I bring you greetings from the 52nd-freest nation on earth. As an American, it irritates me that my nation keeps sinking in the annual rankings published by Freedom House. I'm the son of immigrants. My parents were born in China during war and revolution, went to Taiwan and then came to the United States, which means all my life, I've been acutely aware just how fragile an inheritance freedom truly is. That's why I spend my time teaching, preaching and practicing democracy.
我要将一个 来自世界自由度 排名第52位国家的问候。 作为一个美国人,我感到 烦恼的是自己国家的名次 在每年《自由之家》公布 的排行榜中持续下滑。 我来自一个移民家庭。 我的父母出生于战争 与解放时期的中国, 他们先去了台湾,后来到了美国, 这意味着我整个一生, 都深刻地意识到传统自由 是何等脆弱。 因此我把时间用在教学、 宣讲与实践民主上。
I have no illusions. All around the world now, people are doubting whether democracy can deliver. Autocrats and demagogues seem emboldened, even cocky. The free world feels leaderless.
我从不抱幻想。 在当今的世界, 人们正怀疑民主能否实现。 专制者和煽动者们看起来无所畏惧, 甚至非常自大。 我们觉得自由的世界缺乏领袖。
And yet, I remain hopeful. I don't mean optimistic. Optimism is for spectators. Hope implies agency. It says I have a hand in the outcome. Democratic hope requires faith not in a strongman or a charismatic savior but in each other, and it forces us to ask: How can we become worthy of such faith? I believe we are at a moment of moral awakening, the kind that comes when old certainties collapse. At the heart of that awakening is what I call "civic religion." And today, I want to talk about what civic religion is, how we practice it, and why it matters now more than ever.
然而,我依然充满希望。 我不是说乐观。 乐观是留给观众的。 希望暗示着行动。 这说的是我可以为结果贡献力量。 民主的希望需要信仰, 不是信仰铁腕人物 或魅力超凡的救世主, 而是彼此之间的信仰, 它促使我们提问: 我们如何才配拥有这种信仰? 我相信我们正处于道德觉醒的时刻, 这是一个旧认知崩塌的时刻。 这场觉醒的核心, 我称之为“公民宗教”。 今天,我想讨论什么是公民宗教, 我们如何实践它, 还有为什么它在现今变得更重要?
Let me start with the what. I define civic religion as a system of shared beliefs and collective practices by which the members of a self-governing community choose to live like citizens. Now, when I say "citizen" here, I'm not referring to papers or passports. I'm talking about a deeper, broader, ethical conception of being a contributor to community, a member of the body. To speak of civic religion as religion is not poetic license. That's because democracy is one of the most faith-fueled human activities there is. Democracy works only when enough of us believe democracy works. It is at once a gamble and a miracle. Its legitimacy comes not from the outer frame of constitutional rules, but from the inner workings of civic spirit.
让我从“它是什么”开始。 我给公民宗教的定义是 一个选择像公民一样生活的 自治社区成员所共享的 信仰与集体实践的系统。 我在这里说的“公民”, 无关证件或护照的范畴。 我谈论的是作为一个社区的贡献者, 社区一员的更深入、 更广泛的伦理道德观念。 说公民宗教为宗教 并非为了诗意修辞。 那是因为民主制度 是最需要用信仰推动的 人类活动之一。 唯有足够多的人相信民主, 它才能发挥作用。 这既是一场赌博,也是一个奇迹。 它的合法性并非来自 外部的国家宪法框架, 而是源自公民精神的内核。
Civic religion, like any religion, contains a sacred creed, sacred deeds and sacred rituals. My creed includes words like "equal protection of the laws" and "we the people." My roll call of hallowed deeds includes abolition, women's suffrage, the civil rights movement, the Allied landing at Normandy, the fall of the Berlin Wall. And I have a new civic ritual that I'll tell you about in a moment.
