“Why the World Doesn’t Need Superman, Jesus, or Even God”
By Reverend James Kubal-Komoto
Saltwater Unitarian Universalist Church
Des Moines, Washington
September 17, 2006
One of the few movies I saw this past summer was Superman Returns, the new Superman movie with Brandon Routh taking the place of the late Christopher Reeve in the role of Superman.
If you haven’t seen the movie, let me tell you a little about it. (If you’re still interested in seeing it, don’t worry. I won’t give too much away.)
Like an angst-ridden twenty-something, Superman has left earth for five years in order to fly back to Krypton, his home planet, to discover who he really is and find out if the planet really did blow up. He finds out that it did and that he is indeed its sole survivor, so he returns to earth, the only home he has ever known.
After his five year absence, however, Superman also finds out what anybody finds out after returning home after a long time away. Life has moved on without him. Even Lois Lane has moved on without him, having married and become a mother. She even has won a Pulitzer Prize for an editorial she wrote titled, “Why the World doesn’t need Superman.”
When Superman, disguised as Clark Kent, sees the title of this editorial for the first time, he feels super-unneeded and wonders whether he should have returned to earth at all. When I saw the title of this editorial, however, I was intrigued.
Unfortunately, while watching the movie, one only sees the title of the editorial and never learns exactly what it says. However, I can imagine.
I imagine it says something along the lines of, “You know, folks. It’s really up to us.” I imagine it says something about us as individual human beings and as humanity as a whole having both the responsibility and the ability to solve our own problems and not needing some man of steel to be constantly rescuing us from our problems. I imagine it says something urging people to stop depending on Superman and to start believing in themselves.
Of course, in the movie, it turns out the world does need Superman, and Superman ends up doing what he always does. Superman saves everybody. He saves Lois. He saves her new husband and her son (whose paternity turns out to be in super-doubt). He saves the world from the evil machinations of Lex Luthor.
But I still really like Lois Lane’s editorial, or at least what I imagine it to be.
What do I mean?
Well, I think Lois Lane was more or less right, and what I want to suggest for your consideration this morning is that the more we believe that we have both the responsibility and the ability to solve our own problems, both individually and as a society, the better off we will be. The more often we believe that our lives are controlled by fate or external circumstances or that our lives depend on some hero or savior or even deity to save us, the worse off we’ll be.
In other words, I want to suggest for your consideration the more often we say, “It’s up me,” as individuals or “It’s up to us,” collectively, the better off we will be.
In fact, I want to go so far as to suggest that one of the most important beliefs we can have is a belief that “it’s up to us.” I want to suggest that one of the most important beliefs we can have is a belief in our ability to control, shape, and guide our own lives, our belief in our ability to change and grow and move in new and different directions if we desire to do that.
Why would I say such a thing?
For one thing, it’s a part of our liberal religious tradition. Unlike many other religious traditions which tend to be overly focused on human limitation and have an overall negative view of human nature, the liberal religious tradition has always had a rather optimistic view of human nature.
The liberal religious tradition has never been rosy-eyed or Pollyannaish, never denying that we as human beings often make mistakes, often fall short of our ideals, and sometimes are capable of committing truly evil and horrific acts. The liberal religious tradition has never encouraged people to look at human nature through rose colored glasses. But the liberal religious tradition has always affirmed the potential of human beings, the potential of each and every one of us and all of us together. It has affirmed that through our own imagination, reason, effort, and perseverance, we have the ability to do many wonderful things.
I heard a story that summarizes this belief rather beautifully. It’s a story about a conversation that took place between a Unitarian Universalist minister and a Mormon teenager that took place when our General Assembly took place in Salt Lake City a few years ago. “What do you believe in?” the teenager asked the minister, curious about this religious group that was visiting his city. “I believe in you,” she said.
