Subject: (1 of 3) One Lord, one faith, one voice?. Date: Fri, 19 Sep 1997 11:34:39 From: oclc-fs@oclc.org (First Search Mail) To: ------------------------------------------------------------ PLEASE DO NOT REPLY OR SEND MESSAGES TO THIS EMAIL ADDRESS. ------------------------------------------------------------ One Lord, one faith, one voice?. Cromartie, Michael. Citation: Christianity Today. v40 (Oct. 7 '96), 1996. pp. 34-43. Number: BRDG96058627. ISSN: 0009-5753 Copyright: The magazine publisher is the copyright holder of this article and it is reproduced with permission. Further reproduction of this article in violation of the copyright is prohibited.. When the Christian Coalition held its first rally in Orlando in 1989, the organization boasted 5,000 members and the rally drew 600 supporters. Today, little more than six years after its inception, the coalition numbers 1.6 million members and supporters, includes 2,000 local chapters, and distributes 33 million voter guides. In his book Active Faith, founder Ralph Reed writes that the Christian Coalition is a "middle class, highly educated suburban phenomenon of baby-boomers with children who are motivated by their concerns about family" and has "normalized a religious impulse that has heretofore been treated as abnormal.". But others in the Christian community might interject: That depends upon what you mean by "normalize" and "impulse." Tony Campolo, professor of sociology at Eastern College (St. Davids, Penn.), has said that "the people who make up this group represent only a minority of the Christian community." To counter the perception that the coalition is the sole voice for the believing community in the political arena, Campolo, along with other colleagues who do not identify themselves as part of the Religious Right, launched in late 1995 an organization known as the Call for Renewal. The Call mounted its campaign both to dissent publicly from the coalition's policies and perceived allegiances and to develop "a new way" for Christians to engage in politics. Despite both of these activist impulses, Charles Colson, one-time political insider and leading Christian voice on things cultural and political, expresses concern that the day may be fast approaching when Christians, Left or Right, might not have a voice in the political conversation at all. He wrote in CT last April 29: "Christians joining the abortion debate are denounced as 'illegitimate political participants ... in the sense of operating outside the rules of the political system. Christians are becoming outcasts.". CHRISTIANITY TODAY felt the time had come to bring this cacaphony of voices together and try to move the discussion on the role of Christians in politics into new territory. In the spirit of unity, reconciliation, and accountability, we invited Christian leaders Ralph Reed, executive director of the Christian Coalition; Tony Campolo, sociologist, activist, author, speaker, and personal friend to President Clinton; and Charles Colson, founder of Prison Fellowship and Nixon White House insider, to join us in a forum to discuss the concerns raised on these and other fronts. Have political allegiances overridden the concern for a unified Christian witness? Can a distinction be made between those issues that Christians are compelled to address as a matter of conscience over against issues that arise out of political philosophy? Where should Christians agree and assert a unified voice? Michael Cromartie, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C., and director of the center's Evangelical Studies Project, moderated the discussion, which included this joke from Tony Campolo: "Somebody is drowning 100 yards off shore. A Republican throws out 50 yards of rope and says, 'We've done our part, you have to do yours. A Democrat throws out 200 yards of rope and drops his end.". POLITICIZED EVANGELICALSRecently the director of the Pew Resource Center said, "The conservatism of white evangelicals is the most powerful political force in the country today." The center released a survey in June that found evangelicals had increased their strength to 23 percent of the electorate, up from 19 percent in 1987. What is the reason for this? Ralph Reed: If anything, the Pew Foundation study understates the size of the constituency. They assume equal turnout across the board. If you take "likely" or "actual" voters, in 1992 it was 24 percent of the electorate; in 1994 it was 33 percent. It is the largest, the most dynamic, the most vibrant, and the most transformational force in American politics today. This constituency was engaged in a self-imposed act of retreat from the political culture for three generations. Now it feels that the social pathologies have become so threatening to their families, their children, their churches, and their synagogues that they feel that they can't not be involved. It is no longer a choice; it is an obligation. There's another part of that Pew study that is equally fascinating. If you look at the 1987 data, this constituency was about one-third Republican, one-third Democrat, one-third Independent. Today it is 42 percent Republican, 19-20 percent Democrat, and 25-30 percent Independent. This is the most significant movement of a constituency--remember these people voted over-whelmingly for Jimmy Carter in 1976--since the African-American vote switched from Republican to Democrat between 1932 and 1936. Finally, they feel that the national Democratic party--and I want to emphasize the national Democratic party, because at the state and local level there is still a lot of involvement--is