In my latest book, Why the
Christian Right is Wrong: A Minister's Manifesto for Taking Back Your
Faith, Your Flag, Your Future (Jossey Bass, 2006), I expand on a
brief anti-war speech given on the campus of the University of Oklahoma in
2004. Students turned the speech, which lists 17 reasons why I believe
the Bush administration is acting immorally, into an internet phenomenon.
As the speech spread through cyberspace, hundreds of people reacted with relief
and gratitude—telling me that the speech put into words what they had
been thinking, and renewing their hope that the church may yet be able to
recover the world's most famous missing person: Jesus.
The book explores the immorality of: starting a war on
false pretenses in the name of Jesus, taunting enemies instead of praying for
them, violating international law in defiance of the UN we established,
reversing the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount, demonizing the enemy,
helping the rich instead of the poor, winking at torture, piling debt on the
heads of "little ones," using gays as political scapegoats, favoring
the death penalty, destroying the environment, mangling the word "compassionate,"
refusing to reform health care, appointing judges who are racist, and carving
up the world into a crusade of Godly Good Guys vs. Evil Doers.
But the book is not just a rant. The final section
includes suggestions for positive, proactive steps that everyone can take to
save both the country and the church. As a long-suffering member of the
Democratic Party, I even have a few suggestions that might help the party of
FDR to recover its soul. Here is an excerpt from a section called; Will the Real Democrats Please Stand Up?
I
am old enough to remember when Democrats
were Democrats. They stood solidly behind working people and protected
the weak from the ravages of the strong. They knew that unions were a
necessary evil to protect the middle class and that the market place
does not
solve all the problems of life. They believed in the minimum wage, a
safe
shop, clean water, independent churches, and a strong defense. They
remembered the Great Depression and were vigilant about the dangers of
too much
wealthy and too much power falling into too few hands. They distrusted
big business, fought for the American farmer, and prayed to Jesus
privately. They believed in hard work, family values, and defending
America against "all enemies, foreign or domestic." They were
blue-collar, mainstream, and deeply religious. . .
Now, in order to save the country from a
host of imaginary evils, the poorest Americans vote against their own economic
self-interest and seem more fervently committed to the Republican agenda than
society's winners are. How did this happen? The backlash is
the cleverest bait-and-switch to come along since the Trojan Horse. While
systematically downplaying economic issues and focusing on "values,"
the preachers and pundits of the Right work average people into an apocalyptic
fury. Once the votes are secured, Republican politicians go to work on
the real agenda: low wages, lax business and environmental regulations,
and cutting taxes on the wealthy. Thomas Frank put it perfectly: "The
leaders of the backlash may talk Christ, but they walk corporate. Values
may 'matter most' to voters, but they always take a backseat to the
needs of money once the elections are won". . .
The deadly mistake of my beleaguered
Democrats is that they tried to ride the Republican horse with a softer
saddle. Democrats pretending to be "Republican Lite" have
only solidified the power of the extreme Right by abdicating their position as
a true opposition party. As middle-class Americans have watched their
incomes stagnate, even working two or three jobs, and seen small towns dry up
and blow away as manufacturing jobs were "outsourced" in the name
of free trade, Democrats have answered with a deafening whimper. Their
message often sounds like a dull lecture, a bloodless resolution written by a
policy wonk using long compound-complex sentences and words like enabled and
empowered. Meanwhile, the Republicans are leading an altar call with God,
guns, and guts.
If the Democrats want to reinvent
themselves, if they want to resist the choreographed media sideshow that modern
politics has become, they must begin with an old idea: government "of
the people, by the people, and for the people—so help them God."
That's right, as difficult as it is for modern Democrats to talk about
faith, the truth is that their own party's history of fighting for those
who are left out and protecting those who are powerless is in fact one long,
tortured, inspired act of faith. . .
The Democrats will have to say, plainly
and with passion, that we are for universal healthy care, and Jesus would be
too. That we are for a living wage, and Jesus would be too. That we
invented "family values" by giving the country a forty-hour work
week, laws against child labor, and Social Security—so that everyone's
family, and not just ours, could live in dignity. When the Right calls us
"liberals," we should smile and say thank you. As retired
Lutheran pastor Daniel Bruch put it, "I don't know if Jesus was the
first liberal, but he was an important one."
We are the party that believes the
government should not restrict personal freedom but increase it, not spend our
children's money but save it, turn our back not on the poor but on the
rampant individualism that is undermining the American dream. We are the
party that believes in plurality, tolerance, and the separation of church and
state. We love Jesus the Jew, but also all Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs,
Buddhists, and those wonderful pagans. Is this a recipe for disaster?
No, it's our only hope of survival.
----------------------------------------------------
Dr. Robin Meyers has been the senior minister of Mayflower
Congregational UCC Church of Oklahoma City for 20 years, and Professor of Rhetoric
in the Philosophy department at Oklahoma City University for 15 years. He
is a syndicated columnist for the Oklahoma Gazette, a commentator for NPR, and
the author of three previous books: With
Ears to Hear: Preaching as Self-Persuasion (Pilgrim Press,
1993); Morning Sun on a White Piano:
Simple Pleasures and the Sacramental Life (Doubleday, 1998); and The Virtue in the Vice: Finding Seven Lively
Virtues in the Seven Deadly Sins (HCI, 2004). He lives in Oklahoma City with is wife Shawn, a professor of Art History, and their three children,
Blue, Chelsea, and Cass.