Modern psychology also tells us that it’s a good thing to believe in ourselves. Psychologists like to talk about people who have “internal locus of control” and “external locus of control,” people with an “internal local of control” being more likely to believe they control their own lives and people with an “external locus” of control being more likely to believe that their lives are controlled by external circumstances. (By the way, that’s “locus” - - L-O-C-U-S, not “locust” - - L-O-C-U-S-T. We’re not talking about having an insect inside your body.)
Study after study shows that people who believe that they possess a great deal of control over their lives do better than people who don’t.
People who believe they possess a good deal of control are happier than people who feel that they don’t. People who believe that they possess a good deal of control are less troubled by stressful events than people who don’t. People who believe that they possess a good deal of control take better care of themselves than people who don’t. People who believe they possess a good deal of control are more politically active than people who feel they don’t. People who believe that they possess a good deal of control are les likely to feel that they are - - and are less likely to become - - and are less likely to remain - - victims.
In her book, Imperfect Control, Judith Viorst cites an intriguing study which compared residents of Illinois with residents of Alabama. The study, she says, “found that those from Illinois were considerably more inclined than the Alabamians to believe that they themselves - - rather than luck or God - - controlled their destiny. Thus, when tornadoes threatened these states, the folks from Illinois were some five times more likely to take tornado precautions. Not surprisingly, the tornado deaths were higher in fatalistic Alabama than they were in masters-of-our-fate Illinois.”
Of course, like any idea, the idea that “it’s up to us” - - or especially the individual version of “it’s up to me” - - is an idea that can be taken too far.
What do I mean?
There is a strong tendency in this country for us to personalize social problems. When a company downsizes and decides to lay off thousands of people, as the Ford Motor Company announced it would do this past week, too often individuals blame themselves. I’m sure that some of those being laid off by Ford will end up saying, “This is my own fault, and it’s because I’m not good enough.” Similarly, there are too many people in this country who, as one wit said, were born on third base but think they hit a triple. Too often we minimize the privileges and advantages that some have received and downplay the disadvantages that others have faced.
There’s also a tendency among us, that I observe too often in this congregation, to wrongly confuse the idea that because we are responsible for our own lives, we can never ask for help. We wrongly equate maturity with independence, where as the truly mature person knows we are all interdependent on one another and cannot survive without each other’s help.
There are certainly also some things beyond our control that affect our lives. As the fifth anniversary of the terrorist attacks on this country were remembered this past week, we were reminded that our lives are indeed precarious and can be changed in an instant by events in which we played no part. Accidents and illness happen to us all, and I certainly do not want to suggest, as some do, that we are always somehow to blame for these.
And while we may have a great deal of ability to control, shape, and guide our own individual lives, our ability to have any sway over any one else’s life - - even over the lives of those we love the very most - - is limited at best.
Nevertheless, I still believe that believing that “our lives are up to us” is a good thing to believe.
When I reflect on my own life, I’ve learned it’s important for me to remember, the person who is most responsible for my own experience of life and my own happiness is me. Most of my experiences are a result of my thoughts, my choices, my actions, my habits. If I want almost anything to change, the bad news is that it’s only up to me to make that change happen. The good news is also that that it’s only up to me to make that change happen. And whatever happens to me in life, even if it’s something truly beyond my control, I always have the choice of how I’m going to respond.
I want to stress that the point I’m trying to make is not only that our own individual lives are up to us, but that our collective lives are up to us too, because this too, is an important part of our liberal religious tradition.
You see, for centuries and centuries, when most people reflected on the problems that humanity faced, most people assumed that these were just necessary evils, a result of the way things had always been and a result of the way things would always be, and that nothing could be done to change things. The best approach to these problems was a stoic acceptance, and if one were religious, perhaps one hoped for a better world to come.
With the rise of religious liberalism and its most optimistic understanding of human nature and human potential, however, things changed, and throughout the 19th century many religious liberals threw themselves into social reform, believing strongly that human misery caused by social injustices were not necessary evils, but challenges to be overcome. So heady were Unitarians during the 19th century that their rallying cry was “onward and upward forever,” believing in the possibility of continual human progress toward a better and better society.
