When liberalism is next to godliness

Say what you will about Rabbi Eric Yoffie’s address to students at the Rev. Jerry Falwell’s fundamentalist Liberty University last week. Call it a brave move, a chance to broadcast a message of religious tolerance and liberalism in the very belly of the beast. Or call it a sell-out, yet another example of a Jewish leader crawling into bed with the Religious Right.

Whatever you call it, ask yourself this: Given a chance to speak for eight minutes before an audience of your ideological opposites, what would you say? Would you go for the jugular and attack all they stand for? Would you soft-pedal your message, seeking “common ground” and papering over your real differences?

Or would you acknowledge the things that divide you and find a language that maybe, just maybe, would make your antagonists look at their entrenched positions in a new light?

This last approach is the one Yoffie, the leader of the Union for Reform Judaism, took when he spoke at Liberty at Falwell’s invitation. He delivered a compelling speech to the university’s weekly convocation, notable for what he said and, perhaps more so, how he said it.

See, for example, how Yoffie recast the debate over abortion in religious terms. “Your religious tradition prohibits abortion,” he said; “my religious tradition permits it in some cases and forbids it in others but believes that every woman must prayerfully make the final decision for herself.” That “prayerfully” is a master stroke, a signal that Yoffie would not cede the ground of religious discourse.

He made a similar rhetorical move when he addressed, early in the speech, the “moral crisis of America.” Some observers of American Judaism might be surprised that the leader of its most liberal denomination would tell Evangelicals that he shares a “common concern” about a “disturbing collapse of public morality.” But Yoffie has been consistent in this regard, going back to a speech made last year when he urged his movement to stem a tide of demeaning sexual behavior among — and media-driven exploitation aimed at — teens. Again, Yoffie does not share Falwell’s views on premarital abstinence or abortion, but he demonstrates that liberal Judaism remains rooted in concepts of godliness and morality.

Yoffie used that very term — “godliness” — when he warned against lowering the wall of church-state separation (Liberty is a school, after all, that teaches a “literal interpretation of the book of Genesis to be accurate, both scripturally and scientifically”). Said Yoffie: “Government coercion generates resentment, not godliness, and it is never a good idea to put the government in charge of our thinking.” That’s a twofer: a religious basis for church-state separation and a direct appeal to conservative notions of limiting the role of government.

I reached Yoffie at his office on Tuesday and asked him how he had adjusted his language to fit his audience. “Normally I would speak in religious language, but for a Jewish audience it might be in terms less sensitive than that,” he said. “I understood that I was speaking as a religious person, and I was perhaps more careful than I might normally be.”

It’s an approach to dialogue that resonates with Jews who live in the Midwest and South. “In New Jersey, we talk about something we heard or read about, but there is not much impact in our schools,” said Yoffie, who lives in Westfield. Bible Belt Jews are often angrier about encroachments on church-state separation — and, at the same time, “more realistic, more sensible” in how they debate the issues with Evangelicals. “You just can’t get up and shout out your outrage and call them names,” said Yoffie.

Yoffie has done some of his own shouting in recent months, most famously in a speech that many critics took as direct comparison between the Religious Right’s “hateful rhetoric” on gays and the Nazis’ persecution of homosexuals. I heard a note of contrition in his Liberty speech’s call for “civility in public debate”: “I can discuss these issues and believe what I believe without calling you a homophobic bigot, and you can do the same without calling me an uncaring baby killer.”

But is civility enough? Can both sides of the liberal-conservative religious divide be satisfied with calls of “respect” when the issues that divide them are so profound? Is there really “common cause,” as Yoffie insists in his speech?

The rabbi thinks so. He lists evangelical support for human rights in Asia, the Middle East, and Darfur and, more recently, action on debt relief and global warming. And then there’s Israel: Yoffie said he knew Falwell and his followers support Israel, but was taken aback at the “intensity of their commitment.” Yoffie worries less about the Evangelicals’ end-times theology (“If they are supportive of Israel but their motivation is different, so what?”) than about the biblical literalism that has in the past made many evangelical movements oppose any territorial compromise on Israel’s part. But even in this regard, Yoffie came away from his encounter with Falwell reassured. “He said it is ultimately up to the Israelis to decide for themselves the best way to assure their security. Maybe he wasn’t enthusiastic, but he said this is an Israeli decision.”

Yoffie said there is some talk of a follow-up to his speech at Liberty, although it was too early to discuss details. One option does not seem to be in the offing, however: Asked if Yoffie might invite Falwell to speak at a URJ biennial, Yoffie paused for a good long moment. “Realistically — I don’t think it is terribly likely that if he were to speak in front of a Jewish audience, that is one he would choose,” said Yoffie, hinting at the limits of “public debate.” “We have no objection to hearing from someone with profound disagreements, [but] I don’t think that would be the Jewish audience he would be searching for.”

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