Two years ago I gave the Invocation for a session of the Monroe County Legislature at the invitation of a member of that august body, a friend of Jewish persuasion. She invited me because conservative Christian ministers had been using this occasion as a sounding board for anti-abortion and homophobic statements. She thought I might help balance the scales. I hesitated, but not because I didn't relish the opportunity to speak.
After all, I remember the 19th century Unitarian Chaplain of the U.S. Senate, Edward Everett Hale. When asked, "What do you do, Sir, pray for the members of the Senate?" He answered, "No, I look at the members of the Senate, then pray for the United States of America."
I hesitated because I take seriously Thomas Jefferson's metaphor: the wall of separation between church and state. I'm not enthralled with pious rituals in political chambers; I try to resist incursions of the church into the state and vice versa; I am suspicious of "God talk" by political candidates. Yet, I could not resist the opportunity to address and then pray with (or for) the Monroe County Legislature.
I still feel a bit uneasy about having been engaged in that demonstration of civil religion. Mixing politics and religion can be explosive. However, religion itself has emerged as an issue in the 2000 election. For example, I find it highly interesting that several of the presidential candidates invoke Jesus as political guru or guide.
George W. Bush claims Jesus Christ as his favorite political philosopher. When asked to elaborate, he said, "If you don't know, I can't explain it." Why was Jesus Christ his favorite philosopher? "Because he changed my heart." What does this mean? Perhaps evangelical Christians can understand Bush's piety, but how about the rest of us? While this conversion experience probably led him to give up alcohol, we have a right to know what it might mean for how he would be president. Bush leaves us completely in the dark. He brought it up; he has an obligation to explain it.
For instance, how does the experience of Jesus Christ inform his "compassionate conservatism." The cynical might be prompted to ask, why the need for the adjective? Aren't conservatives compassionate by nature? Some Republicans didn't like the phrase. Indianapolis mayor Steve Goldsmith, one of Bush's top domestic advisors, said, "It shows how far we have gone as a party that if you put the word 'compassionate' in front of somebody, they're offended."[1]
Bush does have a kinder, gentler rhetoric but he is still a tough love kind of candidate. For example, he has been endorsed by the Log Cabin Republicans - a gay caucus - but wouldn't oppose a bill that would ban adoptions by homosexual couples and supports a gays-only sodomy law in Texas prohibiting consensual sex between gay adults. This is interesting since one of Dick Cheney's daughters is an out lesbian who lives with her partner. Adoptions, Bush said, were better left to a man and a woman. "To have a male and a female in a household, I think it provides the proper role models to children's futures."
I have never understood how a professed conservative could oppose a woman's right to an abortion - the ultimate in government interference in our private lives. I thought that was conservative dogma. He has waffled on the issue - like Congressman Al Gore - who, however, is now solidly pro-choice. Bush evidently would allow it in certain cases of rape or incest or danger to the woman's life, but the Republican Party platform is much more extreme. Bush admires two staunchly anti-abortion Supreme Court justices, Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scolia, which suggests his appointees might overturn Roe v. Wade. I find his position neither very compassionate toward women, nor very conservative.
George W. Bush elaborates compassionate conservatism in these words about an across-the-board tax cut: "Tax cuts are compassionate. Tax cuts give people more money. It is conservative to cut taxes and compassionate to give people more money to spend." But I find it hard to think it is compassionate to give Bill Gates a tax cut, or even Dick Gilbert. Neither of us really needs one. It would be truly compassionate to dramatically expand the Earned Income Tax Credit for poor working families to get them into the middle class. That would also be conservative since even Ronald Reagan endorsed it.
The death penalty provides another problem with compassionate conservatism. Texas has arguably the "busiest death penalty system in the Western world" with about one execution every two weeks since George W. Bush took office. After Republican Governor of Illinois George Ryan declared a moratorium because innocent people were being executed or were on death row, Bush said on Meet the Press: "I'm confident that every person (who) has been put to death in Texas under my watch has been guilty of the crime charged and has had full access to the courts." How Texas can be so much better than Illinois is beyond my comprehension. Some court-appointed defense lawyers slept through trials, yet their clients are on death row. While Bush doesn't have power to declare a moratorium on capital punishment, as of May he had granted only one stay of execution.[2] I am disturbed with his level of confidence and lack of humility.
