God and The President: Faith, Politics, and Election 2004
Given by James Covington on October 24th, 2004
Someone approached me after last Sunday’s sermon and asked, “Jim, are you alright? Do you really think things are that bad?” He was referring to the sermon and possibly a couple of others over the last few weeks where I suppose I have expressed a certain amount of dismay and concern about our present political situation. The question took me aback somewhat. While I admit I have expressed my concerns and criticisms of the present state of political affairs, I hope I have not caused alarm that I might be on the verge of a break-down! Or even that I am an interminable pessimist.
I like to think of myself as a true patriot, using the opportunity of a free pulpit, to speak not only to those matters that are right and good about my country, but also address those matters that strike me as wrong that need to be made right.
My mission as a minister is to take up the prophetic role which has been bequeathed to me by those prophets of the human spirit who have dared speak truth to power.
“But.” you may say, “Enough already! We are inundated with politics. Let’s keep politics out of Sunday worship. That’s the one place where I can escape politics!” I understand that sentiment. But we’ve had plenty of Sunday worship without politics involved and we will have more. But the fact remains, this world is political. And if religion is that core of meanings and values out of which one lives one’s life, then how we act as citizens is informed by how we understand the meanings of our lives and the values that inform and guide them. This attitude undergirds our democracy. Politics, understood for what it really is today has to do with the decisions people make which determine how they shall live and how they shall die. Politics is the locale of both evil and of good. If you do not get the church into politics, you cannot confront evil and you cannot work for good.
The beloved community of justice and love is not an ethereal fellowship that is above the conflicts and turmoil of the world. Freedom requires a body as well as a spirit. We live not by spirit alone. As James Luther Adams, our foremost 20th century theologian once said: “A purely spiritual religion is purely spurious religion.”
Henry David Thoreau was once warned there were two things of which he shouldn’t speak on his lecture tours: politics and religion. Replied Thoreau sadly, with a shrug of his shoulders, “I can’t speak of anything else.” Nor can I.
The Hebrew prophets from Amos to Jesus thought that they were the “mouthpieces of God.” God “had whispered in their pearly ears.” God has not seen fit to whisper in mine. I do indeed see through a glass darkly. I could be wrong about all of this. Maybe the increasing gap between rich and poor is inevitable or just; perhaps poverty in the midst of plenty is a good and necessary thing; perhaps the earth exists as a mine to be exploited rather than as a garden to be tended. I don’t know for sure. I can only speak and act on what I believe to be good and true and just. You must make up your own minds.
As it became apparent last Sunday in the discussion following my sermon, we are not all on the same page in this congregation when it comes to politics and economics, or even theology in some instances. That doesn’t matter to me. I welcome diversity of opinion as long as we listen and respond thoughtfully and respectfully to each other. As Eddie Fried said so eloquently at the 9 am service, “The better we understand those sitting in the pew next to us, the more likely we can deal with the profound differences in our country and our world. Let’s start by making everyone feel welcome in our congregation.” And I would heartily say amen to that.
Having said that, I do wish I could exude a little more cheers from this pulpit today. At the risk perhaps of appearing dysfunctional and depressed, I am deeply worried about the fate of our country and the world it inhabits. Everyone should be concerned.
One of the most alarming articles I have read about this present administration is the one by Ron Suskind in The New York Sunday Times Magazine last week, where Mr. Suskind addresses the so-called “faith-based presidency of George W. Bush. He writes about it in a non-flattering way, asserting that when Mr. Bush makes “a decision, often swiftly, based on a creed or moral position—he expects complete faith in its rightness… A writ of infallibility.” And so it goes. There were so many disturbing assertions and descriptions in that article, I felt chilled by the end of it.
Now I have not been one to swallow every journalistic diatribe against Bush as true. I have despaired of character assassinations and employment of half-truths by both parties in this election. But this essay, by a respected former reporter of the Wall Street Journal has deeply disquieted me.
