Evangelicals and Political Independence

Recently I read a number of books on the intersection of faith and politics, most of them written by progressive evangelicals — Christians who adhere to an orthodox view of Scripture but who are disenchanted with the way our faith has been co-opted by the Religious Right and the Republican Party. The authors discourage all Christians, evangelical or otherwise, from pledging allegiance to either major party and encourage them to instead become politically independent.

All well and good, but each author interprets "independent" from a partisan perspective. Not one mentions registering as an independent or adopting a genuine independent perspective on politics.

I've tried not to become dogmatic about my own political independence; I've been careful not to suggest that my way is the only way. While I believe that each person needs to follow her conscience, I'm baffled when I hear someone urging people to become independent but never once suggesting that they sever ties with the major parties.

Here are a few reasons why I believe all politically minded, thoughtful Christians should at the very least consider becoming true independents:

• Registering as an independent makes a clear statement that you have distanced yourself from the two major parties.


• The mere act of declaring yourself to be an independent works on you in subtle but significant ways. You begin to think more critically about the issues and the candidates because you've begun to shed your long-held partisan biases.


• By remaining a party member, people who know that you are a Democrat or a Republican immediately assume — whether you like it or not — that you agree with your party's entire platform. You are automatically pegged as pro gay marriage or anti abortion, pro war or anti family values, and so on. It's not fair, but it's reality.


• The major parties covet the independent vote. We have an opportunity to be heard like never before. You may end up having more influence as an independent than you would if you were a party member.


• Jesus said no one can serve two masters. We've seen what happens when Christians try to serve both God and party, and it isn't pretty. When the party wins that contest, everyone loses.

What do you think? Are there valid reasons for remaining a party member (other than being allowed to vote in primaries)? Are there other reasons why Christians in particular should register as independents and adopt a genuine independent perspective?

David Gushee on Faith and Politics

If you've ever wondered how the Religious Right became so politically powerful and how evangelicals can repair the damage done by the movement, a terrific source of information is David Gushee's most recent book, The Future of Faith in American Politics: The Public Witness of the Evangelical Center. Gushee is one of the organizer's of the Compassion Forum (transcript here) and a professor of Christian ethics at Mercer University in Georgia, and one of the rare Christian leaders shining the spotlight on the moral and political issue of torture and human rights.

His book covers a lot of territory — my brand-new copy is already so dog-eared and highlighted that it's aging prematurely — but Gushee does a great job of keeping the focus on what he calls the "emerging evangelical center," a descriptive term but one that he admits is not quite precise:

...It is not quite good enough to say we should move to the center from the right and the left. Any right-center-left language is political...We need a biblically grounded rethinking of Christianity's entire engagement with American culture.

Yes! Gushee's "center" is less a compromise between right and left and more a fresh vision of the way Christians can bring their distinct perspective to the public square. Here he underscores one of the main reasons I am an independent and why I'm encouraging other Christians to become independents as well:

It is impossible both to represent "the church" and to function as a bloc within a national political party. Because no one can serve two masters, and because where your treasure is there shall your heart be also, one can predict that ultimately those Christians (and Christian organizations) that give themselves over to allegiance to a political party will lose the ability to retain their fundamental loyalty to Jesus Christ. They will meet various forks in the road in which it is either Jesus or the party; having chosen the party once and then again and again, after awhile the choice of ultimate loyalty has already been determined, and it will set the course for all future decisions.

Gushee encourages Christians to become politically independent but views that independence through the grid of the two major parties. Lately I've read a lot of political books discouraging people of faith from becoming closely associated with the two major parties, but only one author — me — actually proposes becoming a true political independent.

More tomorrow about the reasons why Christians would do well to consider registering as independents. In the meantime, and keeping in mind that Gushee writes from a bipartisan perspective, I highly recommend his book, both for Christians who are fed up with the recent history of evangelical involvement in politics, and for secular readers who want a better understanding of how the intersection of faith and politics went sideways and what's being done to set it right again.

2008: An Historic Election?

As a chronic multitasker, I seldom pay close attention to partisan political coverage on television, except for the real deal on Comedy Central. One thing I have managed to hear, as I'm reading or knitting or researching or writing, is the phrase "historic election year," over and over again, for months on end now. Each time I heard it, I'd mentally nod in agreement. Yes, this truly is an historic election year, and it feels good to be a part of it.

