The politics of religion

Q: What did Obama learn during his 20 years in church?

A: That there's little difference between the practice of religion and the practice of politics.

We'd never heard of 'Dr. Bob' before we saw this post at Maggie's Farm. But he has significant insights into politics and religion.

Our launch point is this passage:

"...the broader perspective highlighted by the Times article regard[s] the role of religious beliefs in public figures, particularly politicians, and how secular political movements in the postmodern age use religion.

Not surprisingly, the New York Times — along with virtually all major media outlets — come across as pleasantly confused about the nature of religious conversion, particularly as it applies to Christianity."

Dr. Bob goes on to tell us what's wrong with Wright's theology. We don't disagree with him, but what we're after here is what's typical about Wright in the religious world, which, as Dr. Bob says, is poorly understood in the media.

This weekend, we read this post from a theologian (her doctorate in divinity is prominently listed) defending Wright. The site itself is called, appallingly, 'God's Politics'.

What ARE 'God's Politics', we wonder? Certainly we know what man's politics are. Let's explore this.

First of all, why would a theologian (or anyone in the 'religion biz') defend Wright? To some degree, it's the same reason a doctor might defend another doctor who was being sued. It's not a question of whether or not malpractice was committed. The concern is that ALL doctors' practices are jeopardized when one is sued.

Indeed, the defense of Wright in 'God's Politics' consists mainly of the argument that this sort of demagoguery is "established practice". That is, it's typical among men in the 'religion business'. A 'standard practice' argument might help the doctor being sued. But does a practice's ubiquity among men make it "God's Politics"? By that standard, every religiously-sanctioned activity from witch-burnings to the Spanish Inquistion is 'God's Politics', so long as it was popular.

Christian leaders have been committing malpractice since Day One. Most of Paul's letters to the churches (the bulk of the New Testament) were about weaning Christian leaders from their bad practices. ('Weaning' in fact is a metaphor Paul used to describe some 'immature' leaders who needed to move up to 'solid food'.) You may be surprised at this, and you may even take umbrage. But consider - who's been interpreting Paul's words for you from the pulpit?

Aha. (And if you're ever in a service where the preacher tells you his congregation is "bringing back the first century church" - locate the nearest exit.)

If you don't think religious leaders would, as a matter of course, tailor Christian theology to better suit their needs, you haven't seen this recent article. Or, perhaps you never heard of what happened to this fellow. We could cite more examples, but if you aren't convinced by now, you never will be.

What made Jesus unpopular among leaders of his day (enough to get him killed) was that he was teaching how to work around the established order of preachers/leaders, and report directly to God. (As Dr. Bob explains, the concept is a direct and individual responsibility to God that cuts out the middleman, as it were.) Religious leaders didn't like it then, and the notion (taken to its logical conclusions) is no more popular with today's crop. Wright (and others like him, which means - most preachers) spend a good deal of their time and energy in reinforcing their position of leadership. They're building their church membership, maintaining the building, and trying to be 'effective' in all the ways human society cares to measure. There's no meaningful difference between that and any politician building a support base.

Consider the ways a politician goes about building his/her base: Shaking hands, making speeches, engaging the community, visiting retirement homes, attending pot-luck dinners in VFW halls, emphasizing morality, raising funds. Now, consider how a preacher spends his/her time. Aside from Bible-reading and prayer (which many politicians assure us they also do), there's precious little difference.

So it's easy to see why the 'religion business' (Martin Luther King, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, etc.) is a springboard into the 'political business'. (Of course, neither priests nor politicians particularly enjoy being referred to as 'in the business'.) Ronald Reagan, though never a priest, used Christian religious organizations heavily to build grassroots support. He understood that churches were political hotbeds, and leveraged them as such.

Obama, who shares Reagan's most-envied traits ('communication skills' and 'charisma') also understands the flow between politics and religion.

Churches are great incubators of political skills. But is that what they should be? Fortunately, we need not ask 'what would Jesus do', since we have a record of what Jesus actually DID. And what he did - 'God's Politics' if you will - was to commit political suicide. We'll return to this shortly.

