A matter of heart?
Posted by Carol Howard Merritt on 20 Nov 2008 at 01:28 pm | Tagged as: Democrats, progressive christianity, religion, social justice, young adults
Kathleen Parker says that the GOP needs to give up on G-O-D. She says that ”shifting demographics suggest that the Republican Party — and conservatism with it — eventually will die out unless religion is returned to the privacy of one’s heart where it belongs.”
Her point seems to be that the Religious Right may be able deliver, but they can only deliver old white men, or white families with children. They have alienated diverse, younger voters. So her solution is that the Republican Party needs to lose their religion.
The problem with Parker’s viewpoint is that Democrats were kicking themselves a few short years ago because we couldn’t seem to come up with a candidate who could say “God” without looking like his spine had just been suddenly replaced by a Popsicle stick. The icy cold fear that seemed to grip him was out of place in a country that was… well… pretty religious.
No one expected the candidate to have a walk on the beach with Billy Graham, or to have “born-again” tattooed on his sleeve, but it would have been nice if they could relate to people of faith, a little bit, and, you know, just give them a bit of respect. The Democrats have done well–not when we have lost our religion–but with the Clintons’ church-going and Obama’s “awesome God in the blue states.”
The problem was not with God. But there was a problem. I’ll point out a couple of reasons why I grew up in a Religious Right Republican household, and now I have nothing to do with either affiliation.
First, they lost me because they were fighting for the wrong things. They were warring against abortion in the public sphere, while their daughters were making early-morning appointments at the nearest clinics. (Of course, I have no statistical proof of this. Just lots of anecdotal evidence, which I would never, ever write about. This is a fascinating article though.)
We can say statistically, that conservative Christian teenagers are more promiscuous. They become pregnant more often. Pregnant teenage girls end up trapped in a lifetime of poverty. And I will tell you that it gets very difficult to keep crying out “murder” when you’re sitting next to the formerly-pregnant protester’s daughter, watching the anguish that she is going through.
It made no sense that they were fighting for the sanctity of human life when it came to abortion, but denied it when it came to the death penalty or war. And then there was the torture….
There were things that the Bible was very clear about—relieving poverty, feeding people, taking care of creation, and loving your neighbor—that the RR seemed to be fighting against. I mean, when you’re part of a movement that claims to be faith-based and then opposes health care for poor children… then something is wrong. Clearly the “compassionate” has been far, far removed from the “conservative.” My problem with the RR and GOP was not God, it was that they appeared to be rather godless in so many of their policies.
Second, they lost me because the GOP and the RR quit listening to a new generation. The extreme technological ineptness on the GOP’s part was just the beginning. They had a hard time hearing young Christians as well. The demographics are shifting, and young evangelicals are much like the rest of their generation. They are more progressive… but there is also an influx of diverse Catholics, so that could have been very good news for the RR.
But is the RR listening to them? Are they opening up to their concerns of a new generation?
No. They are giving them a spanking. They’re using that “tough love” parenting that’s “not for cowards.” They are “daring to discipline.” James Dobson, the RR patriarch has rolled up his sleeves and taken off his belt. Just check out the Focus on the Family’s apocalyptic scare letter that was circulated right before the election:
The 2008 election was closer than anybody expected, but Barack Obama still won. Many Christians voted for Obama – younger evangelicals actually provided him with the needed margin to defeat John McCain.
What Dobson needs to realize is… we may be your sons and daughters, but we are no longer children. We think for ourselves now. We vote for ourselves too. And, frankly, we would rather not turn out like this.
This is a religious country, and we know that faith does not end in the heart, nor will it be contained by one political party. Christians have always been men and women of action, even action in the public sphere. People of all faiths allow their beliefs to inform policy.
Our conscience, our faith, our religion should not be relegated to one party–Democrats or Republicans. The Religious Right (though still a powerful force) brushed God aside too many times to get more influence within the Republican Party. I left both the RR and the GOP, because my faith meant too much to me.
So, what do you think? Have you switched party affiliations? Why?
photo is by madolina
This post really hit me, because this is exactly what I have been thinking about for the past how ever many months that it’s been. (My brain can’t wrap around that it was 2 years.) I have been sitting here trying to articulate (I have erased at least three comments.) I seriously thought I was going to lose a friend over some of the issues of this election.