insensitive to, and in some cases hostile to, their values, their views, their faith, and religion as a political force. Chuck Colson: I think the 23 or 24 percent figure is grossly exaggerated. It all depends on how you define evangelical. If you take "evangelical" as meaning someone reacting against the moral decline in America, 24 percent might be a realistic figure. If you look at (George) Barna's data, which tries to determine who are serious Christians, that number shrinks appreciably. Clearly there's an emerging political movement on the Right of people who listen to Rush Limbaugh and have a knee-jerk reaction to the political agenda. It defines a political phenomenon that is occurring, but I don't think it defines the church or is a fair measure of the church. Why it is happening seems very clear: People are reacting against the law being uprooted from its moral base in areas that are important to them, if only symbolically, like the right of voluntary student-led prayer. Tony Campolo: The evangelical fundamentalism that I grew up in was politically inactive, and what stirred this sleeping giant was the abortion issue. I believe another reason evangelicals have become active politically is because of Ralph Reed and the Christian Coalition. Whether or not you agree with their positions, all of us as evangelicals have to be grateful to the coalition for raising political concerns as genuine religious concerns--that politics is far too serious a business to be left to politicians. TOBACCO AND GAMBLINGTony, has the Democratic party been insensitive to the concerns of many evangelicals, as Ralph said? Campolo: The Democratic party has got to do some good housecleaning of its value system. It made a big mistake in its last convention in not letting (Pennsylvania's pro-life governor) Bob Casey speak. And at this convention they're not going to make that mistake. Tony Hall (D-Ohio) is leading a coalition of 40 Democrats in Congress who are going to have their say. But the reason some of us have organized the Call for Renewal as an alternative to the Christian Coalition is because we feel that the Christian Coalition has become too closely allied with the Republican party. We're talking about perception in the general society. I believe that if you were to ask people, they would say that evangelical Christianity equals Republicanism. We felt that it was time for a group to stand up and say it doesn't necessarily equal Republicanism, even though on many issues we would support the Republican agenda. But I think that the Republicans are also insensitive to a large number of concerns of evangelicals. For instance, I think that political considerations have led the Christian Coalition to ignore environmental issues as a concern of Christians. Also, the Republican party has gotten in bed with the tobacco industry, and we don't feel that the Christian Coalition has been sufficiently negative on this issue. We feel they ought to be raising questions about people like Jesse Helms, who took $77,000 last year from the tobacco lobby. Here is an industry that, if we are pro-life, we have to be against. ARE YOU SAYING THAT ABORTION AND SMOKING ARE MORALLY EQUIVALENT?Campolo: I would not, because at least the people who kill themselves with cigarette smoking do exercise some degree of choice. But one would argue that an industry that chooses to make people addicts before the age of 12 has a lot to answer for. We are appalled by an industry that destroys 450,000 Americans and a million people worldwide every year. And we would call upon our brothers and sisters in the coalition to join us in the opposition to the cigarette industry even as I would hope you would call us to join you on the abortion concern. But it should be noted that 84 cents out of every dollar contributed by the tobacco industry for political campaigns goes to Republican candidates. Colson: This year. Not last year or the year before. Factual precision here. While Bob Dole is hung with the tobacco industry because of some, I think, ill-advised statements, we ought to point out that the tobacco money has been spread around generously in both parties. So a plague on both your houses. Reed: Tobacco is one of about three major issues that I would cite where we strenuously disagree with the national Republican party and have made it clear in public statements. We will be supporting legislation that will force this industry to be more responsible and that will protect children. The second issue I would mention where we clearly disagree with the national Republican party, and for that matter the Democratic party, is the issue of gambling. Bob Dole has taken in excess of $400,000 in gambling money. The Republican National Committee has taken in in excess of a million, as has Bill Clinton. I've not heard a figure of prominence on the Religious Left criticize this administration for having done so. I have criticized both the RNC and the Dole campaign for taking that money. So our agenda is not a partisan agenda. There will be times when we will have to take on the Republican party as well. We're willing to do it. But where were my liberal friends in the Christian community when Surgeon General Jocelyn Elders was calling for the legalization of drugs? She was using the bully pulpit of her office to advocate activity by young people--sexually and in terms of drugs--that is clearly destructive to children. Campolo: What I hope comes out of this is a meeting in which we actually go to the public and say, Here are the things that the Left and the Right in the evangelical community are unified about, opposition