公民宗教,和其他的宗教一样, 包含神圣信条、神圣的契约 和神圣的仪式。 我的信条里包含的话语如 “人人平等的法律保护权” 以及“我们人民”。 我的神圣事迹名单包括 废除奴隶制,妇女选举权, 民权运动, 盟军登陆诺曼底, 柏林墙的倒塌。 稍后我还将告诉你们一个 新的公民宗教仪式。
Wherever on earth you're from, you can find or make your own set of creed, deed and ritual. The practice of civic religion is not about worship of the state or obedience to a ruling party. It is about commitment to one another and our common ideals. And the sacredness of civic religion is not about divinity or the supernatural. It is about a group of unlike people speaking into being our alikeness, our groupness.
不论你来自地球的哪个角落, 你都可以找到或者制定你自己 的信仰,信条和仪式。 公民宗教的实践无关国家崇拜, 也不是屈服于执政党。 它是关于对他人 和我们共同理想的承诺。 并且公民宗教的神圣性 与神性或者超自然无关。 它是一群不同的人 通过对话形成我们的共性, 我们的群体性。
Perhaps now you're getting a little worried that I'm trying to sell you on a cult. Relax, I'm not. I don't need to sell you. As a human, you are always in the market for a cult, for some variety of religious experience. We are wired to seek cosmological explanations, to sacralize beliefs that unite us in transcendent purpose. Humans make religion because humans make groups. The only choice we have is whether to activate that groupness for good. If you are a devout person, you know this. If you are not, if you no longer go to prayer services or never did, then perhaps you'll say that yoga is your religion, or Premier League football, or knitting, or coding or TED Talks. But whether you believe in a God or in the absence of gods, civic religion does not require you to renounce your beliefs. It requires you only to show up as a citizen.
也许你们现在有些怀疑 我这是在大力推崇邪教。 放心,我不是。 我不需要说服你们。 作为人类,你们经常处于各种邪教, 各种宗教体验的包围中。 我们天生就想要寻求宇宙学的解释, 将那些把我们团结在 超然目标中的信念神圣化。 人类因群居而创造了宗教。 我们唯一的选择是是否要 为了福祉来激活这种群体性。 如果你是一个虔诚的人, 你就会知道这点。 如果你不是, 如果你不再祷告 或者从来没做过, 那么可能你会说你的信仰是瑜伽, 或是英超足球, 是编织、编程或TED演讲。 但你是否相信上帝还是相信虚无, 公民宗教并不需要你放弃你的信仰。 它只需要你表现得是一个公民就好。
And that brings me to my second topic: how we can practice civic religion productively. Let me tell you now about that new civic ritual. It's called "Civic Saturday," and it follows the arc of a faith gathering. We sing together, we turn to the strangers next to us to discuss a common question, we hear poetry and scripture, there's a sermon that ties those texts to the ethical choices and controversies of our time, but the song and scripture and the sermon are not from church or synagogue or mosque. They are civic, drawn from our shared civic ideals and a shared history of claiming and contesting those ideals. Afterwards, we form up in circles to organize rallies, register voters, join new clubs, make new friends.
接下来进入我的第二个话题: 我们如何有效地践行公民宗教。 我来介绍一下新的公民仪式。 它叫做“公民星期六”, 它遵循着宗教集会的轨迹。 我们一起唱歌, 我们跟旁边的陌生人 讨论共同的问题, 我们听诗歌和经文, 有场布道会将这些资料 和这个时代的伦理选择 和争议联系起来, 但这些诗歌、经文和布道 并非来自基督教堂、 犹太教堂或清真寺。 它们是公民的, 源自我们共同的公民理想, 以及对这些理念的 共同宣扬和挑战的历史。 然后,我们围成一圈 组织集会,登记选民, 加入新的俱乐部,结交新朋友。
My colleagues and I started organizing Civic Saturdays in Seattle in 2016. Since then, they have spread across the continent. Sometimes hundreds attend, sometimes dozens. They happen in libraries and community centers and coworking spaces, under festive tents and inside great halls. There's nothing high-tech about this social technology. It speaks to a basic human yearning for face-to-face fellowship. It draws young and old, left and right, poor and rich, churched and unchurched, of all races. When you come to a Civic Saturday and are invited to discuss a question like "Who are you responsible for?" or "What are you willing to risk or to give up for your community?" When that happens, something moves. You are moved. You start telling your story. We start actually seeing one another. You realize that homelessness, gun violence, gentrification, terrible traffic, mistrust of newcomers, fake news -- these things aren't someone else's problem, they are the aggregation of your own habits and omissions. Society becomes how you behave.
