Discussing God and government, in good faith
Sunday, July 9, 2006
Printable FormatSunday, July 9, 2006
At last, a Democratic leader of some stature who isn't afraid to say out loud that he goes to church, who neither ridicules nor panders to people of faith, who acknowledges that religion is relevant, in life and in politics.
If anyone wonders why Illinois Sen. Barack Obama is a breath of fresh air on the national political scene, this is why. A speech Obama gave a few weeks ago to the Sojourners Call to Renewal conference in Washington, D.C. has been getting a lot of attention, not only for its insight and balance, but for its soul-searching honesty.
Obama confessed that he was bothered two years ago when his Republican opponent, Alan Keyes, charged that "Jesus Christ would not vote for Barack Obama." It wasn't just Keyes' audacity in presuming to speak not just of God but for Him. It wasn't that anything Keyes said made any difference, as Obama trounced him. It was that Obama was disappointed in himself for the knee-jerk, "typically liberal" response that came out of his own mouth - that we live in a pluralistic society, that he didn't want to impose his views on others, that he was running for U.S. senator, not minister.
First, Obama believed he hadn't given religion and the influence it has had on the history of this nation, founded like no other upon a fundamental sense of right and wrong, the respect and thoughtfulness it deserved. Indeed, what major issue affecting American life doesn't have some moral component, whether it be abortion or civil rights, war or access to health care, corporate corruption or rebuilding a hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast? Hadn't our past proved the "practical absurdity" of divorcing "personal morality" from public service?
Second, it nagged at him because it is so self-defeating for Democrats to continue ceding these issues to Republicans. And finally, beyond his personal, partisan interest was this: If the history of this nation and planet has made one thing clear, it's that religion brings out both the best and worst in people.
Perhaps Obama is on to something. Perhaps America would be a better place, the world a safer one, if more leaders recognized that the extremes on both sides of the religious divide are unhealthy, whether it's conservatives who use the Bible as a bludgeon or liberals who "dismiss religion in the public square as inherently irrational or intolerant."
If more had the conviction, confidence and courage to say that "faith doesn't mean that you don't have doubts." If more appreciated that church has never been just for the sinless and certain, that no political party or denomination has a lock on God, that separation of church and state is not the enemy of religious freedom but its friend, as so many Founders knew from family experience. If there were more influential voices who comprehended that government alone cannot save "the gangbanger" who "shoots indiscriminately into a crowd," and who have no fear of sounding "preachy" by saying so.
Cynics will say that Obama is just running for president, catering to a constituency that has flexed its muscle on the other side of the ballot. Perhaps.
But perhaps there is a pragmatic, private and prayerful middle in America, or even many of no specific faith who nonetheless "hunger" for something more - if only more civility and less hypocrisy in public discourse - who will respond to the message that, at its best, religion is a "source of hope," just as oh so rarely, a leader comes along who also shows himself to be.