Thoughts on Obama, Conservativism, and Christianity

I commend the analysis of "big-government conservativism" in the article my friend Peter recently sent me. You'll need to read it before my following commentary will make sense.

http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2008/11/05/a-sweeping-rejection-of-president-bush/.

The evangelical church has been progressively co-opted by a political agenda that began in the 80's with the Moral Majority, spear-headed by the Christian Coalition, inflamed by Clinton and his plump mistress, and ultimately culminating in the Presidency of GWB. The agenda is quite obvious to most of us within the evangelical movement, characterized twofold by 1) voting on "moral" issues with vicious outcry against secular values and 2) blindly supporting anything Republican, blindly opposing anything Democrat...All this with the aim of reforming society from the top down. I believe that this overt political agenda has transformed the identity of the American church (which certainly includes non-evanglical sectors, but evangelicals/Catholics are by far the loudest).

Every agenda has unintended consequences. Well-intentioned goals of preserving justice for the unborn (codewords: abortion, embryonic stem cells) led to real or perceived indifference for the poor and sick (justification: unwed mothers, lazy, uninsured, poor people are that way because entitlement programs caused them to expect handouts). Indignation of a foisted homosexual agenda (codeword: gay marriage) coincided with implicit resentment for the burgeoning diversity of our country (justification: immoral lifestyles should be marginalized, illegal immigrants are using my resources, racial injustices don't really exist but are perpetuated by minorities seeking special treatment). Misguided patriotism blinded many in the church to the horrible realities of war and the church's mission to pursue peace (Justification: we have a moral obligation to kill terrorists, invade other countries as long as they pose any threat whatsoever; also, diplomacy will never work). Uninformed insistence on deregulation led to a notable disdain for environmental stewardship (Justification: tree-huggers care more about baby whales than baby humans, plus the free-market will fix any environmental problem in time). These are my observations of how a political agenda derived from an ill-suited conjugation of faith-derived values and political ideology lead to corruption of both.

The obvious objection is to assert that faith-derived values can NEVER be removed from public policy, and that's true. It's true becasue every single worldview ultimately has large elements of faith, whether atheism, deism, monotheism...There always will be a delicate balance between forced "religious" views and values that are so widespread as to be obvious - but that also just so happen to have religious sanction. An example of the former are things like prohibiting adultery, drinking alcohol, homosexuality and of the latter, things like murder, child abuse, theft.

That whole discussion of balance seems pretty irrelevant to me when talking about the Religious Right. There was never any thought about delineating the fine balance. There was never a separation of conservative/libertarian ideas from ideas that are exclusively Christian doctrine. Any areas of overlap (i.e. conservative thought and Biblical teaching both praise hard work, honesty, and moral integrity) were used, at best, as justifications for political pursuits or, at worst, as moral indictments against differing political ideaologies. Of course, any areas of dissonance had to be marginalized (i.e. the communal economy of the early Church, the Sermon on the Mount's contextualized call to nonviolence, Christ's own model of nonpolitical cultural transformation, the Pauline reminders that our citizenship is in heaven not Rome).

In the last few years, it came to be expected that an evangelical Christian would vote based on 4-5 core issues, all of them Republican. The call to make disciples came to be interpreted as the number of congressional seats that were filled by Christians. There were happy alliances made with non-Christian conservatives (hey, the enemy of my enemy is my friend). Right-wing radio and media made many Christians feel validated, hey, My team is cool too!!

And then, Bush happened. 8 years in the White House and 12 years in Congress. The article points out much of the disillusionment, some of which is Bush's fault, some of it not. All of it avoidable.


All that said, I view the Obama election with mild-optimism. No, I did not vote for him, and no, I don't think that we're nearing the end of capitalism, conscientious individualism, or faithful responses of the church to society. Far from it. Regarding our new President, he's an inspirational icon to many, and a worthy candidate who has shown exceptional campaign skills. He provides a new face to a damaged foreign reputation. He has shown no willingness to work in a bipartisan fashion, but then again, he won't have to with the sweeping majorities in Congress. Maybe he'll do okay, I hope so.

I don't think any of his policies are exceptionally innovative or subversive...They arise mostly from fairly pedestrian liberal axioms like "equal opportunity should inevitably lead to equal outcomes", "wealth redistrubution is necessary to compensate injustice", "distrust of corporate America requires more gov'tcontrol", "global warming is man-made", "personal freedom means maximum government intervention in my life except in sacred issues like abortion, sexual orientation, or any other lifestyle choice; but freedom of speech or press, religious expression, property and gun rights, and all other issues of individual autonomy specifically authorized by the Constitution are open to interpretation."

I think the Obama victory signals something bigger. I'm excited b/c in 4 years we'll be much closer to the end of what I think has been a crisis equally costly for both conservative thought and American Christianity. The two must be divorced. It will be an ugly breakup, but a desperately needed one. Neither can sustain the unhealthy relationship of the past 25 years. I have no doubt that many in the evangelical church will remain strongly conservative and strongly Christian. I myself will be one. It's time to begin to explore with new focus and vigor the conservative response to the problems of 21st America. Since I've already been using the relationship metaphor, I'll continue. Every divorce/breakup is accompanied by the disappointment of failure, the guilt of regret, as well as the excitement of a new beginning. That's the way I feel now. I don't exactly know how or where the church or the conservative movement start the process of being single again. I don't currently have the insight for that. But I think this article makes a good point: where does ideology meet reality? How can we make conservativism pragmatic? As for the church, she must begin to rediscover her identity as the Bride of Christ in a world that desperately needs redemption. One thing to say just so that I don't end on such a heavy note, I think it goes without saying that Sarah Palin (God bless her) better not run in '12.

John Tanksley