But he is a different kind of Republican. Compassionate conservatism does fit his congenial manner, his decent record of bi-partisanship, his surprising reliance on government spending and his reasonably moderate views. But I believe it is more campaign rhetoric than political philosophy.
Al Gore says he is born-again, and while I respect his claim, I'm not sure just what that means for his competency to lead our nation. The skeptic in me wonders how big a role politics plays in this. Is such a confession appropriate? Or are we more comfortable with Bill Bradley's singular refusal to discuss so private a matter? Must candidates for the presidency wear their religion on their sleeve? And is it proper for a campaign aid to insist that "the Democratic Party is going to take back God this time"?
Asked about the role of religion in his life, Gore said he often uses the WWJD test in making political decisions: "What would Jesus do?" Of course Jesus lived as a simple Jewish peasant in an agrarian first century society. Extrapolating what he would do now in the Oval Office seems to me somewhat naïve, giving religious cover to political decisions. Yet, let's take Gore at his word. Al Gore, like George Bush and Joe Lieberman and Dick Cheney, believes in the death penalty. Jesus never supported that severe punishment; he was its victim. I recall his saying something about forgiving 70 times 7, but I do not hear this much quoted by Gore or anyone else.
And how about Gore's support of a national anti-missile defense system! Quite apart from the foolishness of this enterprise - billions to protect us from North Korea or Iraq should they be so foolish as to attack a superpower with missiles. And it doesn't even work despite years of research. If enemies want to attack the world's only superpower there are other ways to do it - terrorist methods with which no anti-missile defense system can cope. Of course, there are lucrative contracts to be let to contributors and many high tech jobs at stake here. But that is pure politics. If I recall Jesus spoke about turning the other cheek. And Gore went to seminary. He didn't pay enough attention in his bible course.
If Bush cannot connect his piety with compassionate conservatism, then Gore cannot connect his with what the late Unitarian minister A. Powell Davies called "unrepentant liberalism." One might say, what's to be sorry about to be a liberal? Not many will speak the "L" word these days since George Bush, Sr. tarred Governor Michael Dukakis with that epithet in the 1988 campaign. Yet, there are still a few who feel that being a liberal is nothing of which to be ashamed. But Gore, with his support of capital punishment, the anti-missile defense system, the punitive welfare reform bill, hardly has a claim to being a liberal of any sort - with perhaps a few exceptions like his stand on gay and abortion rights and the environment.
In other words, I am suggesting that the two major presidential candidates, however sincere they may be about their personal religious experience, really haven't taken Jesus very seriously in their policy positions. They claim him and then ignore him. I'd love to debate them on this score.
Joe Lieberman is another problem altogether. He is widely admired for his Orthodox Jewish piety which takes him off the campaign trail for the Sabbath and Jewish High Holy Days. He has made a number of statements about his faith for which he has been getting rave reviews even from Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson whose theology would cast him into Hell. However, he is a little too facile with his "God talk," which must lead an atheist, an agnostic, a Muslim, a Hindu, a Buddhist, or even a Unitarian Universalist to wonder if they really belong in this nation, despite its alleged pluralism. He invoked deity no less than 13 times in 90 seconds upon his arrival in Nashville to accept Al Gore's invitation to be the vice-presidential nominee.
Evidently many rabbis have been speaking on the meaning of Lieberman's candidacy for American Jews during these High Holy Days. However, Rabbi Martin J. Pasternak of Congregation Agudas Achim in Austin, Texas, will not be one of them. "My first reason is, I'm not really sure that there's an ultimate religious message in Lieberman's candidacy that is weighty enough for these days, in which people are hungering for a spiritual message, and at a time when I have the largest audience of the year. But my second reason is that I'm in Austin, Texas, and I've got Republicans out there (in the congregation). I don't want to endanger my status with them as a rabbi, so that they might feel uncomfortable with me or not come to me because politics is such an emotional issue."[3] As I say, religion and politics is a volatile mix.
