EthicalStL.org

This Sunday's address will continue our look at justice in America. Two differing concepts of justice are retributive justice, which focuses on punishing the offender, and restorative justice, which focuses on the reconciliation of the offender, the victim, and the community. We will examine some of the current problems of our criminal justice system and hear some stories of remarkable reconciliation and healing. We will also explore the ethics of restitution, forgiveness, and mercy, and ask how the values of religious human-ism can help us encourage forms of justice that affirm worth and dignity and seek to bring out the best in all of us. lt;brgt;lt;brgt; We ought always to deal justly, not only with those who are just to us, but likewise to those who endeavor to injure us; and this, for fear lest by rendering them evil for evil, we should fall into the same vice. lt;brgt;Hierocles

For centuries, the threshold of religion was our acceptance of forces be-yond nature, and our reliance on them for information about things we do not know and perhaps cannot know. The prophesies of those claiming insight to the forces and mysteries of the universe guided our thoughts, our actions, and our lives. We no longer suborn intellect to authority, and we've come to recognize that religion consists of involvement as much as contemplation. As our concept of what passes for religion shifts, are there imposters that we should be protesting? Have the prophets of yore become the pretenders of today? lt;brgt;lt;brgt;Tony Hileman is Senior Leader of the New York Society for Ethical Culture. Tony began as a successful businessman in Indiana. He then went on to a second career in wire service journalism, working in Europe, the Middle East, and Northern Africa for United Press International, then as an executive for Agence France Presse (AFP). Disenchanted with corporate life, Tony left AFP and began his next career as an independent consultant, first in the field of journalism and then more broadly. He eventually specialized as an executive coach, helping individuals achieve personal as well as professional success while simultaneously discovering the vast numbers of people who support a Humanist life stance similar to his own. These years saw the full development of Tony's lifelong views on Humanism and eventually led to his position as executive director of the American Humanist Association in 1999. As Tony often expresses to Humanist and non-Humanist audiences alike, "the need for a strong Humanist voice in the national dialogue has never been greater than it is today." He joined the NY Society for Ethical Culture in 2005.

This Sunday's address is the first of a two-part examination of ideas of justice in current American culture. We look back on the "Wild" West as a time of lawlessness and vigilantism, but have our underlying attitudes toward justice really changed all that much? Our criminal justice system, a largely privatized industry and a pawn of political games, emphasizes punishment over rehabilitation, seemingly blind to the fact that most prisoners will eventually again be our neighbors. Our popular culture sells to even the smallest children a vision of heroism in which the good guys hurt or kill the bad guys, and we all cheer. How can our ethical values help us to promote justice that keeps us safe and that aids the healing of victims, perpetrators, and society?

The tragic Don Imus and Jena 6 situations were two of the biggest stories highlighted by the media in 2007. And the term "race" served as the back-drop. Predictably, the African-American, dynamic duo of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton stepped up to participate and serve as "de-facto" representatives as national dialogue began. But what exactly are Sharpton and Jackson's roles, who appoints them, and what are the effects of their participation in these types of situations? lt;brgt;lt;brgt; Additionally, what kind of dialogue did we end up with as a nation? Are we better off for it? How was that dialogue moderated? And what role did the media play in all of this? lt;brgt;lt;brgt; Ethical Society member Mark Albrecht is a Senior Media Communications Major with a double minor in Multicultural Studies and Anthropology at Webster University. Three years ago, Mark had a personal epiphany. Witnessing the state of affairs in the city, state, nation, world and planet, he realized that if he didn't get personally involved in social change, then it was not realistic for him to expect positive change. lt;brgt;lt;brgt; At Webster, Mark has been active in many student organizations including the University Recycling Committee, ONE Webster (student branch of the ONE Campaign to end global poverty and AIDS), Behavioral and Social Sciences Club, and Habitat for Humanity. He traveled to New Orleans twice to do Hurricane Katrina recovery work and advocacy and is in the process of doing a documentary on the topic. Mark won a Dean's Award for Service from Webster University in 2007 for his work to bring awareness to Katrina's after-math. lt;brgt;lt;brgt; Currently, his focus is social justice through Media Literacy and Media Re-form and working with Jobs with Justice, ACORN, wecanmo.org, Think Before You Ink campaign, and other grassroots efforts focusing on responsible humanity.

The U.S. Constitution explicitly prohibits any religious test for public office, yet polls reveal that Americans are less likely to vote for an atheist than a member of any other minority, and the presidential candidates as usual are vying to be named "Most Religious." Americans also tell pollsters in over-whelming numbers that they believe in a god, yet more Americans are living outwardly-secular lives than ever before, and "angry atheist" books top the best-seller lists. What are the roots of anti-atheist prejudice and what is it really like being an atheist today? What is the duty of Ethical Culture, a "non-thiestic" religion that seeks to unite people on the common ground of ethics, to stand up for non-believers?