我和同时于2016年开始在西雅图 组织公民星期六。 自那之后,它们开始 在全国传播开来。 有时候有数百人参与, 有时候几十个人。 有时候举办在图书馆和社区中心 以及共同办公空间, 或者节日帐篷和大厅里。 这种社会技术没有什么高科技可言。 它体现了人类对 面对面交流的基本渴望。 它吸引了年轻人和老人,左派和右派, 穷人和富人,传教士和非传教士, 以及各种种族。 当你参与公民星期六, 并被邀请讨论诸如 “你要对谁负责?” 或者“为了你的社区你愿意冒险 或放弃什么?”之类的问题, 这些情况发生时,事情就会发生变化。 你会被触动。 你开始讲述你的故事。 我们开始看到彼此。 你会意识到无家可归, 枪支暴力,士绅化, 糟糕的交通,对新来者 的不信任,假新闻—— 这些东西不是某个人的问题, 它们是我们习惯和疏漏的总和。 你的行为决定了社会的样子。
We are never asked to reflect on the content of our citizenship. Most of us are never invited to do more or to be more, and most of us have no idea how much we crave that invitation.
我们从来没被要求反思 我们的公民身份的内容。 我们很多人从没被邀请 去做更多或变得更多, 并且我们很多人不知道我们 有多渴望得到这样的邀请。
We've since created a civic seminary to start training people from all over to lead Civic Saturday gatherings on their own, in their own towns. In the community of Athens, Tennessee, a feisty leader named Whitney Kimball Coe leads hers in an art and framing shop with a youth choir and lots of little flags. A young activist named Berto Aguayo led his Civic Saturday on a street corner in the Back of the Yards neighborhood of Chicago. Berto was once involved with gangs. Now, he's keeping the peace and organizing political campaigns. In Honolulu, Rafael Bergstrom, a former pro baseball player turned photographer and conservationist, leads his under the banner "Civics IS Sexy." It is.
从那以后,我们创建了 一个公民神学院, 开始培训世界各地的人们, 让他们在自己的城镇 领导公民星期六的集会。 在田纳西州的雅典社区, 一位名叫惠特尼·金博尔·科 的精力充沛的领导者 在一家有青年唱诗班和许多小旗子 的艺术与装裱店领导集会。 一位名叫贝托·阿瓜约的 年轻活动人士 在芝加哥后院的一个街角 领导他的公民星期六。 贝托曾经参加过帮派。 现在,他在维护和平 和组织政治活动。 在檀香山,拉斐尔·伯格斯特罗姆, 一名前职业棒球运动员, 后来成为摄影师和环保主义者, 在“公民是性感的”的旗帜下 领导他自己的公民星期六。 它是的。
(Laughter)
(笑声)
Sometimes I'm asked, even by our seminarians: "Isn't it dangerous to use religious language? Won't that just make our politics even more dogmatic and self-righteous?" But this view assumes that all religion is fanatical fundamentalism. It is not. Religion is also moral discernment, an embrace of doubt, a commitment to detach from self and serve others, a challenge to repair the world. In this sense, politics could stand to be a little more like religion, not less.
