The Gospel of John tells Christians that "because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you." This concept, and the entire notion of martyrdom, is tricky for nonbelievers to fully grasp. What do Christians do when representatives of their faith, a faith forged in opposition to this world and its powers, acquire overwhelming political might? Unless they are deeply spiritual, they will continue to look for oppressors, for enemies, for the earthly forces that supposedly "hate" and oppose them.
This is why we continue to see fundamentalist Christians, their hands on all the levers of government, vilify liberals and secularists as if these hapless minorities were brutal occupying forces. This dynamic informs and motivates the battles of the Religious Right. Democrats and liberals fail to understand it at their own peril.
The concept of the Trinity means for believers that God Himself took human form, came to Earth, suffered terrible tortures, and died for us. It also means - simultaneously - that God sent his only beloved Son and watch him suffer and die as a result of our sinful natures. Despite that, He'lll forgive us if we only ask. To return such generosity with hostility or indifference seems for believers to be a particularly harsh kind of ingratitude.
"If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you," Jesus tells his followers in John. And who populates this "world", in today's politics? For Red-Staters, carefully schooled by the Conservative/Religious elite, it's now the Other - the liberal, the secular humanist, the Eastern elite, the New York Times reporter, Dan Rather, the Muslim 'raghead', Michael Moore, the activist judge. All these figures, some of them fictional, populate that hostile terrain that must be created in order to replicate the way of sorrows - the "Via Dolorosa" - that Jesus Himself walked.
This all misses the point, of course. Those oppressors, those haters, the ones who condemn and torture and execute - they're not the Other at all. They're us. But that's deliberately forgotten when politics and religion mix. The Gospel of John was written when Christianity was a despised sect, and its democratically-organized followers were hunted by an oppressive government. The Gospel of Jerry (Fallwell) has been created to secure and keep earthly power - a state that early Christians would consider sinful.
In other words, Jesus created the miracle of the loaves of bread, supernaturally multiplied to feed the starving crowds. Falwell and the Republicans, on the other hand, are saying "let them eat cake." Is there a new Democratic message there, somewhere?
I struggle with all of this, and am still looking for the right response, the right tone. The best I can come up with is, first, to respect the followers and condemn the leaders. The followers are, like so many of us, just people who are looking for something - for meaning, for a purpose, for an answer. They can be reached with the Democratic message, I'm sure of it - but not if it's delivered with the slightest hint of condescension. I keep reminding myself that these were the Kennedy voters, and before that the Roosevelt voters. The other Christian message - of sacrifice, of idealism, of service to the poor - could still touch them.
John again: "If you were of the world, the world would love its own." That's partially where the resistance to Ivy League degrees and other achievements comes from. It might help if Democrats hammered away at the theme that rich and powerful preachers, along with rich and powerful politicians, are "of the world" and are "its own." Let's not be afraid of saying "that rich preacher doesn't speak for you, or for God." We should look for - and promote - sympathetic ministers, evangelicals, and lay Christians like Jim Wallis, Anne Lamott, and even Willie Nelson. Their work is important.
Lastly, it's worth remembering that many Christians know the verse from John that reads "He that hateth me hateth my Father also." Expressions of contempt for fundamentalist ministers, if they appear elitist or too personal, look like attacks on God. There's no need to fall into that trap.
Religious belief shouldn't be a prerequisite for the political life, but where it exists it shouldn't be limited to one side of the aisle. When Democrats truly feel it, they should use it. Even when they don't, they should be know its terrain. "Be of good cheer," it is written in John. "I have overcome the world." All Democrats have to overcome are James Dobson and Tom Delay.
Piece of cake.Permalink
by RJ Eskow Apr 25 , 7:51 PM Comments (5) , Trackback (0)
Perhaps we should all feel sympathy for a group of people so incredibly misguided. It's very sad when people have lost the ability to think for themselves, to examine what they're being told. But then, the religious sects will always be with us. Remember Jim Jones and the suicides in Africa? The people who committed suicide so they'd be transported up to the tail of Haley's Comet? All the hell they needed was an evil s.o.b. who could talk a good game...a silver-tongued devil, so to speak. Don't believe those Fundies are even aware of the idea of "hidden motives" of their foul leaders. "Sheeple" really does apply to them.
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