That issue was presumably defused by John F. Kennedy's statement to Protestant clergy of Houston in 1960. Clearly he paved the way for people other than Protestants to run for the nation's highest office. He said, "I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish - where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the pope, the National council of Churches of any other ecclesiastical source - where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials - and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all." Very profound, though one does wonder when a Unitarian Universalist might run for president without fear of being castigated as a non-believer. Oh, well, dream on.
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. But we need politicians who can make such connections - not simply mouth the platitudes.
I connect my faith with a universal religious impulse which proclaims a "preferential option for the poor." The Hebrew prophets railed against those "maddened with wealth who would trample the poor." Jesus chastised the rich with the famous phrase that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God. I find little of this "option for the poor" in candidates, as they cater to the moneyed interests that bankroll them. Jesus urged support of "the least of these," yet where is the candidate who pledges to eliminate poverty? Again, I don't doubt the sincerity of the candidates' religious experiences. I just wish they would read the bible and "go and do likewise."
I tried to make that connection at the County Legislature that November evening almost two years ago. While I was speaking to a locally elected governmental body, my words I think resonate at the larger level of the nation. I leave them with you as we strive to cut through the piety to the real faith of those who would presume to lead us.
Karl Barth, one of the great Protestant theologians of the 20th century 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, that, I believe, symbolizes the role of the elected official and the citizen - to keep in tension one's fundamental religious values and the daily problems of the community. That is especially relevant when the County has a surplus - how you deal with that surplus demonstrates your basic religious values. In that spirit, then, I offer a brief antiphonal reading with newspaper and religious scripture and a short invocation."Housing shortages hurt poor in city, suburbs." Democrat and Chronicle November 8.
"Let's make room at the table for all New Yorkers," Hunger Action Network.
"We are digging deeper into our empty pockets to cover the cost of services." Southeast Ecumenical Food Cupboard Newsletter, November/December 1998.
"38% of all the children in the city of Rochester and 50% of the African-American city children live in poverty. Do you have the chutzpah to tell the parents of a poor child that New York's economy is improving? Can you justify tax cuts as 'good for everyone' when their neighborhood is crumbling?" Hinda Miller, Rochester Area Children's Collaborative.
"Growing gap between rich, poor hurts health." Dr. Kevin Fiscella, University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry. Rochester Democrat and Chronicle
"Buy seats and scoreboards: forget legal aid for the poor and prisoners." Justicia, monthly journal of the Judicial Process Commission, July-August 1998.
"The wages of sprawl - traffic jams, falling values and higher taxes." Democrat and Chronicle
"Poll says HMO's rile voters." Democrat and Chronicle
"Hear this word, ye kine of Bashan, that are in the mountain of Samaria, which oppress the poor, which crush the needy... Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an everflowing stream." The prophet Amos.
"Inasmuch as ye have done it to the least of these, ye did it unto me." Jesus of Nazareth.
"By their fruits you shall know them." The Letter to James
Let us join in the spirit of prayer and meditation:
Unto the Spirit of Life we pray:
Blessed are the just, for they have their reward in indestructible integrity.
Blessed are they who labor in the vineyards of the public realm as citizens, for they shall be remembered.
Blessed are they who love their community enough to praise its strengths and criticize its weaknesses, for they shall be made wise.
Blessed are public officials who are responsive to the needs of these, the least of the people, for they shall be deputies of the community.
Blessed are they who serve the public good, for their reward is in being used;
Blessed are the powerful who acknowledge their power as both gift and responsibility, for they know the binding obligations of their bounty;
Blessed are they who rebuke narrow-self-interest to sustain the commonweal, for they are the patriots the nation needs;
Blessed are they who rise above partisan loyalties, for they shall administer a public trust;
Blessed are all people who seek justice in an imperfect world, for they shall be welcomed into the Beloved Community of Love and Justice.
return to main page