Blinded by Might 9

I finished Blinded by Might: Why the Religious Right Can't Save America, by Cal Thomas and Ed Dobson.  In my latest reading, Thomas was interviewing Jerry Falwell.

Two aspects of that interview that interested me were Jerry's retrospective insight that the Moral Majority was wrong to allow local chapters to have too much autonomy, for that allowed local spokespeople to say or do nutty things that made the Moral Majority look bad, and Jerry's lament that professors at evangelical universities are largely liberal when it comes to politics.

Regarding the local chapters, that stood out to me because some left-wing critics of the Moral Majority indeed did lambaste the entire movement because of what a couple of radicals said, when the Christian right may very well have some reasonable people.  The question, though, is this: if the Christian right triumphs, will its reasonable elements have a bigger say?  I'm rather skeptical.  What Jerry said about the local chapters also stood out to me because I used to think that, to be a conservative or an adherent to a political philosophy, I had to defend everything that prominent adherents to that philosophy said or did.  No I don't.  Even if people publicly do that in order to be team players or to save face, in private or in retrospect they are often quite honest about their mistakes.

Today, as a more left-leaning person, I don't feel compelled to defend everything that a Democrat or a liberal says or does. Granted, I realize that a Democrat or a liberal who is under attack for something has his or her own side of the story, the same way that a conservative or a Republican does, and so the attack may not represent the whole deal, or the accused may not be as bad as critics say.  But I don't feel that I have to be unrealistic for the sake of ideology.

Regarding evangelical universities, while I am not a big fan of intellectual snootiness, especially in the evangelical sphere, I do admire the evangelical professors who take their faith in a left-leaning direction, for why should faith in Christ have to entail a right-wing political perspective?

Blinded by Might 8: Authenticity

For my write-up today on Blinded by Might: Why the Religious Right Can't Save America, by Cal Thomas and Ed Dobson, I'll talk some about Cal Thomas' interview with Tony Hall.  According to the wikipedia article about him, Hall was a Democratic congressman from Ohio, but he became pro-life during the 1980's on account of a born-again experience.

In Thomas' interview with him, Hall narrates that he was criticized by a number of Christian conservatives because----while he voted according to their views on such issues as abortion, homosexuality, and pornography----he did not vote according to right-wing standards when it came to issues like the budget, the Department of Education, and taxes.  Hall believes that concern for the poor is a biblical imperative, and he criticizes the evangelical right for judging the poor as lazy, when actually "Most of the poor today in the country are the working poor" (Hall's words on page 233).  In response to his critics, Hall said, "You know, I look to and fro for what Jesus said about capital gains and could not find it."  He denies the proposition that those who vote with the Moral Majority and the Christian Coalition are the true Christians who deserve Christians' support, while others are non-Christians, and he notes that he knows of two politicians who voted the vast majority of the time with the Moral Majority, yet they were not exactly moral, according to evangelical standards: one was a homosexual, and another had an affair with a page.

I'd like to clarify something, in case I wasn't clear in the above paragraph: Hall is not saying that Christian conservatives are non-Christians.  Rather, he's disputing the notion that only those who vote with the Moral Majority and the Christian Coalition are the true Christians, while those who deviate from that platform are not.  Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson distance themselves somewhat from that sort of attitude in Thomas' interviews with them.  But there have been times when Falwell has held that true Christians adopt certain political stances, as when he advertised an article that he wrote entitled "Why True Christian Women Do Not Participate in the Feminist Movement" (see here for interactions with that article).

Also, some of my readers will probably take issue with Hall's portrayal of homosexuality as immoral.  I think, though, that even those who disagree with Hall on this can see some value in what he says.  Politics can easily push people to be inauthentic, as people compromise for the sake of power.  I wonder if that homosexual politician who voted with the religious right felt any conflict in terms of his votes.  How could he support policies that stigmatized homosexuality, when he himself was a homosexual?  Was he fighting who he was?  Or did he make the political stances that he did out of a desire for power?

I think that one reason that I distanced myself from the religious right was that I desired authenticity in terms of my religion and spirituality.  I could vocally defend Christian conservative political stances against liberal detractors and act as if that's what made me a Christian.  Or I could pursue a more substantive approach: follow the path of service and love for God and my fellow human beings.  And part of this authenticity, for me, was being concerned about the plight of the poor----how government policies affect them, whether those policies make their lives harder, etc.

