Davison's Doodle

Monday Morning “Sightings”

I subscribe to “Sightings” a weekly email from the Marty Center.  If you don’t subscribe I recommend it.  This morning Martin Marty authored the sighting, “Evangelicaldom.”  It is, from my perspective, the best description of what our culture is experiencing in the form of shout-fests called town hall meetings.  Moreover, it provides a lens which focuses on the endgame of the “Armageddonist absolutism of the “religified Right.”

“Sightings” 10/05/09

Evangelicaldom
— Martin E. Marty

Take one day, say Friday, October 2, in the life of what we should start calling “Evangelicaldom.”  One-fourth to one-third of Americans consider themselves “Evangelicals.”  Many are exemplary citizens and, let us say, exemplary Christians.  Somewhere along the way millions among them, however, sought what they would call “earthly power,” and won enough of it to dream of and work for “Evangelicaldom.”  That “-dom” signals “domain,” as in old “Christendom” and modern “Islamdom.”  In it, any hints of traditional “otherworldliness” were forgotten, and the once least-worldly sector among us came to be among the most driven by commerce, markets, media, and politics.

Regular readers know that Sightings does not target or heap on evangelicals.  But several media sightings on October 2 prompted and merit response.  The main story in the New York Times had to do with one of the several fallen born-again “Christian Right” valiants of the season, Senator John Ensign, adulterer and now alleged criminal in use of funds and power.  Atop a full-page story is a picture of the Senator and the cuckolded husband of Ensign’s mistress, autographed by Ensign to his “friend and brother, in Christ.”  The sinning senator issued the standard more-or-less apology with the more-and-more frequent substitute for reference to “sin:”  He made a “mistake.”  Enough.

The same day the Los Angeles Times published Neal Gabler’s absolutely pessimistic but relatively accurate assessment of the way the absolutist style of religious fundamentalism has found its place among the shouting populists who, while not necessarily always bannering “in Christ” – most of the signs at the shout-out rallies are quite secular – are always sure that they have no need for civility and thus for politics.  Gabler: “Those who oppose the religification of politics may think all they have to do is change tactics, but they are sadly, tragically mistaken. They can never win, because for the political fundamentalists, this isn’t political jousting, this is Armageddon.  With stakes like that, they will not lose, and there is nothing democrats – small ‘d’ and capital ‘D’ – can do about it.”  For the sake of the future, any kind of future, they have to try.

Fortunately for civil readers’ sanity, there was a relatively calm assessment in David Brooks’ same-day New York Times column in which he notices and reports on the political limits of those who goad and inspire the religified political troops, people named Beck, Limbaugh, Hannity, and O’Reilly.  They boast hugely huge audiences.  But, as Brooks chronicles, they have not converted those in their seething niche into real electoral dominance of the sort Evangelicaldom once had hoped it could produce.

Fortunately for Christian readers’ sanity, there is also a cover story in the October issue of Christianity Today, a magazine which represents evangelicalism when it was evangelical.  Its headline: “Evangelicals desperately need moral and spiritual renewal – on that everyone agrees. But what do we do about it?” Editor Mark Galli at length concentrates on evangelicals’ spiritual sins – not “mistakes” – in an analysis of the sort Catholics, Mainline Protestants, the Orthodox and others need to and often do make.

Until evangelicals can find ways to make clear to themselves, politicians, media, and publics that they are distancing themselves from the Armageddonist absolutism of the “religified Right,” they are more likely to look like and will be in danger of becoming like “the children of the world” against whom their spiritual forefathers creatively and courageously railed as they offered alternatives, not carbon copies.

References:
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-gabler2-2009oct02,0,7817347.story

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2009/october/13.23.html

Self Awareness

I’ve been told that I am self-differentiated.  Yesterday, I posted a quote from Carl Jung on my facebook page that read, “Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.”  That reminded me of the Buddha who thought an individual’s karma caused people to cross into life’s path as a way to help us understand ourselves.  Maybe that’s why gospel writers quilled the words for Jesus, “Love God and love your neighbor as yourself.”

I can hear the porch swing creak as Atticus talks to Scout, “If you just learn a single trick, Scout, you’ll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view… Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.”

In the film, National Treasure: Book of Secrets, Ben Gates is talking to the President of the United States.  “And because you’re the President of the United States, sir. Whether by innate character or the oath you took to defend the Constitution or the weight of history that falls upon you, I believe you to be an honorable man, sir.”  The President replies, “Gates, people don’t believe that stuff anymore.”  Ben replies, “They want to believe it.”  This is what irritates me.

I am the oldest end of Generation X.  My understanding of politicians and power is shaped by the early memory of missing cartoons on TV because of the Watergate trial. Nixon resigned.  Ford pardoned him.  I remember feeling sorry for Carter, booing, then cheering, then booing Reagan again.  In my short life-time the nation has changed from a melting pot to a mulligan stew.  We are a reality TV hypnotized desegregated patchwork of districts, states, advantaged and disadvantaged gated communities.  Our culture and Christianity has embraced separate but equal because it is expedient, easier to raise campaign contributions, and for now ensures the cycle of mediocrity and overt corruption continues as the norm rather than the exception.

This irritates me because I want to believe, all evidence to the contrary, that government officials in high office will do what is in the best interest of the citizens rather than the citizen corporation.  It irritates me because I want to believe that, all evidence to the contrary, public officials are not above the law.  There can be no American dream without the institution of government holding itself accountable, in meaningful and visible ways, for doing what is right for the citizens of this nation rather than raising campaign contributions to regain power in the next election.  I want to believe the American experiment is not complete.

I don’t have the institutional power of a congressional representative, a city council member, a senator, or a lobbyist.  If I did I might be doing the same things any of these people are doing to ensure that I stayed on easy street and kept the seats of honor.  I haven’t walked around in their shoes.  I don’t know if Rep. Wilson of South Carolina is just an angry white man with race issues, frightened for his own political future and that of the south, or concerned about how to provide health care for persons of this nation, legal and illegal.  Recently, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, was on cable.  It reminded me too that I am irritated at myself for believing that “by innate character or the oath you took to defend the Constitution or the weight of history that falls upon you, I believe you to be an honorable man (person).”  I want to believe this about my government, the institution.  That is what irritates me.  I guess this makes me somewhat self-aware.