Healthy Liberal Christianity looks at Religion in Political Discourse

Well, the big news these days is John McCain’s selection of Governor Sarah Palin as his vice-presidential running mate. At this point it will be no surprise to you to hear that I get upset when any politician uses over-simplified moralistic stances to determine public policy. So, I’m pretty suspicious when a stance about abortion, to say nothing about gun ownership, seems to be the most significant qualification for a nominee for vice-president. I am not about to go into a diatribe about Governor Palin, but I want to consider when and how religious concerns can, and perhaps should, be included in governmental policy deliberations.

Let me begin by noting that the religious (social) conservatives seem to be thrilled with the selection of Gov. Palin. Why is that, do you think? It’s largely because she stands against abortion “in word and deed.” Why “pro-lifers” also tend to be “pro-gun” mystifies me, but her NRA membership seems to be the icing on the cake for religious conservatives.

I need to distinguish two different kinds of positions that religious discourse can take. One is essentially moralistic and individualistic and the other is ethical and community-based. I make this distinction for the sake of clarity, with the qualification that decisions made in real life are always more complex than the principles that affect those decisions.

Let’s look at the abortion question for a moment. According to my observations, the two sides in the debate about abortion have never been talking about the same thing. The main principle of the “Pro-life” group is that the sacredness of life makes any abortion automatically wrong. (By the way, I get very confused when the same people who are fanatically anti-abortion seem to be just as fanatical about the right to own a gun or go to war!!) They consistently try to paint the opposing side as favoring abortion. Nothing could be further from the truth. For those on the “Pro-choice” side, the issue has never been about abortion, per se. The ethical issue has to do with how the decision is made – and that includes who has the power (and the responsibility) to make a decision about what to do with a troublesome pregnancy. In other words, is it appropriate expect a woman to be able to make a truly good decision (and are we willing to make supportive resources available to her), or must we take a more patronizing attitude and legislate what her decision must be?

Both sides of the abortion/choice argument are based in religious terms. One side says that abortion is always wrong. The other side says that when abortion is criminalized, it is only the non-rich who suffer. The rich seem always to find a way around inconvenient laws. Furthermore, the “Pro-choice” argument includes concerns for the health of the whole family and for the quality of life that a particular family can provide for growing children. From my biased perspective, it seems that the “Pro-life” position is deemed null and void after the child is born.

I must say, parenthetically, that the term “Pro-choice” is misleading. It seems to say, “I should be able to do whatever I want, and it should be nobody else’s business." This plays right into the belief of the religious conservatives that liberals don’t want any limits at all. They just want to do what they want to do. In reality, the difference in the two positions are more like “Pro-fetus-Life” versus“Pro-growing-and-developing-person-family-and-community-Life.”

For me it comes down to a choice between the imposition of a particular moralistic stance versus the broad development of a “just community." Or in other terms, “Don’t ever have an abortion” versus “We will work together to create a community of justice that both respects the abilities of men and women alike to make difficult moral/ethical decisions, and at the same time addresses issues of inequality of wealth, privilege, and resources, that in the long run will make the choice to abort a pregnancy much less necessary for anyone.”

With that last sentence, I realize once again, that it is always much more difficult to put ethical principles into simple language than it is to create moralistic “sound-bites.”

In his book, God’s Politics, Evangelical conservative and social progressive, Jim Wallis argues that the oldest and most frequent statement of the responsibility inherent in the religious life is “justice and how we take care of the poor and disenfranchised among us." It is completely unethical, if not cruel, to create a society that favors the rich, and then criticize the poor for not being moral enough! The Old Testament prophets railed against that position; Jesus railed against that position; and Healthy Liberal Christianity rails against it, too. The United Church of Christ has a long history of advocating for the needs of the poor and disenfranchised against unjust systems.

Religious perspectives will always be present in political discourse, whether they are specifically identified as such or not. So, I invite you always to ask the question, “Is a particular religious perspective primarily a moralistic demand for someone else to behave in a certain way, or is it an ethical principle that will affect the quality of life for all people in the broader community?”

Religious discourse that questions the basic fairness in a cultural/economic system will always be appropriate in the political realm and has the potential of creating a healthier community. Religious discourse that addresses a particular moralistic behavior without the context of the wider good does not belong in the political realm because it can only be divisive and it tends to support unjust systemic inequalities.

What do you think?

Wayne
“Our faith is 2000 years old, our thinking isn’t.”
The United Church___of Christ