If you're in Wright's position, or in, say, Hillary Clinton's, your goal is the same. You are trying to maintain and solidify an inherently unstable position of leadership. You are trying to keep on top of the pile by identifying straw men you can vilify, and then attack. For Hillary, Republicans have long been the bogeymen used to rally the troops. For Wright, it's white people and government. It's always someone outside the gates who is the enemy. (By contrast, what Jesus did NOT do is turn the Jews' Roman oppressors into a political strawman, though many in his camp would have welcomed it.)

It has been widely noted that many black preachers operate in a manner similar to Wright, and that is true. His rhetoric is pretty common in 'all-black' churches. We have heard similar messages delivered with greater and lesser degrees of sophistication (or maybe just various degrees of concern about cell phone cams and YouTube). The message: "We, inside these walls, know we are good because we recognize those outside our boundaries as evil." The message concludes that we, the sanctified, must be united and vigilant, or the forces surrounding us will devour us.

How do white churches accomplish this? For the most part they are not going to offer up blacks (Asians, etc.) as the enemy. Not these days, at least. Political correctness (and instant infamy) aside, it's hard (though not impossible) for whites to declare a minority group as their oppressor. Besides, in any racially integrated church, such a tactic is impractical. So what does work? Attacking other churches as the enemy, usually for their 'doctrinal impurity', works pretty well down South, where the Baptists and Churches of Christ have been at each others' throats for years. 'New age' spirituality is a similarly effective bogeyman. And casting government, liberals, rednecks, or what have you as the wolf at the door also serve as ties that bind.

This tactic has taken many forms over the years, in both politics and religion and everything in-between. It's tried and true, and (as Solomon said) nothing new. One way or another, politicians and preachers gravitate toward the politics of distrust and hate to hold things together.

By the standard of these common Christian and political practices, Jesus did everything wrong. For example:

1) He let outsiders in. During his brief ministry, he allowed every politically-useful bogeyman into his inner circle, and befriended them. Non-Jews, women, lepers and the lame were generally more politically useful as outsiders, but all were made welcome. If Wright allowed whites into his fold, his approach would no longer work. Jesus' followers, who instinctively understood how religion 'should' work (having known a religious caste system all their lives), were appalled each time he forgave a tax collector or praised a Roman soldier.

2) He refused to patronize in order to attract followers. In the famous story of the wealthy man who asked Jesus what he needed to do to be saved, Jesus challenged him to give up his wealth. Setting aside the 'evils of money' here, the point is that Jesus continually refused to tell his followers what they wanted most to hear. Naturally, the same cannot be said of preachers such as Wright, nor of any politicians of our acquaintance. Whereas Wright's sermons, or any well-handled politician's speech, are interrupted by shouts of agreement or encouragement, one cannot imagine that of Jesus. The most likely aftermath of a crowd following a sermon by Jesus was a fair amount of head-scratching. Even at the height of his following (which is what really caught the Pharisees' attention) Jesus refused to pander to the crowds following him or turn the moment to his political advantage, as what his disciples hoped and expected.

3) He refused to be the enforcer of rules. Jewish leaders of his day attempted to force Jesus to enforce Jewish laws and customs of that time. The famous incident of stoning the adulteress is one example. Had Jesus sanctioned, or participated, in the stoning, he would not have stood apart from the religious leaders he criticized. This would have cost him the special nature of his following, but it also would have spared him the persecution to come. And no one could have blamed him, since he was simply following the custom of he time, sanctioned by the leaders of his day. Those rules were only the source of power for Jewish leaders, who themselves answered to Roman authorities. In refusing them, Jesus placed himself in political jeopardy. The same principle holds true in both politics and religion today.

Jesus was the political equivalent of a magician who shows the crowd how the tricks are done. Just as this does not endear oneself to other magicians, so Jesus did not endear himself to religious leaders of his time. When their wrath was finally visited upon him, he did little to defend himself.

Nor would Jesus be popular with most Christian leaders today. Such leaders might be poorly understood by The New York Times, but Jesus anticipates them and knows what they are:

(Mat 7:21-23) "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. (22) Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?' (23) Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'

This is Jesus speaking to the shepherds, not the sheep, though you'd never know it by the way this passage is generally used (when it is used).