I'd like to now clarify: I'm not saying that the path of Christian conservatism is incompatible with the path of authentic Christianity.  There are Christian conservatives who love and serve God and others.  They, too, have a concern for the poor.  They give to charity, and they feel that left-wing economic policies hurt the poor whereas their own policies help them.  I'm just saying that, for me personally, following a Christian conservative path led me in a direction opposite to that of Christian values, such as humility, love, service, wholeness, etc.

That's not to say that, now that I'm more of a liberal, I lack the character defects that I had back when I was a conservative.  I can still find myself hating and demonizing the other side, or putting down people when I'm debating them, or seeking to save face.  But, nowadays, I hopefully have something other than a particular political stance to guide my life and my interests.  I have a political stance, yes, but I also have spirituality----or at least I pursue spirituality.

Blinded by Might 2: The Rigidity of Boundaries

In my latest reading of Blinded by Might: Why the Religious Right Can't Save America, by Cal Thomas and Ed Dobson, I was thinking about flexibility and the rigidity of boundaries.

Cal Thomas said that a reason that it's hard to bring the values of the Kingdom of God into the political realm is that this world's kingdom is about compromise, whereas the Kingdom of God is not about compromise.  So you'd think that Cal Thomas is for rigid boundaries: right is right and wrong is wrong, and it's difficult to bring this mindset into an arena that requires compromise on right and wrong.

But there are other places in this book where the authors seem to imply that the boundaries don't have to be overly rigid.  Ed Dobson refers to the platform of the Moral Majority, and it emphatically denied that it wanted to take away the rights of homosexuals (but it also said that it opposes so-called "special rights", whatever that means), even though it regarded homosexuality as wrong.  Dobson also mentions a book that he wrote on politics in which, although he affirms that the church should be concerned about societal justice and righteousness, he acknowledges that issues are complex, that there are not always simple solutions, and that Christians can arrive at different political stances.

(UPDATE: Later in the book, Thomas criticizes Dr. James Dobson for being an uncompromising zealot, and Thomas says on page 128 that the "principled politician...sees compromise as a short-term tactic to reach the same long-term goal.")

Thomas criticizes the tendency of the religious right to demonize the other side.  He notes his own friendship with left-leaning TV producer and writer Norman Lear, and he tells a story about how Ted Kennedy visited Jerry Falwell's college, and people there treated him with kindness and respect.  In a later chapter, Dobson tells about his background as someone from Northern Ireland, and he appeals to the situation there as an example of how the marriage of politics and religion can have deadly consequences, as people identify Jesus Christ with their own political stance or agenda and thus demonize the other, and perhaps even marginalize the Gospel.  I doubt that Thomas and Dobson would see this talk about not demonizing the other as a promotion of compromise, for they'd probably regard kindness as one of the Kingdom principles that should not be compromised, but which can easily become compromised when Christians become obsessed with political involvement.  But, to me, what they say about kindness and reaching out to the other side appears to manifest a support for less-than-rigid boundaries, on some level.

The thing is, as Cal Thomas notes, political involvement not only encourages people to demonize their opponents, but it also may lead them to be overly nice when they need to be a prophetic voice for truth.  When Christians want to gain influence among the powerful, after all, there is a chance that they will fail to make bold stands for righteousness, or to call on leaders to repent when the leaders behave immorally.  In this case, Thomas seems to think that boundaries should be rigid and definable.

I myself am for a commitment to principles, but I'm also for taking half a loaf rather than none, staying to fight and speak for righteousness on another day, and trying to see where others are coming from rather than assuming that problems are simple and have simple solutions.  In terms of when I should do what, and how much I should do that, I guess it would depend on the situation.

Blinded by Might 1

I started the 1999 book, Blinded by Might: Why the Religious Right Can't Save America, by Cal Thomas and Ed Dobson.  Cal Thomas is a conservative syndicated columnist, author, and TV personality.  And Dobson for a long time pastored Calvary Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan.  Thomas and Dobson were both prominent figures in Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority.  By 1999, however, they were disputing the notion that politics was enough to save America.

I'd like to use as my starting-point something that Cal Thomas says on page 30:

"The aphrodisiac of political power descended on Lynchburg, Virginia, with the impact of an asteroid.  Politics was a better means to noble ends than the hard and invisible efforts mandated by Scripture.  Who wanted to ride into the capital on the back of an ass when one could go first-class in a private jet and be picked up and driven around in a chauffeured limousine?  Who wanted the role of a servant when one could have the accolades given to leaders?  Who wanted the pain of Good Friday when one could have the acclaim of the masses on Palm Sunday?"