to gambling and smoking being right on top of the list. Do I take from what you are saying, Ralph, that you would be willing to put whether a politician takes money from the tobacco industry onto your voting guides for the upcoming election? Reed: I'll take that under advisement, but I think it would be hard because, as Chuck accurately pointed out, both parties have taken money. Campolo: But that's the point. We should condemn both parties for taking it. Colson: To get back to the original question, the reason many Democrats have moved to the Republican party is the abortion issue and the gay-rights agenda, period. These are moral issues. Our consciences will not let us be compromised. And the Republicans have, to now, embraced those issues; and the Democrats have turned their backs on them, and that's why 10 million people have gone from being evangelical Democrats to being evangelical Republicans. The big question is, Will they stay there? I think that exodus of evangelicals into the Republican party might stop dead in its tracks if Dole keeps suggesting that moral issues like abortion are subjective, and something like tax policy is nonnegotiable. Ralph's troops will shrivel up. RACEThe Pew study found that 34 percent of black Christians think Republicans care more about religion than Democrats do. Does this represent an opportunity for religious conservatives to pull the African-American community away from the Democratic constituency? Reed: I think the answer is yes and no. The truth is that the African American church is one of the most conservative social institutions in America today. They are a lot tougher on welfare, drugs, and crime than I would ever dream of being because of what it's done to their communities and families they're trying to shepherd. There's extensive polling data available that show that Latinos and African Americans are more conservative than whites on issues like welfare, crime, school prayer, and abortion. The African-American community is in favor of school choice, and the white community is ambivalent about it because their kids already go to the good schools; and it is the Latinos and the African Americans in the inner city who are for school choice and a voucher program. So there are opportunities. On the other hand, we've got a long way to go. The legacy of Jim Crow segregation and racism that the white evangelical community still carries is like an albatross, and there is a chasm of a very painful history that we've still got to bridge. I think Promise Keepers making racial reconciliation one of the seven promises is a very hopeful sign, as is the Southern Baptist Convention's recent public apology for its past complicity in slavery, racism, and Jim Crow. Still, when Bill Clinton said that he was going to go to that black church in South Carolina and pray at the dedication ceremony after it was rebuilt and was criticized by some Republicans for having done so, that was an example, to me, of where Republicans didn't understand the issue. The Christian Coalition, and I think the conservative evangelical community more broadly considered, is going to make this a bigger part of its agenda in years to come. Campolo: I think both Ralph and I would probably join in saying that our biggest concern is not whether the African-American community moves to the Democratic or the Republican party. Our concern is that their greatest linkage right now is to the Nation of Islam. When (Louis) Farrakhan emerges instead of an evangelical black pastor as the prime spokesperson for the black community, we are concerned and are looking at where we have failed. The African-American community has negative attitudes toward evangelicals and toward conservative politics. Whether they're right or whether they're wrong, the question you raise is, Do you expect there to be a strong movement in the African-American community over to the Republican party? Probably not, because they're carrying a lot of baggage from the past. Conservatives in the past have denounced the heroes of the African-American community, specifically Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King. Also, gun control is a great concern in the black community. The fact that conservatives support the right of people to own attack weapons keeps African Americans out of their camp. Colson: We should all be worried about the movement to Farrakhan, who is an outrageous demagogue and one of the most dangerous men who has come along in a long time in American life. And we should be much more concerned about that than whether they're Republicans or Democrats. Reed: The Bible teaches that sometimes you've got to go back and do your first works over again before you can move on in your walk with Christ. I think this was an area of social justice where many--not all--in the white evangelical community were dead wrong. And until we fully repent of that and, as a community, become more aggressively biracial and multiracial in our aspirations for the nation and for the faith community, I do not believe that God will bless our efforts on issues like religious freedom, school prayer, or abortion. One of the most powerful moments I've had in my entire political life was holding hands with black pastors and praying at our summit (regarding the church burnings) in Atlanta. And you could sense a curse breaking on this community, because we've been an almost exclusively white movement. I'm not saying that everybody in the movement is racist; that's not fair. But I do think that we've got to build those kinds of bridges. And I think there are some emerging figures in