有时候甚至我们神学院的学生也问我: “使用宗教的语言会不会危险? 这难道不会让我们的政治 更加教条和自以为是吗?” 这种观点的潜台词是,所有宗教 都是狂热的原教旨主义的。 并不是的。 宗教也是道德明辨的。 是拥抱怀疑的, 致力于放下自我并为他人服务, 接受修复世界的挑战。 在这个意义上,政治应更多像是宗教, 而非更少。
Thus, my final topic today: why civic religion matters now. I want to offer two reasons. One is to counter the culture of hyperindividualism. Every message we get from every screen and surface of the modern marketplace is that each of us is on our own, a free agent, free to manage our own brands, free to live under bridges, free to have side hustles, free to die alone without insurance. Market liberalism tells us we are masters beholden to none, but then it enslaves us in the awful isolation of consumerism and status anxiety.
因此,我今天最后一个话题是: 为什么现在公民宗教这么重要。 我想要给出两个理由。 一个是反对极端的个人主义文化。 我们从现代市场环境每个屏幕和表面 得到的每一条信息都是 我们每个人都是独立的, 自由行动, 自由管理自己的品牌, 自由生活在天桥底下, 自由做副业, 自由在没有保险的情况下孤独死去。 市场自由主义告诉我们, 我们是不受任何约束的主人, 但它却把我们束缚在 消费主义和地位焦虑 的可怕孤立之中。
(Audience) Yeah!
(观众)没错!
Millions of us are on to the con now. We are realizing now that a free-for-all is not the same as freedom for all.
数以百万的人现在明白了。 我们现在意识到 人人拥有自由并不等于 人人享有自由。
(Applause)
(鼓掌)
What truly makes us free is being bound to others in mutual aid and obligation, having to work things out the best we can in our neighborhoods and towns, as if our fates were entwined -- because they are -- as if we could not secede from one another, because, in the end, we cannot. Binding ourselves this way actually liberates us. It reveals that we are equal in dignity. It reminds us that rights come with responsibilities. It reminds us, in fact, that rights properly understood are responsibilities.
真正使我们自由的 是在互助和义务中 与他人绑在一起, 我们必须在社区和城镇里 尽我们所能把事情解决好, 就如我们的命运是交织的—— 因为它们本就如此—— 就如我们不能彼此分离, 因为最终,我们不能分离。 这样绑定我们实际上解放了我们。 它表明我们拥有平等的尊严。 它提醒我们权利伴随责任而来。 它提醒我们,实际上, 权利的正确理解就是责任。
The second reason why civic religion matters now is that it offers the healthiest possible story of us and them. We talk about identity politics today as if it were something new, but it's not. All politics is identity politics, a never-ending struggle to define who truly belongs. Instead of noxious myths of blood and soil that mark some as forever outsiders, civic religion offers everyone a path to belonging based only a universal creed of contribution, participation, inclusion. In civic religion, the "us" is those who wish to serve, volunteer, vote, listen, learn, empathize, argue better, circulate power rather than hoard it. The "them" is those who don't. It is possible to judge the them harshly, but it isn't necessary, for at any time, one of them can become one of us, simply by choosing to live like a citizen.
公民宗教现在如此重要的 第二个原因是, 它为我们和他们提供了最健康的故事。 我们今天谈论的身份政治 好像是新事物一样, 但并非如此。 所有的政治都是身份政治, 一场定义谁才是真正归属 的无休止斗争。 跟那些永远把一些人视为局外人的 关于鲜血和土地的有害神话相比, 公民宗教为每个人提供了一条 通往奉献、参与、包容的普世信念 的道路。 在公民宗教中,“我们”是那些希望服务, 自愿,投票,倾听,学习, 同情,更好地辩论的人, 将权力循环使用而不是储存起来。 “他们”是那些不这样做的人。 对他们进行严厉的批评是可能的, 但这是没有必要的, 因为在任何时候,他们都 有可能成为我们的一员, 只需要选择像公民那样生活。
So let's welcome them in. Whitney and Berto and Rafael are gifted welcomers. Each has a distinctive, locally rooted way to make faith in democracy relatable to others. Their slang might be Appalachian or South Side or Hawaiian. Their message is the same: civic love, civic spirit, civic responsibility.
