December 1, 2012

The role of religion in the election

What role did religion play in the recent political campaign. It seemed far less important than we might have expected. Given the significant slice of the population made up of evangelical Christians, we have been left to wonder what happened to the social issues they had continually raised. While they played a heavy-handed part in the devastating Republican primaries, they all but disappeared in the general campaign. If they were mentioned in the debates or the ads, I missed it. Mitt Romney’s lurch to the center during the last weeks, all but seem to abandon his far right religious constituency. Or did it? My guess is he rightly assumed that their support was already secure, and that the center provided the only fertile electoral ground. But why didn’t the Christian right scream in pain at their abandonment? What happened to their religious fervor?

Until recently, one of our major fears was that these right-wing religionists would take over the GOP. Barry Goldwater once remarked,
“Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the party, and they’re sure trying to do so, it’s going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can‘t and won’t compromise. I know. I’ve tried to deal with them.”

So what happened? One theory is that their power had already passed its “use-by” date.” The evangelicals were already a diminishing contingent in American culture. Billy Graham and Pat Robertson were passé. Jerry Falwell had gone to his reward. The moral majority and its successors were no more. While all that may be true, in the red states,as well as in much of the rest of the county, very conservative Christians still constituted a significant population.

Nevertheless their substantial numbers never left Romney. Why? I believe there is a reason for the silence. I find the clue in the candidacy of a committed Mormon. If most evangelical Christians had formerly been sure of anything, it was that Mormonism was a heresy—probably a non-Christian cult. Five years ago Amy Sullivan, editor of the of the Washington Monthly, wrote,
“Moderate Republicans aren't the ones who could derail a Romney (2008)candidacy. His obstacle is the evangelical base--a voting bloc that now makes up 30 percent of the Republican electorate. It is hard to overestimate the importance of evangelicalism in the modern Republican Party, and it is nearly impossible to overemphasize the problem evangelicals have with Mormonism. Evangelicals don't have the same vague anti-LDS prejudice that some other Americans do. For them it's a doctrinal thing, based on very specific theological disputes. Romney's journalistic boosters either don't understand these doctrinal issues or try to sidestep them. But ignoring them won't make them go away. To evangelicals, Mormonism isn't just another religion. It’s a cult.”

There is no indication that Mitt was abandoned by the evangelicals for doctrinal reasons. They hung with him in spite of his “cultic” identity. Here is my conclusion. For most evangelicals, religion may only be a screen behind which they hide. Their real commitment is to a radically conservative social philosophy. Religion may serve that purpose, but when push comes to shove, right-wing politics trumps religious fervor.

One sees behind this pious screen a substantial dose of racism, classism, xenophobia, nationalism, a trust in guns and their accompanying violence—and a series of other convictions buried in right-wing causes. None of these things naturally flow from the Christian affirmation. These hard right sociological concerns, not Christian faith, may be at the core of the identity of many Christian fundamentalists. So what they knew to be a cultic candidate was simply put aside because he and his Party represented far more important commitments. Religion didn’t really matter.

How conservative Christianity managed to migrate from doctrine to right-wing social theory still puzzles me. But that is a subject for a future post.

November 26, 2012

Hope!

In the Christian calendar, the four Sundays prior to Christmas are celebrated as “Advent.” The word means, coming into place”, or “anticipation.” While each of the Sundays has its own theme, the basic concern of this traditional season is “hope.” Hope is distinguished from optimism, which denotes only a happy attitude no matter what is happening.

Hope is what the slaves held onto when they sang, “Sweet low sweet chariot, comin for to carry me home”—meaning the underground railroad. Their hope was that another group of Christians, basically in the north, were not like their masters who also claimed to be followers of Jesus. That hope held them together until freedom finally came. Hope is the conviction that written into the substance of things is that energy which drives all of creation up through the hard realities. It is not just that things will be all right, but that there is written into the heart of all things an impulse for what is noble. It is what gave life meaning to Anne Frank who wrote, “Despite all that has happened, I still believed in the goodness of people.”

At the funeral of his brother, the great atheistic lecturer Robert Ingersoll said, “hope sees a star, and listening love can hear the rustle of a wing.” Christians believe that there is that positive impulse which relates everything to everything else, and that there is a benevolent will in all of us—theist and atheist alike—and in all creation. It is that which causes us to reach into the future and being back into the present what we hope for. It is what the prophet Micah said when he held that the day would come when warriors would “beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks.“ An early Christian held that there were only three things that held life together---“faith, hope and love.” Whatever your basic convictions are, for me these are enough to hold onto no matter what.

November 12, 2012

What are "Biblical Values"?

Now that the election is over, most of us on DU having worked hard to secure the victory, we can step back and look critically at just what happened—for good and ill. Among the ill is the following.

Billy Graham is a respected evangelical who has helped millions of people turn their lives around. He, however, has gotten into trouble with a proclivity to seek the ear of powerful political figures. His support of Nixon was disastrous for him and for authentic religion. He has also suffered from a constricted notion of Christian ethics, which he has reduced to sexual concerns. The Sunday before the recent election, full-page Graham endorsements appeared in newspapers around the country in which he made both mistakes. They were clearly in support of Romney and aimed at encouraging voters to get behind a variety of fundamentalist candidates. It would be interesting to discover just who put this aged man up to it.

Graham’s point was that voters should support those candidates who hold what he called “Biblical values.” He, or whoever wrote the ad, went on to define that term. It had to do with two sexual issues, abortion and gay marriage.

So how do the Scriptures deal with those matters? The only thing the Bible says about abortion is a formula describing how to produce one! (Numbers chapter 5) As for marriage only being between one man and one woman, the Bible is replete with polygamous references. Solomon, for one, had seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines.

The Bible is clear that sexual acts in which the powerful dominate the weak—such as grown men sexually abusing little boys, or men abusing women—is immoral. But there is nothing in all the Bible which condemns relationships based on love between two persons of the same sex. After a long intimate relationship, David says of his friend Jonathan, “your love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women.” (2 Samuel 1:26)

The notion that morality is just about sex is a misreading of the basic thrust of the biblical imperative.

Caring for the poor—that’s a Biblical value.
Feeding the hungry—that’s a Biblical value.
Welcoming the stranger—that’s a Biblical value.
Taking in the left out—that’s a Biblical value.
Forgiving one’s enemies—that’s a Biblical value.
Making Peace—that’s a Biblical value.
Insuring justice for the oppressed—that’s a Biblical value.
Leveling the economic playing field—that’s a Biblical value.
Freeing prisoners—that’s a Biblical value.
Sharing resources—that’s a Biblical value.
Caring for the earth—that’s a Biblical value.
Faithful relationships—that’s a Biblical value.
Joyful sexuality—that’s a Biblical value.
Living healthy lives—that’s a Biblical value.
Offering tribute to Caesar and to God—that’s a Biblical value.
And much more.

To reduce Biblical morality to certain sexual matters is a serious distortion of what historically religions have held to be important. The larger notion of what makes for faithful living is detailed throughout the Biblical witness. There is no better statement than the way Jesus identified the substance of the commandments. Love God and love one another. It is even more explicit in his first sermon, as he outlined the nature of his ministry.

“The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has send me to proclaim release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free and to proclaim that this is the hour God has chosen.”
(Luke 4:18-19)

Religion at its best is always joined by the non-religious who have similar notions of what is right and good. This ethic is written in the hearts and minds of all those who seek the common good—religious and non-religious alike. For all the good Billy Graham might have done, he and fundamentalists like him have missed what value-based life is all about. And the ethical heart of the Bible provides a sound basis for faithful value-based living.