A common misunderstanding of Darwinian evolution is that it renders existence meaningless and without purpose. In fact, the origin of life marks the origin of meaning and purpose: indeed, if they exist anywhere else in the uni-verse, we will probably never know. This understanding, Dr. Goodenough will suggest, has wondrous ethical implications. lt;brgt;lt;brgt;Ursula Goodenough, Ph.D., is Professor of Biology at Washington University. Before joining the staff of Washington University, she was Assistant and Associate Professor of Biology at Harvard from 1971-1978. Her primary teaching has been a cell biology course for undergraduate biology majors, but she also co-teaches a course, The Epic of Evolution, with a physicist and a geologist, for nonscience students. Her research has focused on the cell biology and (molecular) genetics of the sexual phase of the life cycle of a unicellular eukaryotic green algae and, more recently, on the evolution of the genes governing mating-related traits. Her laboratory has been supported by grants from NIH, NSP, and USDA and she has written three editions of a widely adopted textbook, Genetics. Dr. Goodenough has served in numerous capacities in national biomedical arenas, including review panels, editorial boards, and many positions in the American Society for Cell Biology. lt;brgt;lt;brgt; Dr. Goodenough joined the Institute of Religion in an Age of Science (IRAS) in 1989. She has presented papers and seminars on Science and Religion in numerous areas and written a book on the subject, The Sacred Depths of Nature (Oxford University Press, 1998). She is a strong advocate of teaching the History of Nature in our schools.

The Minnesota poet Alan Tate has said that "to communicate effectively is to love," and that, I believe, is the essence of my address. I want to explore how we as adults can best tap into our desire to love our children (or anyone for that matter!) and express ourselves more effectively with language that says what we really want to say. How do we get as close as possible to our values, ethics, and core beliefs when we communicate? How do we keep it real, simple, truthful, fresh, and loving with our kids? Of course, communication is sometimes very difficult with children if we are unable to empathize with the variety of languages and unique perspectives children have or if we are too tired, rushed, and distracted by the cares of life. So, how do we slow down and empathize and communicate with kids better? lt;brgt;lt;brgt;Dave Mampel has been performing professionally since 1992. Previously, Dave was an active ordained minister in the United Church of Christ, serving a 100-member parish in Idaho Falls, Idaho. After leaving the parish ministry to pursue an entertainment career, Dave developed his central character, "Daffy Dave" which has been a popular hit with family audiences in the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond. Daffy Dave's shows have delighted children. He has performed widely in the Bay Area and on his local television show, "Daffy Dave's Tree Fort." Dave's CDs and videos are sold internationally. Daffy Dave also has an official fan club and interactive website, lt;a href="http://www.daffydave.com" target="_blank"gt; www.daffydave.comlt;/agt;.

It's time once again to kick off our yearly pledge campaign. There are many areas in our lives in which we ask ourselves the question, "Is this worth it?" Committing ourselves to ethical living means weighing the results we want against the resources in time, energy, money, and emotion it will take to move closer to our goals. Each of us must ask him or herself, "Am I really pursuing my goals, or just wishing for them?" Sometimes we feel helpless in the face of all the large problems of our community, our nation, our planet. But in all our lives, there remain untapped resources. What "ethical currency" do we have, and how can we spend it more wisely to help us move our ideals toward reality?

The world seems to be getting smaller all the time. Our economy and our culture are increasingly interdependent with those of other countries. This intensifying interplay between people from different backgrounds offers the hope of greater understanding; it also poses the specter of oppression, alienation, and violence. These developments are not morally neutral, yet religious voices have not been prominent in the debates about globalization. One reason may be that the world’s major religions have often been poor global neighbors. Many theological traditions make their own exclusive claims to truth, setting the stage for irreconcilable debates and even blood-shed. Our pluralistic world calls for a pluralistic ethics rooted in a faith in the unique ethical capacities of every person and played out through an inclusive, elevating discourse. lt;brgt;lt;brgt;John Daken is a native of Mystic, Connecticut who now makes his home outside Washington, DC with his wife Abigail and daughter Eleanor. In his role as a U.S. Navy psychiatrist, he participated in responses to terrorist at-tacks against the USS Cole and the Pentagon and later spent five weeks deployed to western Iraq. Having lost faith in the ability of military force to adequately address the terrorist threat, he left the Navy in October of 2006. He now serves as Medical Director of a community mental health clinic and is an active member of the Washington Ethical Society.

Many of us have experienced, and all of us will experience eventually, changes in our lives that overturn much of what we have known and counted on: we move to a new place, we lose a job, we retire from a vocation, we lose a beloved person. And so we must start over; we must remake our lives within new circumstances, find new reasons for and new ways of living. The dawn of a new year is an appropriate time to acknowledge that life is a series of endings, but also of beginnings, and to ask, where do we find the knowledge, strength, and help to start over?