所以让我们欢迎他们加入。 惠特尼、贝托和拉斐尔 是天生的欢迎者。 他们都有独特的,根植于本地的方式 去让别人对与人息息相关 的民主产生信仰。 他们的俚语可能是阿巴拉契亚语、 南区语或夏威夷语。 他们的信息是一样的: 公民之爱,公民精神,公民责任。
Now you might think that all this civic religion stuff is just for overzealous second-generation Americans like me. But actually, it is for anyone, anywhere, who wants to kindle the bonds of trust, affection and joint action needed to govern ourselves in freedom. Now maybe Civic Saturdays aren't for you. That's OK. Find your own ways to foster civic habits of the heart.
现在你可能会觉得 这些公民宗教的玩意 只适合像我这样过分 热情的二代美国人。 但实际上,它适合任何人,任何地方, 适合那些想要点燃 管理我们自由所需 的信任、情感 和共同行动的纽带的人。 也许公民星期六不适合你。 那没关系。 用你自己的方式 培养自己的公民习惯。
Many forms of beloved civic community are thriving now, in this age of awakening. Groups like Community Organizing Japan, which uses creative performative rituals of storytelling to promote equality for women. In Iceland, civil confirmations, where young people are led by an elder to learn the history and civic traditions of their society, culminating in a rite-of-passage ceremony akin to church confirmation. Ben Franklin Circles in the United States, where friends meet monthly to discuss and reflect upon the virtues that Franklin codified in his autobiography, like justice and gratitude and forgiveness.
在这个觉醒的时代,很多 受人喜爱的公民社区形式 正在蓬勃发展。 像“社区组织日本”这样的团体, 使用创造性的表演仪式来讲述故事, 去提倡女性平等。 在冰岛的公民坚信礼中, 年轻人由长辈带领 学习他们社会的历史和公民传统。 在类似于教堂确认仪式 的仪式中达到高潮。 在美国的“本·富兰克林圈”里, 人们每月定期聚会 讨论和反思富兰克林在他的自传中 编纂的美德, 如正义、感恩和宽恕。
I know civic religion is not enough to remedy the radical inequities of our age. We need power for that. But power without character is a cure worse than the disease. I know civic religion alone can't fix corrupt institutions, but institutional reforms without new norms will not last. Culture is upstream of law. Spirit is upstream of policy. The soul is upstream of the state. We cannot unpollute our politics if we clean only downstream. We must get to the source. The source is our values, and on the topic of values, my advice is simple: have some.
我知道公民宗教不足以纠正 我们这个时代的根本不平等。 我们需要权力。 但没有品格的权力比疾病更糟糕。 我知道单凭公民宗教 不能纠正腐败的制度, 但没有新规范的制度无法长久。 文化是法律的上游。 精神是政策的上游。 灵魂是国家的上游。 如果我们只清理下游,我们就 不能使我们的政治不受污染。 我们必须直击源头。 源头是我们的价值, 在价值的话题中,我的 建议很简单:得有。
(Laughter)
(笑声)
(Applause)
(鼓掌)
Make sure those values are prosocial. Put them into practice, and do so in the company of others, with a structure of creed, deed and joyful ritual that'll keep all of you coming back.
确保这些价值是亲社会的。 把它们付诸实践, 在别人的陪伴下去做, 用一种信条、实际和快乐的仪式结构 来保持你们所有人的持续。
Those of us who believe in democracy and believe it is still possible, we have the burden of proving it. But remember, it is no burden at all to be in a community where you are seen as fully human, where you have a say in the things that affect you, where you don't need to be connected to be respected. That is called a blessing, and it is available to all who believe.
对我们这些相信民主并 相信民主是可能的人而言, 我们去证明这一点有负担。 但请记住,在一个 你被视为成人的社区里, 在一个你对影响你的事情 有发言权的社区里, 在一个你不需要被连接 也能被尊重的社区里, 这根本不是什么负担。 这就是福音, 并且它属于每一个相信的人。
Thank you.
谢谢。
(Applause)
(鼓掌)