How to be a Christian voter

Let me confess right at the outset that I do not purport to know how to be a Christian voter.  That is, I do not have simple answers to how my faith informs my vote for specific candidates.  Christian leaders are not always helpful.  I am a brother in Christ to Rev. Franklin Graham and align with him theologically.  But when he uses the label 'chocolate' to refer demeaningly to our President, I take offense and fear that he is damaging the cause of Christ.

On the other side of the political spectrum, I am impressed with the clarity of "Sojourners" ministry and align with the heart of Rev. Jim Wallis.  But I fear that evangelism has been replaced by social action and political advocacy.

I watched the Presidential debate Monday night.  Other than a brief discussion of tax policy that cited dueling economists, there was virtually no serious discussion of public policy.  And even the tax dialogue quickly degenerated into ad hominem attacks.  A Facebook friend commented on the debate's missing policy points, "I'm old enough to recall a time when the views of candidates on selected issues would be published side by side in newspapers for everyone to read, think about, and compare. Unfortunately, we voters don't have the advantage of very much of that kind of unbiased, simple, direct, uncluttered information in this supposed Information Age."

I have always voted on the basis of the candidate's public policy stances.  I voted for Jimmy Carter, not because he was a born-again Christian but because Gerald Ford seemed to lack knowledge of foreign affairs.  I have no-one to vote for this year; my vote will be a "least among evils" vote.  Part of the reason is that none of the candidates (not even Gary Johnson) have given me articulate policy positions that merit my support.

Notice, too, that we have not heard -- nor will we -- any discussion of abortion, gay marriage, religious freedom, bathroom privacy, etc.  Strangely enough, I think that's a good thing with the way the discussion of issues such as racial conflict has played out.  The dialogue has not been elevated, it has sunk to lows I could not have anticipated in Presidential politics.  How does a Christian speak into this situation?

Positions taken by evangelical Christians in political forums are often labeled as bigoted or uninformed.  It is also possible that attempting to influence the society through partisan politics has backfired.  That is, "evangelicals" are merely a voting bloc that Donald Trump courts and Hillary Clinton labels 'deplorable.' I want the word to mean "one who loves." ... one who loves God ... one who loves his neighbor ... one who loves and serves the unlovely ... not "one who votes for Republicans."  We should be salt and light in the world, not sandpaper.

In our zeal, we sometimes work against our own interest, rather like evangelical pastors in my first appointment who organized demonstrations against the downtown theater that was showing pornography.  They did not succeed in closing down the theater.  But they did succeed in calling attention to its existence and increasing their box office receipts.

I commented on the Facebook post as follows:  "Perhaps among the lessons learned from this debacle is that Christians should not expect government to do what only the Gospel can do. Moral issues have been absent from the discussion, so we no longer expect our leaders to use the levers of power to accomplish behavior change.  It may be a fruitful time for the Gospel -- or it may move the Church to irrelevancy as it has in most of Europe. I'm praying for revival."

Like I said, I don't know how to be a Christian voter in 2016.

Jesus weeps

I wonder if Jesus looks at Charlotte NC and other US cities as He did Jerusalem when He said, "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, ... how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing.  Look, your house is left to you desolate."  (Matthew 23:37-38)

In the quarter century since Rodney King was beaten by Los Angeles policemen, we are still asking his plaintive question, "Can we all get along?"  It is deplorable -- yes, I used that word deliberately -- that we are once again facing off with one another over the subject of race.

I am tired of the political posturing and readiness to lay blame.  I know it is a highly charged presidential campaign and every event is viewed through the lens of its political impact.  But with news media giving air time to every point of view, no matter the credibility of the speaker, it seems that we are being driven to take sides.  One is either a supporter of Black Lives Matter or of the police.

Balderdash!  Although I acknowledge that BLM is prone to excess and confrontation, we should not be deafened to the legitimate fears and concerns of African-Americans because we find their most vocal movements objectionable.  Similarly, recognizing the immense dangers faced by police officers should not blind us to the reality that snap judgments made in stressful situations are heavily influenced by a variety of factors, including perceptions based on prejudice and experience.  (No, I do not mean 'racism.')

In the current climate, the same statistics are used by opposing sides of the argument to prove that a) black men are killed by police disproportionately to their percentage of the population or b) black men are killed proportionately to the rate at which they commit violent crime.  Both a) and b) are factually true.  So what?  How can we find a point of agreement that leads us to healing and solution rather than further divide?

As a follower of Jesus, how should I respond?  I would love to hear from the clergy in Charlotte NC who have been on the front lines to intercede between the police and irate protesters.  "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God." (Matthew 5:9)

Jesus' crucifixion was pursued by the political leaders of His day; the Sanhedrin's political power was threatened by Jesus' popularity.  I am fearful that the racial conflict we are seeing, embedded in a nasty political climate, will result in people of faith finding themselves on opposite sides rather than joining hands in a community of healing.