Optimism about the improvability of human society was dampened considerably by War World I. Never in human history had there been death and destruction on such a massive scale. This was a low point of religious liberalism in the United States. World War II and the horrors that accompanied it made many people even more doubtful of the optimism they once held.
While we may not be quite as optimistic as our 19th century forefathers and foremothers, optimism about humanity’s potential to solve its problems remains an important part of our shared liberal religious values today. And as difficult as it may be to do so in the face of all the problems that we face as a I world, I want to further suggest for your consideration this morning, that holding onto this optimism and sharing it may be more important today than at any other time in human history.
What do I mean?
Well, let me tell you about a second movie I saw this past summer, An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore’s documentary about global warming. To be honest, I avoided seeing this movie for a long time because I didn’t want to deal with thinking about global warming. However, I’m glad I did eventually see it. As soon as possible, we’re going to show it here at this church.
I didn’t learn a lot of new information watching this film, but having it presented all at once helped reinforce for me the seriousness and the urgency of the problem our world is facing. It helped convince me that global warming may be the most serious problem our world faces today.
If you haven’t seen this movie yet, in the movie, Al Gore, slowly, steadily, and carefully makes the case for global warming. He makes the case that without any doubt, human activity is the main cause of recent increases in global temperatures and that unless something is done within the next ten years, our planet may reach a sort of tipping point, in which global warming causes irreversible and catastrophic changes to our planet’s environment.
This morning, I don’t want to talk about all of the arguments about the reality of global warming, the scientific consensus that it exists. I don’t want to talk about the dire predictions about what will happen if global warming continues.
I only want to focus on one thing Gore says during the movie.
A problem in the way some people think about global warming, Gore says, “is the dangerous misconception that if it really is as big a threat as the scientists are telling us it is, then maybe we’re helpless to do anything about it so we might as well throw up our hands.”
“An astonishing number of people,” he says, “go straight from denial to despair, without pausing on the intermediate step of saying, ‘We can do something about this!”
And Gore makes the point that it’s not too late for humanity to do something about global warming, referring to two economists at Princeton University who conclude in a respected study of policies that can help us solve the climate crisis, “Humanity already possesses the fundamental scientific, technical, and industrial know-how to solve the carbon and climate problems for the next half-century.”
“Ultimately, the question comes down to this,” Gore says. “Are we, as Americans capable of doing great things, even though they might be difficult? Are we capable of transcending our own limitations and rising to take responsibility for charting our own destiny?”
Gore gives several examples in the past of American history suggesting we can: “We fought a revolution and brought forth a new nation, based on liberty and individual dignity,” he says. “We made a moral decision that slavery was wrong, and that we could not be half-free and half-slave,” he says. “We recognized women should have the right to vote,” he says. “We won two wars against fascism simultaneously, in the Atlantic and Pacific and then we won the peace that followed,” he says. “We cured fearsome diseases like polio and smallpox, improved the quality of life, and extended our lifetimes,” he says. “We took on the moral challenge of desegregation and passed civil rights laws to remedy injustice against minorities,” he says. “We landed on the Moon - - one of the most inspiring examples of what we can do when we put our minds to it,” he says.
“We have even solved a global environmental crisis before,” he says, referring to the successful efforts to reduce the size of the hole in the ozone layer.
Essentially, Gore is making the same point that I think Lois Lane was trying to make in her editorial and the same point that our liberal religious tradition makes: “It’s all up to us.”
The bad news is that nobody is going to save us. Not Superman, not Jesus (Jesus only pointed the way), and if there is a God in this universe, it is certainly a God who works through human minds, human hearts, and human hands. The good news is that we do have the ability to solve the problems of our world.
Here is my hope for us this morning. May this congregation be a place that celebrates and extols the potential within each one of us and the potential of all humanity to create better lives for us all.
So may it be. Amen.