Today’s Reading List – September 24, 2007
CoMITTed To Romney linked to an OpinionJournal piece on interfaith activity that said some interesting things.
There is an assumption by commentators on the right and the left that as far as religion goes, it is liberals who work–and care to work–across faith lines. Interfaith activity is understood as a politically and theologically liberal enterprise. This stems in part from the fact that the most widely recognized examples of interfaith cooperation have occurred on the left. Martin Luther King Jr.'s partnership with Abraham Joshua Heschel (the prominent Jewish theologian and civil-rights leader) is probably the most famous. Other figures who have reached across religious lines include The Very Reverend James Parks Morton (former dean of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine) and international icons like Gandhi, the Dalai Lama and Bishop Desmond Tutu.
But during my years at the Interfaith Center of New York, a nonprofit organization devoted to fostering interreligious civic relationships, I found that the stereotypes about who is willing to form partnerships were wrong. When the center first opened, we received enthusiastic support from liberals and were ignored by conservatives. Our programs looked diverse, and they were, religiously speaking. But participants were homogeneously liberal.
The more conservative religious folks were not interested in talking about spirituality, peace-building and social justice. So we refocused our programs to include seminars and information sessions on issues such as domestic violence, health-care access and immigration rights. Suddenly, every kind of religious leader came, including conservatives. Their religious perspectives did not change, but our assumptions did.
I am confident we see these assumptions in play when it comes to much that has been written about Romney. The left and the ill-informed, like the press, assume that religious and conservative means close-minded. Nothing could be further from the truth, but it does mean a different agenda.
That said; however, we do play into the stereotype from time-to-time, and I think we are right now. From my perspective some well-documented Evangelicals have been running from candidate to candidate to candidate "Looking for Mr. GoodEvangelical." They are disappointed in Bush because while most think he has been marvelous in foreign affairs, they are disappointed domestically, for reasons I simply cannot understand. What did they think "compassionate conservatism" meant anyway? So now they demand some abstract ideal of perfection where none exists. That is a recipe for political irrelevancy.
But it is worse in this case. With people looking to paint us with the bigot brush, and a candidate like Romney in the race, whatever the reasons are for being fickle, they are going to get labeled as religously biased, or worse.
Politics is a game with its own rules, and if Evangelicals want to get serious about playing it they need to learn them and work within them. They can do so with out compromising what they believe. Otherwise, they are gong to find themselves on the bench.
As evidence…
Consider this article out of Florida that depicts a Christian Right in considerable disarray. The piece does not mention Romney at all, which is good, but as we saw last week in the poorly attended and participated "values voters" debate. The liberals often find themselves feckless because all they have to offer is opposition. I fear the same fate for much of Evangelical political activism.
But then as also, the press makes an awful filter. It is the far right that is in such disarray.
Meanwhile…
The Question appears less and less in the bigger media and the small local papers say the same old thing again and again.
LOWELL: Well, it's kind of an interesting local angle, I guess.
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