For most of my adult life, I have worked and lived in places that were predominantly white.  When I have been in more racially diverse environments, I have been enriched by reminders of lessons learned as a child when the neighborhood I lived in changed from all white to all black, except for the Hostetlers and the Levinsons ... of lessons learned riding a bus to school with kids just like me except for the color of their skin ... of lessons learned riding through neighborhoods ravaged by riots after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. on my way to college classes.  But in the final analysis, those are lessons learned cerebrally rather than viscerally.

I have never been stopped for 'driving while black.'  I have never had a white woman clutch her purse in fear as I walked by.  I have never been assumed to be a gang member or a drug user simply because of the clothes I wear. [My children would howl in laughter at the thought.  I probably embarrass them by dressing to the other extreme.]  These are lessons learned viscerally by countless African-American males.

Is there a point to my meandering musing?  I guess it would be to wonder if God is calling me to some specific action to "put my money where my faith is."  I want to part of the answer, not part of the problem, but I don't know how.

I shall continue to pray for those acting redemptively in Charlotte.  I shall continue to pray for healing for our nation and for this Presidential election to have positive results for our nation.  And I shall look for ways to speak and act as Christ would have me do.

I have tried not to sour my temperament by participating in the vitriol that has infected this year’s campaign for President.  What happened to the civility and mutual respect that once characterized public discourse?  For crying out loud, the University of Chicago made news by simply announcing that ‘trigger warnings’ and ‘safe spaces’ should be unnecessary on a college campus that celebrates the free exchange of ideas.  This position was newsworthy because it has become commonplace to attribute hurtful motivation (and actual emotional harm) to the articulation of ideas with which one disagrees.  College campuses have published lists of words, phrases, and questions that are now considered “microaggressions.”

In his 1984 book The Naked Public Square, Richard Neuhaus bemoaned the disappearance of religious conversation from public discourse due to a one-sided application of the First Amendment.  We are seeing an extension of that trend into other arenas of thought as a humanist orthodoxy dominates academia, journalism and government.  If your religion teaches that abortion is wrong, then your religion has to become enlightened.  If your understanding of economics suggests that more people will be harmed than helped by, for example, raising the minimum wage, then you must have a loathing in your heart for low skill workers.  If you believe that immigration laws should be enforced and applied fairly and evenly, you lay yourself open to accusations of bigotry.

I mourned the death of journalism several years ago.  I no longer expect straight news reporting from any news source.  Among the signs of journalism’s demise was the corrupting of the language by using adjectives and adverbs – or value-laden nouns and verbs -- to “color” the story.  One sees this in the coverage of political rallies; a reporter is not content to simply report what the candidate says, but feels obliged to report tone and body language.  Such observations are highly subjective and tilt the coverage toward the perception of the reporter.  Was he/she intense? … passionate? … angry? … persuasive?  Pick your choice depending on what you think of the candidate.

Secretary Clinton opened a can of worms when she used the label ‘deplorable’ to describe half of Donald Trump’s supporters.  It is one thing to say, “I deplore racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia and Islamophobia.”  But to call millions of Americans ‘deplorable’ on the basis of a personal judgment that they hold such views is quite another thing.

Dana Milbank of the Washington Post wrote a column titled “Yes, half of Trump supporters are racist” in response to criticism of Secretary Clinton. I read it with great interest.  He cited research into racial attitudes in making his case.  But in my view, he missed two key points:  first, the research would point to approximately one-third of Clinton supporters being racially prejudiced; second, the leap to the word ‘racist’ is not supported by the facts cited.

Milbank concluded his column as follows:  “Trump, on stage, rejected any notion of racism, saying people who want secure borders ‘are not racists,’ people who warn of ‘radical Islamic terrorism are not Islamophobes’ and people who support police ‘are not prejudiced.’ But moments later, he repeated the campaign slogan he borrowed from an anti-Semitic organization that opposed involvement in World War II.  ‘America First – remember that,’ he said. “America First.’”

So Milbank would have us believe that a form of patriotism that puts America First is rooted in anti-Semitism and therefore its use is a prima facie rationale for labeling its user a racist.  That is absurd.

Will this campaign cause me to mourn the death of the English language to carry meaning apart from the filters of the sender and the receiver?  I have long ago consoled myself with the realization that the suffix ‘-phobia’ is now used to connote ‘hatred of’ rather than ‘fear of.’  If we can now label someone or some group as racist, sexist, homophobic, etc. based upon a public policy position, then the public square is not only naked, it is nihilistic.

One passing thought in conclusion:  I have observed that those who tend to use the word ‘xenophobic’ are themselves heavily xenophobic.  The word is used by most speakers to mean exclusively “fear of people from other countries.”  But the word itself means “fear of that which is foreign or strange.”  The attitudes of those who use the word seem to include fear of those whose faith guides their daily lives, who do not live on either coast, who enjoy hunting and fishing, who drive pickup trucks, listen to country music, and love NASCAR.  These are the kinds of people who are “other” to many in academia, media and government.

Words mean things.  At least, they used to.