the Republican party who can play a role in this regard. THE LIMITS OF GOVERNMENTAren't there some issues the legal and political realm simply can't address? Reed: The first book other than the Bible that I read after I became a Christian was Born Again, by Chuck Colson. I think God wanted me to read that book, because it was the story of someone who wanted to change the world and tried to do it through politics and came to a point where he saw that politics wasn't the answer. That book changed my life, because up until I got saved I thought the same thing. If we could just elect the Gipper, if we could just cut the marginal tax rate, if we could just get rid of the Soviet empire, it would be a great world. I want to instill in the hearts and minds of activists that you should not make your political involvement the sole repository of your hopes and aspirations as a Christian for the reformation of society. Colson: I think 95 percent of the things that are ailing our country today, that most of us feel passionately about, are beyond the reach of government. And I think we have lived in an era of political illusion where we believed there were political solutions to all problems. Politicians feed this. They can come on television and say, "Elect me. I'm going to solve this problem." Actually, they have very little that they can control, as I discovered after four years in the White House. If you want to penetrate the moral imagination, you don't do that with legislation. Reed: The reality is that the limits of politics are great and large. And I think Christians who get involved in the political process because they want to usher in a millennial kingdom or establish justice and righteousness in this world are going to experience a tremendous amount of frustration. My call for political involvement is based on a biblical doctrine of citizenship that we should be salt and light. An extension of that call is civic involvement in a fallen world. But to attempt to take theological precepts, even broadly defined, and legislate them on people who do not share those in their hearts is a recipe for disaster. It's not only bad politics, it's bad theology. Having said that, I do think there's a real role for political involvement. Martin Luther King said, "I cannot pass a law that will force the white man to love me, but I can pass a law to stop him from lynching me." I may not be able to pass a law that says to somebody, Don't drink and beat your wife and mistreat your children, but I can pass a law that says, If you drink and get behind the wheel of a car, we're going to take your driver's license away, and we're going to put you in jail. You're conceding that you can't usher in the kingdom through political involvement, but recognizing the obligation to try and protect the innocent. The question is, Where do you draw that line? Colson: It is George Will's argument that is one person drinks, that is his or her business. If a whole society drinks, it becomes society's business. And maybe that's where that line gets drawn. In a society that lives with the experiment of a certain tension between order and liberty, you want to allow the maximum liberty you can, consistent with preserving order. It's always going to be a pendulum that swings back and forth. I think the question lies in striking that balance between order and liberty, which is what our founders wrestled with. The grave danger of the libertarian and libertine lifestyles that we have demanded--as Michael Sandel says, "the pursuit of the unencumbered self in the sixties until today"--tilts that balance way over. The Supreme Court had to construct a legal fiction in order to satisfy the sacrament of the sixties on the basis of the implied right of privacy. My worry about the Christian Coalition or the Call for Renewal or any other group that is organized as a Christian political movement is that we're focusing the church on redressing that balance through political means, which, to me, is a very limited remedy. It is going to take a profound cultural transformation in this country. The critical question "How shall we live?" has got to be decided by the people in the great apologetic over the backyard fence. Reed: I certainly don't disagree with that, but I think it still begs the question--if you go to Washington, D.C., and you see the large buildings devoted to the entrenched lobbying interests of the ACLU and the labor unions and the veteran organizations and the business groups--does faith have a voice in that process? We are trying to be that voice. We are not trying to speak for the church or to suggest that our political involvement is the sum total of the church's mission on earth. Campolo: I believe that one of the purposes of law is to instruct, and not just to control, the people. And so the civil-rights legislation may not have corrected the problems of racial discrimination in this country, but it sent a clear message as to what was morally right and morally wrong. I think that the liberal political establishment has been humbled over the last decade, and justifiably so, because we tended to believe that government was the instrument to bring about social justice in this society. During the sixties when liberal Christians got involved in politics, it meant that they marched on Washington and said, You must ------------------------------------------------------------ Thanks for using FirstSearch. This e-mail account is only for distribution of FirstSearch documents. Please contact your librarian with comments or concerns. ------------------------------------------------------------