April 29, 2002
UT professor sees America becoming more reverent
___By William Bole
___Religion News Service
___WASHINGTON (RNS)--As the emotional opening ceremonies of the Olympics showed, the rituals of communal life have taken on fuller meaning in the six months since the attacks of Sept. 11. Solemn tributes to victims and an elevated esteem for the nation's flag are among signs that reverence has reappeared in America.
___While it never went away, reverence hadn't exactly been a heavy mark of culture in recent years. At times the popular sense seemed to be that anything could be ridiculed, except perhaps irreverence, which gets universal praise.
___Are Americans more reverent now, more likely to stand together in awe of things greater than themselves? That is not a simple question, in the thinking of Paul Woodruff, a philosopher at the University of Texas in Austin, who discussed the concept of reverence even before Sept. 11 in his book "Reverence: Renewing a Forgotten Virtue," published last fall.
___"The experience of facing Sept. 11 has made us more mindful of the occasions that belong to reverence," Woodruff said, referring to public gatherings as well as family rituals. He noted that most people he knows are going to church or synagogue more often, making connections with others through religious ceremonies. Pollsters aren't sure about that.
___"Certainly, 9/11 has made us more earnest. The kind of mocking attitude we've seen is gone," he added, though he says mocking things that ought to be mocked can be an act of reverence.
___At the same time, Woodruff sees signs in the opposite direction.
___He notes that in classical philosophy, reverence had to do with how leaders treat the helpless or anyone in their grasp. The contrary example he came up with in a telephone interview couldn't be more politically incorrect. As a sign of irreverence, Woodruff cited the treatment of Taliban and al-Qaeda prisoners being held at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo, Cuba.
___That aside for now, Woodruff has written his book as a philosophical meditation, not a political tract. For his definition of reverence, he went not to the dictionary, but to the writings of ancient Greek and Chinese thinkers, who had a distinct regard for reverence.
___"Reverence is the well-developed capacity to have the feelings of awe, respect and shame when these are the right feelings to have," he writes. Put more simply, reverent people have a keen sense of human limitations. They don't try to act like gods.
___"An irreverent soul is arrogant and shameless, unable to feel awe in the face of things higher than itself. As a result, an irreverent soul is unable to feel respect for people it sees lower than itself--ordinary people, prisoners, children."
___In union with the ancient Greeks, Woodruff believes people become virtuous by doing virtuous things. And so, they become reverent by engaging in acts of reverence, like taking part in meaningful ceremonies.
___As some observers have said, since Sept. 11 Americans do seem to be investing greater meaning in these ceremonies, as seen at the start of the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Games, where the tattered flag retrieved from the World Trade Center was presented, and in the half-time tribute to victims during the Super Bowl.
___Other occasions, from civic gatherings to rituals in the home, are just as important, in Woodruff's view. "They help us to understand in a deep way what our common humanity means," he said. "They counteract the strongly individualist ideology that is dominant in our time."
___Though worship is an obvious occasion of reverence, Woodruff argues religion can lead the other way too. He points to extremists and terrorists who have an excessive confidence in their ability to understand the will of God. As he sees it, such thinking is irreverent because it fails to recognize human limitations.
___"There's such a thing as religion without reverence," said Woodruff, who describes himself as a Protestant "free floater" who currently belongs to no particular denomination. "Nine-Eleven has brought an ugliness to the surface that shows the need for a more reverent approach to religion."
___The divisions revealed by the events of Sept. 11 have led to widespread pessimism about religious harmony. However, Woodruff believes religions can draw closer together through admiration of each other's sense of reverence. They can do so, he thinks, without succumbing to the relativist creed that all religions are equally valid.
___"The common ground is not going to be belief. It's not going to be practice. But it could be the reverence that goes with belief and practice," he said, citing mutual respect for prayer as one possible source of commonality.
___In the United States, much of the renewed reverence has focused on the flag as a symbol of patriotism and American ideals.
___"I'm ambivalent about that," Woodruff said. Flag waving can be a way of paying tribute to freedom, justice and other transcendent values--a very reverent thing to do, he acknowledged. "But there's something called idolatry," he added. "There's a line you cross when you treat the nation as a god."
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