I’m sure you’re aware of Jim Wallis’ non-negotiables–that was a post that really resonated with me too. Thank you for writing about this.
I grew up in the south as the Republican party was just barely beginning to come into the region. I encouraged my parents to become Republicans. I loved Goldwater. When I went to college, I left church. I became more and more uncomfortable with the Republicans, particularly with Nixon, but stayed with them. I am pretty much a fiscal conservative and a Calvinist. Then I started going back to church and became a flaming liberal. I began to read about Jesus, to visit Central America, to take this stuff seriously. I stuck with the Republicans until I think 92 when their awful convention said that women (other than Schlafly and Kirkpatrick) should remain barefoot and pregnant. At that point, I decided if they didn’t want me, I sure didn’t want them. I come to this change from the deep, thinking mainline, not from the evangelical side. I grew up a southern Presbyterian, but never a Biblical literalist, nor a fundamentalist.
I agree with the evident discomfort that progressives used to have articulating their faith, but I’m not quite sure I concur that that’s where the metaphorical popsicle stick used to find itself lodged.
Parker’s concern is misplaced. The issue is not articulating faith, but in articulating a gracious faith. If all you hear are calls to battle, imprecations against the Godless other, and angry self-righteousness …well…for some reason that turns people off.
Particularly people of faith.
I told Carol recently that if I was 19-24 years of age, I would join the Republican party. I would join it to reform it, especially when it comes to the confused way in which religion is used in their political strategies. We need a two party system so that power doesn’t get consolidated in too few hands and too limited an ideology.
The dems were in control of the universe when I was in college and I remember watching with admiration some of my classmates at the University of Wisconsin set up a fledgling Young Republican club. Several of them ended up being major strategists in the Reagan administration as their ideas developed and took hold. I didn’t agree with them in the sixties when they were voices crying in the desert. I didn’t agree with them when they became powerful in the Reagan years. But they created a healthy balance to the Great Society thinking that grew corrupt and defunct of new ideas.
It will take 20 years to rebuild a moderate to progressive wing in the Republican party. But our two party system is too important for some folks not to give it a try. I am way too old to be involved in it. But I hope some college and young professionals will have the strength and patience to do so.
Wimberly, a Republican. Now THERE’S a contrarian!
While I wholeheartedly agree with pretty much everything here, there’s a sense in which I fear it’s “preaching to the choir.” I find that I simply cannot convince those close to me who are still a part of the Republican Religious Right that it is possible to vote for certain “leftist” causes or candidates precisely because of my Christian beliefs. Rather, I (and those like me) are accused of “abandoning” such beliefs. Reason is lost in such conversations, and this leads to me a deep sense of despair (especially with Thanksgiving coming just a week away).
It’s one thing to resolve to continue to do what I believe is right. But there’s a price to pay in terms of relationship. And although I expect we’ll “get along” at Thanksgiving gatherings by simply not bringing up potentially contentious topics, I’d rather be more authentically who I am. Even if I can’t persuade those on the Right to believe as I do, I wish I could at least get them to understand that it’s not tantamount to abandoning the faith altogether!
Ugh. Thanksgiving dinners past have been rough in our family. Although now we’ve worked out some peace accords… we’ve found some areas of agreement, respect, and love.
My prayers are with you.
I’m with Mark… it is so hard to actually have a conversation on these things particularly when one wakes up the morning of the election to a reminder by an old friend that a vote for Obama would kill 125,000 babies through abortion. How can we even begin to talk with that kind of accusation in the air?
I find myself selfishly hoping Obama will be able to make such marked change that letters like the one Dobson has will be laughable to all of us in four years and that those of us who have left the RR will have a bit more of a platform to speak and be heard. Maybe Thanksgiving will be a bit more authentic in 2012…
I am opposed to war, abortion, and capital punishment. I refuse to keep God private, but I have no lasting political attachment to a party. I am weird, but proud to be so. I did vote for and campaign for Obama, but I did cross my fingers behind my back whenever the subject of abortion came up.