The understanding of religion this political season has unfortunately been confined to a very narrow range of personal moral issues—abortion, gay marriage and stem-cell research—and is rarely applied to the wider concerns of religion with poverty, peace and justice. On NPR recently, there was an interview with a woman in her 70’s, a “swing voter in West Virgina, who had voted in every election since she was 21 years old. But this time, she felt more conflicted than ever. She told the NPR reporter that she thinks the war in Iraq was a mistake and is turning into a real mess. “We shouldn’t have gone to Iraq,” she said. “I feel Bush took us into that.” But, she said, she likes the way he talks about his Christianity and brings his faith into “what he’s doing.” On the other hand, we have lost so many jobs in West Virginia, she said, and that leans her away from the president again. But she’s with him on gay marriage and abortion. Her conflict exemplifies both the policy and cultural issues that define this campaign.
The fact remains that we are very polarized in this country. The electorate is split half and half, for the 2nd election in a row. Historically, that is extraordinary. How can we account for this? Can half the people be wrong and the other half right?
By the way, David Brooks, that conservative columnist for the New York Times writes in yesterday’s paper about this divide as tribal in nature, and based on the kind of leader we want. Republicans want a strong straight-talking man of faith, not too introspective, but with a clear vision of our country’s role in the wider world. The president is elevated above the norm. Democrats want a leader who is informed, thoughtful, conversational and more inclusive. Interesting. It leads me to what troubles me about this election.
There are two issues in this election year that most tug at my heart and worry my conscience as it is informed by my own beliefs and values. The first is poverty and the second is the Bush theocracy.
In regard to the first, stated simply, I believe other priorities were just more important to the Bush administration than poverty reduction. Tax cuts that mostly benefited the wealthy were more important, the war in Iraq was more important, and homeland security was more important without the key recognition of how poverty, despair, family instability, and social disintegration undermine our national security. If Bush wants to emphasize a “faith-based” administration, then he needs to see that a budget based on a windfall of benefit for the wealthy and harsh cuts for poor families and children is an unbiblical budget. It is hard to understand President Bush’s choice of Christ as his favorite philosopher, given Jesus’ words against wealth. Huge tax cuts for the wealthy and the denial of child tax credits for the poor in the recent $150 billion tax cut defy comprehension. Yet where is the outcry at this injustice? Not from the mighty pulpits of the religious right, but right here in this modest pulpit of the religious left.
The good people who have run the White House faith-based office were clearly not the ones making policy and budget decisions for the Bush administration. One result of the lack of White House leadership has been the steady rise of the number of people, families, and children living in poverty in each of the last three years, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. And that is a religious issue, not just a political one.
But an emerging “Bush theocracy” and its application to the president’s war policy, has for me become the primary issue in this election campaign. The elevated presidency that Brooks describes above that some Republicans prefer has its perils. This, by the way, is also the concern among many, many other ethicists, certainly, more informed than I. At a widely publicized meeting of then-governor Bush with a group of Christian evangelical ministers, he was quoted as saying “I believe that God wants me to be president.” Since the unfortunate labeling of the War on Terror as a “crusade,” a term repeated in a recent campaign letter, the President has taken great pains to affirm separation of church and state. But the religious right, led by Tom Delay have named George W. Bush as “God’s candidate” in this election and proclaimed that real Christians can only vote for him. That is the makings of a Bush theocracy.
If Bush and the religious right want to get Biblical about things, then the words of Jesus, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God,” are not only challenging, they are daunting. The hardest saying of Jesus and perhaps the most controversial in our post 9-11 world must be: “Love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you.”
First, we see an emerging “theology of war,” emanating from the highest circles of the U.S. government. Second, we hear, with growing frequency, the language “righteous empire” being employed by those same political leaders. Third, we observe a presidential talk of “mission” and even “divine appointment” of the United States and its leaders to lead “the war on terrorism” and “rid the world of evil,” in ways that confuse the roles of God, church, and nation.
The issue here is not partisan politics, and there are no easy political solutions. The governing party has increasingly struck a religious tone in an aggressive foreign policy that is much more nationalist than Christian, while the opposition party has offered more confusion than clarity.
