Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Evangelicals and Progressives: Finding the Faith to Build a Meaningful Politics
Note: This originally posted on Faith and Public Life's Blog as part of a dialogue with Randy Brinson and Pastor Bill Devlin of Redeem the Vote; Shaun Casey of Wesley Theological Seminary and Center for American Progress; Rev. Susan Thistlethwaite of Chicago Theological Seminary; and Rev. Rich Killmer of National Religious Campaign Against Torture.
“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” (Hebrews 11:1, RSV).
More and more people across the country are realizing that the recent levels of polarization of politics and politicization of religion has been bad for both, and that the continuation of the conversations between Evangelicals and progressives might be a key step in recalling a more prophetic religion and a more meaningful politics.
As someone who grew up Southern Baptist and whose commitments to progressive politics were formed in the crucible of the Deep South, I have had a somewhat unique vantage point as I’ve worked at this intersection both as a scholar studying the role of religion in public debates, and as a consultant on specific projects, such as a current effort to bring together progressives and Evangelicals on cultural issues with The Third Way and Redeem the Vote.
I want to focus here on one of the deepest obstacle to progress: a sense of defensiveness, particularly the ideological malady that thinks that giving an inch is opening the floodgates to disaster. For example, in Evangelicals circles, it is well-known that James Dobson and the Christian Coalition have both strongly resisted efforts to broaden the evangelical agenda to issues like poverty and global warming, claiming these are not core issues. In progressive circles, I personally encountered a similar defensiveness after giving a presentation of public opinion data that showed the promise of common ground between progressives and Evangelicals. The first comment came from an agitated prominent progressive blogger, who, on the bases of his own biases alone, proceeded to tell us not only that any outreach strategy was a waste of time but went on to seriously propose that a more prudent strategy would be to find ways to simply suppress the Evangelical vote.
The great twentieth century theological H. Richard Niebuhr identified a sense of defensiveness at the heart of what can go wrong not only with religious groups but all human groups and called for a movement from an ethics of defensiveness (which he noted resulted ultimately in an ethics of death) to an ethics of faithfulness and responsibility. The key to this move was to articulate (“to confess” in religious terms) our own positions as honestly as possible while embracing our human finitude, which requires the modest notion that we might be wrong. That simple acknowledgment gives life to a humility that opens up space for new conversations and breaks down old orthodoxies.
It is worth noting that at least three significant things can happen as we move from defensiveness to faithfulness, a process Niebuhr thought had to be ongoing:
1. Space opens up for creativity on issues that seemed completely intractable. For example, as I noted on my blog last week, Democrats in the House recently made a quiet but significant step toward healing one of America's deepest divides by passing the "Reducing the Need for Abortions Initiative" as part of the 2008 Labor-HHS Appropriations bill for 2008.
2. Opponents are humanized and become more complex. For example, in a recent meeting, a prominent Catholic leader told a largely surprised group of progressives that he had hosted visitors in his home to pro-life protests and anti-war protests on back to back weekends and that in his theological framework, these were perfectly consistent things to do.
3. The possibility of mutual critique emerges as the excesses of one ideology become more visible viewed in the light of the other. For example, progressives begin to think more about the importance of changed hearts and Evangelicals more about transformed institutions.
Although these are modest steps, they are significant. Thankfully, we are beginning to see a new day and the emergence of a meaningful national politics that requires less fear and more faith—both in our fellow citizens and in our own abilities to hold our principles while listening to others and looking for the common good.
Labels: common good, evangelicals, niebuhr
