Joliet Herald News Friday, June 25, 2004
ON RELIGION
Religious left stakes its claim
When
the Rev. Robert Maddox went to work as Jimmy Carter's White House faith
liaison, one of his main jobs was helping Washington politicians lose
their fear of born-again Christians.
The landscape has changed radically in the
past three decades. What infuriates Maddox now is that Americans now automatically
assume that religious believers are right-wing Republicans.
"People
on the progressive side of things have not been doing a good job getting
our message out", he said during a break in a Washington conference
for the religious left. "We rolled over and let the Ronald Reagans
and the fundamentalists grab hold of the media and define what faith means
- down at the level of bumper stickers and real life."
The gathering was called "Faith and
Progressive Policy: Proud Past, Promising Future" and drew nearly
400 activists. Staffers for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops huddled
with mainstream Jewish leaders and Muslim Progressives. "Moderate"
evangelicals talked shop with officials from the National Council of Churches.
It was both reunion and pep rally.
Speaker after speaker said the key was finding
unity in their creeds. This worked in the civil-rights era, the labor
campaigns of Cesar Chavez and campaigns against apartheid in South Africa.
John Podesta, who was chief of staff for
President Bill Clinton, is the leader of the Center for American Progress,
which sponsored the event. He said exploring his Catholic faith has only
made him more committed to liberal politics. Podesta's faith also has
helped him identify the forces that he believes must be defeated.
"In the past 20 years, we've seen the
emergence of religious leaders who tried to dictate legislation and public
policy from their particular set of religious beliefs," he said.
"The religious leaders who attracted the widest attention were often
those with the narrowest minds. Rather than use their faith in God to
bring Americans together, they chose to use it to drive us apart"
Truth is, faith has become the boldest dividing
line in American politics.
Surveys indicate that the best way to predict
what voters will do on Election Day is to study what they do on the Lord's
Day. Voters who worship more than once a week vote Republican by a ratio
of 2-1 or more. A Time poll says the "very religious" support
Bush over John Kerry, 59 percent to 35 percent. Those who call themselves
"not religious" back Kerry, 69 percent to 22 percent.
The problem, said Maddox, is that conservatives
used Supreme Court decisions on hot-button moral issues to drive a wedge
between Democrats and other voters in many Catholic and evangelical pews.The
Baptist pastor gets red in the face when describing the founding fathers
of the religious right, using vivid vocabulary that can't be printed in
a family newspaper.
"Take Reagan," said Maddox. "He
started talking about abortion and, all of a sudden, he was this great
Christian candidate.... Now we're in another election year and the right
is still obsessed with sex. We have to tell the American people that this
isn't about abortion and it's not about gay marriage. It's about the budget,
health care and the war. At least that's what we believe."
But the moral divisions are real, said Maddox.
He estimated that 90 percent of those attending this conference are pro-abortion
rights and the same percentage backs gay rights. Almost all Christians
present would clash with traditional believers on other biblical issues.
Take, for example, the familiar verse in
the Gospel of John in which Jesus says,"I am the way, the truth,
and the life: no man cometh unto the Father but by me."
"Sooner or later," said Maddox,
" the church crowd is going to wake up and realize that there are
going to be a lot of people in heaven other than us Christians. I still
believe Jesus is the way and the truth - for me. But it's that last part
that troubles me, the part that says 'no man comes to the Father, except
by me.' l don't think we can get away with saying that anymore. That might
have worked in the '50s, but its not going to work in the 21st century."