There are a number of things that I should say to balance that quote out.  First of all, Thomas and Dobson are not suggesting that Jerry Falwell did not care for such values as humble service.  Thomas narrates, for example, that Falwell was quite generous in helping the poor, and that Falwell gave scholarships to Liberty University to young people in the inner-cities in order to encourage them to do well in school.  Second, Thomas and Dobson emphatically deny that they are opposed to Christians being involved in political activity.  They just don't think that political activity is enough to save America.  After all, as one of them (I think it was Thomas) notes, Bill Clinton as President rolled back the anti-abortion policies of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.  If we are relying on politics to turn America around, then we're not placing our faith in something that's overly reliable.

At the same time, the impression that I got in my latest reading was that Thomas and Dobson hold that Christians should prefer substance over flash.  When Ed Dobson was on Phil Donahue's show defending the right of the Boy Scouts to expel an Eagle Scout who was an atheist, yes, he had his moment of fame (though, as he notes, his wife soon brought him down to earth when she asked him to take the garbage to the dump!).  And, after Falwell took over PTL due to the disgrace of Jim Bakker, Dobson could have been on that network and become a famous Christian superstar.  But, ultimately, Dobson chose a path that many would characterize as rather low-key: he became the pastor of a church.

Thomas and Dobson wrote this book in 1999, and they say that the failure of Gary Bauer and Alan Keyes in the 2000 Presidential race is evidence that moral change will ultimately not take place through politics.  The thing is, though, that George W. Bush in 2000 won the Presidency, and from that point on we have seen policies that arguably advance the Christian conservative agenda.  Bush appointed conservative justices to the Supreme Court.  There are states that ban homosexual marriage, and there are states that limit abortion.

Where do Thomas and Dobson stand now?  Thomas is still a conservative columnist, and he has spoken favorably of a law that requires a pregnant woman to see her unborn child through an ultrasound before she has an abortion.  On some level, Thomas appears to acknowledge a role for public policy in encouraging morality.  At the same time, the Cal Thomas who questioned whether the religious right can save America has not disappeared.  In a beautiful column that he wrote after the death of Jerry Falwell, Thomas said that Falwell's true legacy was his university, and Thomas told the story of how Falwell provided a scholarship to an inner-city student.

Regarding Dobson, while Dobson appears to be a political conservative (at least on social issues) in Blinded By Might, he voted for Barack Obama in 2008 because he felt that Obama was closer to the teachings of Jesus (see here).  And, due to his Lou Gherig's disease, Dobson cannot speak and write as he once did, but he says in this beautiful video that he's learning that it's as important to influence one person as it is to influence thousands, and that each person has a purpose.  That's substance!

4/24/2012 Links

I’ve been reading a lot of excellent posts these last few weeks.  Here, I want to share some of them with you (if you haven’t read them already).

1.  Messianic Jew Derek Leman talks about Rachel Held Evans’ controversial post, 15 Reasons I Left Church.  Derek refers to an e-mail that he received, which said (and Derek changed some parts to respect the person’s anonymity):

“At the local university I am completing some classes in Judaism and loving them. Then I attend my local church and things that never bothered me before are suddenly a terrible disappointment. In a recent sermon, the pastor unfortunately used the typical theme of Jewish faithlessness in contrast to Christian faithfulness. His complete lack of skill in exegeting the scriptures, in realizing the authors themselves were Jewish, and that anti-Judaism is nowhere to be found in a skillful reading of the New Testament is alarming.  In another recent Bible discussion, many of the members gave smug answers about the harmfulness of the Law and the superiority of ‘grace,’ as they understand it. I felt so out of place here. This is the first time I have come to feel like a stranger in my own church. I am afraid I don’t fit within Christianity anymore, but my faith in Jesus has not diminished at all. Why can’t churches see Messiah for who he is? How can a person whose eyes are opened to these things remain?”

This made me think some about my own church’s approach towards the Hebrew Bible and Judaism.  (My church is PCUSA.)  Like other churches that I have attended, my current church criticizes the Pharisees (see my post here), and it sometimes treats the Hebrew Bible as inferior to the New Testament.  At the same time, both the Pastor and the Pastor Emeritus have said that God’s hand was in the creation of the modern state of Israel, albeit they didn’t say this in a fanatical Christian Zionist way.  Moreover, I think that our Bible study through Margaret Feinberg’s Scouting the Divine was a positive step, for Feinberg demonstrated knowledge and appreciation for laws in the Hebrew Bible, such as the Sabbath, gleanings, and the land rest.  Some people in the group were using that as a platform to promote blue laws, which (as someone who spent time in Seventh-Day Adventism) frightened me somewhat.  But Feinberg’s book definitely encouraged us to see the Torah positively.