We live in a capitalistic society. We measure companies, and men, by their success. How much money they earn, how often their name is in the media, how highly rated their TV show is, how pretty their wife (mistress?) is, where they dine, where they live - this is our yardstick.

We cannot help but apply the same standards to our religious beliefs, and as such it is no wonder there is so much dysfunctionality and dissatisfaction in the Christian world today (and perhaps, truth be told, always). It's also no wonder that carefully-crafted Christian alternatives are finding such traction.

As long as we seek 'success' from our religious practices, they will always be a caricature of Jesus' teachings. Megachurches are especially frightening, as they suggest the antithesis of the individuality of religion Jesus practiced. They suggest that God is best found in a mob. 'Righteousness by comparison', as Wright (and other like him) preaches, is a crutch that most of his spiritually-ghettoized followers will need forever. Neither 'churches of success' ("God wants you to be rich") nor 'churches of the failed' ("God blesses only the poor") offer satisfactory counsel.

But parsing Jesus' preferences takes us off-topic. Our point is that religion and politics, as practiced in a nation that declares them to be separate, are in fact one and the same. As things stand, this is more of a problem for the religious world than for the political.

Now, interest in this subject was driven by its connection with the Obama campaign. It's fitting that we say something about that.

We don't believe Obama is a racist. We do, however, think that he showed incredibly poor judgement by not leaving Wright's church years ago (as, we understand, his friend Oprah did). It's too late for his attempts to distance himself from it, since said attempts are coming as the result of the release of videos of a Wright sermon and other information. At this point it merely looks like other attempts we have seen of someone 'caught in the act'. His supporters' howls of outrage won't help, and will in fact exacerbate the problem. The worst thing that could happen to Obama has happened: He now looks like any other pol. He looks like - Gary Hart.

We believe Obama spent his years in church learning more than a little of Jesus' message - and a lot about politics. His presence is extraordinary, and we feel it's his ability to 'turn the other cheek' during debates (when most advisers would call for a nauseating escalation of rhetoric) that has really elevated him above the pack in the eyes of many voters. This Reagan-like ability to deflect attacks has deeply frustrated the Clinton campaign, which does its best work in the mud.

Therefore we have some advice for Mr. Obama that could save his sinking campaign. Unfortunately, it's advice his advisers will never let him take. Simply put, it is to follow his own best political instincts - and admit to his own racism.

Yes, we do not believe he is a racist, but that does not matter. His affiliation with Wright's church has tainted him forever, and disavowal will not win back the public. He is now Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton - in other words, he is unelectable, even if he wins the Dem primary. He must be born again, and tell the world that, although he did not see it at the time, he now understands the problem with sitting in that pew for all those years. Racism is subtle. What looked to him to be a community of blacks helping each other had a lot in common with an all-white country club (just a bunch of white guys, after all, helping each other). Only in this way can he confront the fear that he is hiding something, that maybe he really believes that stuff and is lying to us, like every other politician does.

Obama isn't a racist, but for years he looked the other way at a situation that should have troubled him. That's not leadership, and he needs to come clean. Confession would be good for his political soul.

Such a move is fraught with all kinds of peril. It might even finish him for this election season, but if he does not fix his problem he is finished anyway. The worst thing (well, maybe not quite the worst thing) that could happen to Obama has now happened: He is no longer special. He has only one hope of regaining the luster he once had, and he has the charisma to pull it off. But will he? Or will he wait until the timing is wrong, when he has clearly slid so far that anything he does is seen a drowning man's desperation, rather than the bold move of a born leader?

Ironically, the concept of risking everything and 'failing' in men's eyes, in pursuit of a greater goal is indeed 'God's Politics'. Such folly is rarely if ever seen in man's politics. For Obama at this moment. though, the most spiritual path is also the most pragmatic.

THIS WON'T HELP: Obama's church accuses media of 'character assassination'.

AND NEITHER WILL THIS: Obama lies about church attendance.

OR DID HE? The Atlantic says "no".

APPARENTLY NOT... Bill Kristol agrees with The Atlantic, but has a few things to add as well. Such as: "Rather, Obama seems to have seen, early in his career, the utility of joining a prominent church that would help him establish political roots in the community in which he lives."

AND a great video rant on this subject.

FINALLY: See all Hillary Clinton posts.