The issue here is the danger of political idolatry. The other issue is the use of the politics of fear, which is a dangerous basis for foreign policy. Such political idolatry at the highest levels of American political power, combined with effective campaigns of fear that too easily co-opt anxious people—believers and unbelievers alike—could together lead our nation and our world to decades of pre-emptive, unilateral, and virtually endless war, despite the clear warnings of Christian ethics. A biblical theology is being replaced by a nationalist religion. God and religion are being used as pawns in this political campaign. Republicans went so far as to ask “friendly” churches for membership lists to compare them with voting lists, a practice that brought a warning from the IRS as well as some evangelicals. Dick and Lynn Cheney had the following words inscribed on their Christmas cards last year: “If a sparrow cannot fall without his knowledge, can an empire rise without his aid?” To me, that is very scary.
Again, if this administration wants to appear Biblical I suggest it consider the following:
1. Christ pronounces, at least, a presumption against war. The words of Jesus stand as a virtual roadblock to any nation’s pretension to easily rationalize and religiously sanctify the preference for war. Jesus’ instruction to be “peacemakers” leads either to nonviolent alternatives to war or, at least, a rigorous application of the church principles of “just war.” The threat of terrorism alone does not overturn Christian ethics.
2. Again, based on what I learned in seminary about the Christian faith, Christ commands us to not only see the splinter in our adversary’s eye but also the beams in our own. To name the face of evil in the brutality of terrorist attacks is appropriate theology, but to say “they are evil and we are good” is bad theology which can lead to dangerous foreign policy. Self-reflection should provide no excuses for terrorist violence, but it is crucial to defeating the terrorists’ agenda.
3. Christ instructs us to love our enemies, which does not mean a submission to their hostile agendas or domination, but does mean treating them as human beings also created in the image of God and respecting their human rights as adversaries and even as prisoners. There seems to be no attempt to understand the larger context of the hatred for America by Muslim fanatics. Our nation does not understand how threatening is the spread of western technology and culture through the Arab/Islamic world, undermining the values of a primarily agrarian and traditional society.
4. Christ calls us to confession and humility, which does not allow us to say that if persons and nations are not in support of all of our policies, they must be “with the evil-doers.” One of the most troubling aspects of the Bush administration and pointedly addressed by Suskind is the ever popular “Bush certitude.”
Abraham Lincoln clearly understood the need for humility in high places. Speaking to a group of ministers about the Civil War in 1862 he said:
“I am approached with the most opposite opinions and advice, and that by religious men who are equally certain that they represent the divine will. I hope it will not be irreverent for me to say that if it is probable that God would reveal his will to others, on a point so connected with my duty, it might be supposed that he would reveal it directly to me… These are not, however, the days of miracles… I must study the plain, physical facts of the case, ascertain what is possible, and learn what appears to be wise and right.”
But these are not exclusively Christian principles. The Torah holds that “he who turns away from a stranger might as well turn away from the most high God.” And the Qu’ran echoes, “Allah put different peoples on this earth not that they might despise one another, but that they might come to know one another and cherish one another.”
But more important, thesee are human values known intuitively by all, religious or atheist, as instructions for the common good. Religion should not be a weapon in the arsenal of a political campaign. Religion is more than mere piety - more than a matter of the heart. It is also a matter of the head. Religious convictions ought to help shape our attitudes and behaviors in every dimension of our lives. When it comes to religion and politics - political philosophy ought to grow out of one’s fundamental religious values. They ought not to be separated.
But there is a “crucial difference between permitting religious dogma to dictate political decisions and allowing moral considerations to inform and guide public policy.” Theocracy is the result of the former; democracy of the latter.
Protestant theologian Karl Barth once said that a Christian should keep the Bible in one hand and the daily newspaper on the other. Whether or not one is a Christian, citizens and politicians do need to apply their fundamental religious values to social problems. It is not enough to flout the Bible; our politicians ought to take time to read it and discern the “weightier matters of the law.” God is neither Republican nor Democrat. It is presumptuous of any politician or citizen to claim God’s preference.
Now we seem to be content with the words with which nearly every political speech ends, “God bless America,” as if we were the apple of God’s eye. It has become the obligatory conclusion of nearly every speech by a presidential candidate - a kind of mantra that has been trivialized - like “have a nice day.” Given the revelations of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, the tragic consequences of the war in Iraq and increasing inequality at home, I can’t imagine God is very happy with America right now.
God is not voting this November. We are. May our votes be faith-ful. And good luck to us all.