model in our relationship. This is a difficult time in the United States religiously; we have not yet made peace with this. But I believe that we must move into a space where we can understand our differences to be blessings and not curses. If we are not able to do that, then I fear that the future is quite bleak.

What are some of the focal points in the present activities of the UUA? And what are some of the specific activities in which the UUA and Rissho Kosei-kai can cooperate?

The friendship that Founder Niwano and Dana Greeley [1908-86, the first president of the UUA] were able to form was very important, I know, for Unitarian Universalists, and I believe for Rissho Kosei-kai members, as well. That friendship and the coming together of those two religious organizations made possible the World Conference of Religions for Peace, which our two religious faiths were instrumental in founding. Today that organization is carrying out brilliant work in bringing together Inter-Religious Councils and identifying areas in which religion can be a voice for peace, rather than a voice for violence. So I would point to that first.

I can also think of other areas of cooperation that are very hopeful. We have been cooperating for decades in support of the International Association for Religious Freedom [IARF]. One of the things this organization has done best is develop a young adult network. This means that we are actually training a group of young adults who have experienced the blessings of interfaith and justice-making work. Recently, Rissho Kosei-kai's peace foundation, the Niwano Peace Foundation, has been helping the UUA by supporting some of our work in India, particularly the Self-Employed Women's Association, which is doing groundbreaking work for the poorest of the poor. That's a cooperation that I would love to see expanded. "Justice" is a concept that is very important in the United States, and I know that it is less important in the Japanese culture, but whether we call it the making of justice or the movement toward harmony, there is work to be done out in the world that I think we can partner in.

The other thing that I would point to, because it has been so important to me, is the opportunity to continue to educate each other; it has been such a blessing for me to spend time with the Rissho Kosei-kai leaders and the leaders of the Japanese Liaison Committee [JLC] of the IARF. I hope that I have begun to gain an understanding of how they have given meaning to their lives and what their traditions mean to them. And I hope that I have been able to communicate a bit of who I am, and how Unitarian Universalists find meaning and how our tradition informs our lives. It has been a huge gift. And I hope there will be opportunities for more Unitarian Universalists, to engage with members of Rissho Kosei-kai and the JLC abroad. It's a blessing when we can travel overseas to meet one another, but now that there is a significant Rissho Kosei-kai presence in the United States, I hope that we will be able to create a relationship between our congregations there. I think there are many opportunities for us to continue to cooperate.

The priorities for the Unitarian Universalist Association now are many, but let me point to a few. You may know that we have been very active in the Save Darfur Coalition, working to end the genocide in the Sudan. That partnership will continue, and there is much more yet to do, because the killing goes on. Our work on marriage equality, equal rights for gay and lesbian persons, is an ongoing priority for us, but there are two additional new priorities that I would name: one is that our General Assembly, which is our annual decision-making body, last year approved what we call a "Statement of Conscience" on global warming. So we as congregations will be working to find ways to address the issues of environmental sustainability, and much of that work needs to begin at home. Our congregations need to look at their own practices, but we also need to be working at the policy level nationally. I think our congregations see that the way we are living is ultimately not sustainable, and we need to find ways to reduce our impact on the earth.

The other priority, which I believe offers another opportunity for us to collaborate, is the study action issue that our congregations will be working on for the next three years: peacemaking. Our congregations will be called to think about, reflect on, and pray for peacemaking in their own lives, and ultimately in the world. And I believe that there is nothing closer to the center of the Rissho Kosei-kai way of being religious than peacemaking. It certainly was a central focus of Founder Niwano's work. So I hope that there will be ways that we can collaborate as that process moves forward.

This article was originally published in the April-June 2007 issue of Dharma World.

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