Before I make an astonishing confession, please bear in mind that I was only half-listening to said pronouncements. I consider myself to be politically aware and reasonably intelligent. What's more, I'm not blind.

Now to my confession: For the longest time, I was not consciously aware that the talking heads were referring to the whole race and gender thing when they were using the word "historic." Honest. I'm not kidding.

And here's why I was unaware: I consider this to be an historic election on so many other levels that race and gender didn't even factor in to my assessment. That's not to say that turning the reins over to a different race or gender isn't a significant milestone; what that is to say is that I've gotten so accustomed to the possibility of having a female or black president that I don't give it much thought any more. And I know I'm not alone.

Here are all those other factors that make this an historic election year:

• Independent voters' concerns are finally being taken seriously, with some major candidates, like Barack Obama, listening carefully to us even as others, like Hillary Clinton, dismiss us as annoying pests at a picnic.
  
  
• We have a more engaged electorate than we've had in recent memory, meaning my memory.
  
  
• Not only is the electorate more engaged, the electorate is actually doing stuff, like voting in primaries and participating in caucuses. Except for independents in closed primary states, that is. We just find other stuff to do, like hammer away at the need for political reform, starting with open primaries.
  
  
• After seven-plus years of President Bush, even Republicans are ready for a major change. I can't ever remember a time when the party in the White House was so relieved to see the resident of the White House get ready to move out.
  
  
• Evangelicals are no longer walking in lockstep with the GOP. Of course, many evangelicals never did, but you can't convince the media and non-evangelicals of that.

Help me finish this list. What are some of the other factors that make this an historical election year?

Is There Really an Evangelical Voting Bloc?

There was at one time, but there is no such entity anymore. We started to see a serious departure from the evangelical allegiance to the Republican Party in the '06 midterms, and I suspect we'll see more of the same in '08. Rick Warren, he of The Purpose Driven Life, offered Newsweek his take on evangelicals' past support of presidential candidates:

Evangelicals tend to vote for people who claim to be born again. Every president back to Carter—Bush One didn't make a big deal about it, but he would say that. What do all those guys have in common? Nothing, except that all six of them were, quote, "born again." It didn't matter whether they were Republican or Democrat.

He's right. I knew plenty of evangelicals who voted for Carter the Democrat simply on the strength of his claim to be born again; Ford the Republican never made any such claim, and he lost to Carter. Since then, every successful candidate has made that claim. The difference today, I think, is that many evangelicals feel that the born-again label has been so abused and so misused that it's become meaningless, especially among politicians trying to curry favor with this alleged voting bloc. It's gotten to the point where evangelicals may have to develop a rating system if they're going to vote solely on born-again status, a kind of spectrum from least born again to more born again to much more born again to really, really born again to absolutely, positively most born again.

Or we could all simply vote for the best person for the job. Just a thought.

What the—?

Once a day, "Google Alerts" sends me links to new posts on the web that include certain phrases I've requested: "independent vote," "purple voter," "purple state," "swing vote," and the like. Google kindly searches not only websites but also news feeds and blogs. Sure, Google misses a lot of mentions, but I'd rather get an email with a dozen relevant links than one with a thousand. So I forgive Google for the omissions and move on.

One of the phrases I've requested is "evangelical vote." Normally, the daily email I get for that phrase—if I get one at all—includes a half-dozen or fewer links. Nearly always, about half of the links are irrelevant, referring to an internal church vote or an election in another country.

On Monday, though, Google alerted me to a whopping 236 mentions of "evangelical vote" that had posted in the previous 24 hours. Even after I sifted through the list and eliminated the irrelevant posts, I was left with 196 links to stories and blogs relating in some way to the impact of the evangelical vote on the 2008 election.

It's going to take a while to check out all 196 stories, but based on the one-line teasers that accompany each link I can already tell that there are still way too many journalists, commentators, and bloggers out there who are determined to place all evangelicals squarely in the Republican camp.

I aim to prove them wrong. If you're an evangelical and an independent, I'd love to hear from you. And then I want them to start hearing from us.