2.  The Christian Heretic shared a journal entry that she wrote when she was a Christian in college.  She said:

“My Chi Alpha friends loved me when I was ultra-spiritual and rebuked me when I wasn’t.  So I sort of went into pseudo-spiritual.  I did all the right things, said the right words, but my motivation was to make friends, not just to get to know God.  He was the fringe benefit.  Here at home, my friends at church seem so shallow and superficial.  Whenever I get together in a social gathering, it’s all rowdy, fun and games, crazy, not too much hint of a serious side.  In both situations, I feel I have compromised my relationships with God for the relationships of people.  I keep searching for the perfect friend.  One who has all the qualities listed earlier.

“People just aren’t like that, though.  Every human being on this earth puts conditions on their love for one another.  ‘I love you because you seem spiritual.’  ‘I love you because you’re wild and crazy and like a good time.’  ‘I love you because you are my daughter.’  No person can love all the various facets of an individual.  A person loves, not another person, but certain sides of his personality that are compatible with their own.  Only God can love the whole person.”

I identified with wanting a deeper relationship with God that was hard to find amidst the evangelical fun-and-games, and also desiring unconditional love, which is hard to get in this world.

3.  Nick Norelli criticizes Bart Ehrman’s remark that “Apart from fundmanetalists and very conservative evangelicals, scholars are unified in thinking that the view that Jesus was God was a later development within Christian circles”.  Nick appeals to Larry Hurtado, a scholar who argues on the basis of cultic devotion that Jesus was exalted early on in Christian history, meaning that a relatively high Christology is early rather than late.

4.  Rodney shares what he thinks about being in churchrelevance.com’s Top 200 Church Blogs.

5.  Kate Elizabeth Conner talks about the two times that she adored Jerry Falwell when she was a student at Liberty University.

Justice, Justice You Shall Pursue

I went to the public library today and looked through a book about Jimmy Carter's "crisis of confidence" speech, also known as the "malaise" speech. The book is by history professor Kevin Mattson and is entitled, What the Heck Are You Up To, Mr. President?: Jimmy Carter, America's "Malaise," and the Speech That Should Have Changed the Country. Mattson tries to argue that the malaise speech should be put on par with the Gettysburg Address, for it exhorted the American people to affirm certain basic values, such as humility and a regard for their fellow human beings. Michael Moore makes a similar point in Capitalism: A Love Story, in which he features an except of the speech where Carter laments materialism in America and the tendency to honor people not for what they give, but for what they make.

Ironically, the book says that Jimmy Carter's message actually overlapped with that of Jerry Falwell, who was conducting "God Save America" rallies at the time. Both disliked the shallow culture of America, with all its self-centeredness. The difference was that Falwell didn't support the sort of "humility" that Carter advocated, for Falwell tried to incorporate his critique of American society into a larger patriotism and optimism. And that's essentially what Reagan played on: he encouraged Americans that they were good and could pull through together, rather than putting them down for being selfish and lacking confidence.

One part of the book that caught my eye concerned Jimmy Carter's admiration for the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, who had a significant influence on Carter's worldview. Niehbur emphasized that human beings are sinners who seek to dominate, yet he also believed that a just society was possible. He wasn't a utopian, mind you, but he thought that society could be fairer than it currently is. At the same time, he maintained that we should always have an attitude of humility, for our nature is sinful, and even our best intentions can go awry because of our selfish desire to be number one.

My religious background (Armstrongism) was always skeptical about the ability of humans to create a just society. We're sinners, after all, incapable of self-government! According to Herbert Armstrong, God gave us 6,000 years to rule ourselves, all to show us that we couldn't rule ourselves, for we're corrupt. That would set the stage for the second coming of Jesus Christ, the only one (besides God the Father) who can rule us in a righteous fashion.

But I wonder: can I believe that human beings are sinful, while also having hope that justice can be possible in this society? I'm not saying society will ever become perfect, but can it become more just than it currently is? Maybe we are incapable of self-government all by ourselves, but can we govern ourselves better with the help of God? And if we're simply supposed to sit on our hands, wait for Jesus Christ to return, and do nothing to promote and bring about justice in this world, then why did God command the rulers of ancient Israel to do justice? It's all over the Torah, Psalms, Proverbs, and the prophets! Was God commanding them to do something he didn't think they could do, at least on some level?

Pat and Jerry Up Close

I just finished Mel White's Stranger at the Gate: To Be Gay and Christian in America (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994). Mel White was a ghostwriter for such figures as Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and Billy Graham. Unknown to them at the time was Mel's sexual orientation. Mel White is a homosexual.

Mel talks about Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson up close, for he got to work with them on several occasions. What's interesting is that his account of their personalities matches what I have read or heard about them elsewhere, in a variety of sources. Or, actually, I have several sources about Falwell. My information on Pat Robertson is from someone who's met him.

Mel White describes Falwell as a practical joker. Jerry once put a baby crocodile in his bathtub, scaring his wife, Macel Pate (who may be related to me, who knows?). That matches something I read on the Internet. There was a journalist who did not like Falwell because of the divisions he caused in her community. She visited Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia to do a story about him, and, much to her surprise, she found him to be a nice, funny guy. When she rode around with him in his truck, he pretended that he was about to run over the students. He definitely had a funny streak.

But, according to Mel White, Falwell also had problems with the truth. White says that Falwell was not overly homophobic up close, for he had a homosexual on his staff. For Falwell, as long as the gay kept his homosexuality to himself, he and Falwell would get along fine. But, at the time of White's writing, Falwell denied that he had a homosexual on his staff (according to White).

White also refers to a mass-mailing that Falwell sent out, detailing his rescue from a homosexual mob in Los Angeles. According to Falwell, the LAPD had to rescue him from a bunch of murderous homosexuals. But the police deny that this even occurred.

I've read in other sources about Falwell's problems with the truth. In Keeping Faith, Jimmy Carter recounts that Falwell was telling people that he (Carter) had homosexuals in his administration, based on a statement that Carter allegedly made to him in a meeting. But, in Carter's recollection, he told Falwell no such thing. Carter says that Falwell later apologized, yet he still aired ads in which a mother told her little girl that Carter was bad because he tolerated homosexuals.

In William Martin's With God on Our Side: The Rise of the Religious Right in America (New York: Broadway, 1996), Falwell recounts that his church began reaching out to African-Americans in the early 1960s. Here's Falwell's version of events:

"[T]he real test came--it was probably 1960 or '61--when a black family came forward to join our church and wanted to be baptized. I said, 'All right, I'll baptize you,' and I did. But I told them that night, as we were about to go down in the water, I said, 'Neither one of us may come up out of that water, so I hope you're right with the Lord. I am.' And I baptized them. We lost a couple of families over that, but just that quickly it was all over. And as far as I know, we became the first church in this town to aggressively begin ministering to everyone...[I]n 1960 in the South, it was a big deal. And it caused criticism--in the city, in the community, not just in the church. There were people wondering, 'What is this young preacher trying to do, ruin our town?'"

According to Martin's research, Falwell's story is inaccurate, for "Thomas Road Baptist Church remained segregated until 1968, and the first baptism of an African-American person appears not to have occurred until 1971" (page 58).

So was Falwell a liar? I don't know. Maybe he just had a certain perspective on past events. On some level, we all place things that happened to us into a narrative, which isn't necessarily accurate in every detail. Perhaps Falwell sincerely believed he was telling the truth.

Regarding Pat Robertson, Mel White depicts him as very intense. White contrasts Robertson to Falwell: "Pat Robertson, on the other hand, was almost always polite, but distant, totally self-absorbed in his ambitious plans, and certainly not much fun." When White was on Robertson's plane, Robertson dropped him off, put a more influential person in Mel's place, and took off again. Mel found himself in a strange airport, "hoping to catch a commercial flight home" (page 205).

That reminded me of someone who told me a story about Pat Robertson. "Why don't you invite Pat Robertson to this area?" he was asked. He replied, "I know Pat and Dee Dee. I've had lunch with them. They're charming, wonderful people. But his attention span for you is like that if you don't present him with the hottest thing since French toast." When he said "that," he snapped his fingers. "If I invite Pat here to speak, he'll look through the curtains to see if he's got a big crowd, and I don't want him to be disappointed."

His interpretation of Pat wasn't as negative as White's, but both seem to present similar characteristics: a man who is ambitious and driven, yet friendly.

When I hear different people say the same thing about someone, I think, "Okay, we're talking about the same person here." But who knows? These figures may have had deeper things in them that never came to the surface. Can we truly say that we know someone? Motivations may be hidden.