Change has come to America. Again. With the Republican takeover of the House of Representatives, the hope of many is that the dynamic in Washington is about to change. Some have called this election a referendum on the policies of President Obama, Nancy Pelosi and the liberal Democratic regime that has passed sweeping reforms in Healthcare, attempted to bail out the automotive industry and banking interests and scaled back the war in Iraq while increasing U.S. troop involvement in Afghanistan. It may very well be, although a cursory knowledge of electoral history in American would show that midterm elections rarely go the way of the presiding party. I voted for President Obama in one of the most heavily Republican counties in the state of Georgia. My support for him has not changed.
With the midterm elections comes the possibility of sweeping reform in Washington. It won’t happen, but the potential is there. Even though I continue to support the President, I cannot say that I am particularly displeased with the outcome of the election. Frankly, the Democrats had an opportunity to do great things and, as usual, they blew it. Politically, I am center-right in my views. While I believe that those who supported Tea Party candidates are going to be in for a rude awakening when they realize their people have no political acumen and even less of a sense of political reality, I am glad to see one change they have already brought to the political process. Very few Republicans campaigned on the back of the preposterously vague idea of “family values.” And while they certainly stoked the flames of the xenophobic among us, doing little if anything to quell those who falsely accused the President of everything from Islamic sympathies to being an al-Qaeda Manchurian Candidate, most candidates did little more to appeal to Christian voters than to mention their own Christian beliefs as part of their biography. This is a welcomed shift from the races in 2004 and 2006 in which the crux of the Republican campaign strategy was an absurd advocacy of a Constitutional amendment to define marriage as between a man and a woman, while preaching a message of Christian values more commensurate with Hitler’s Nuremburg address in 1932 than the Sermon on the Mount.
That is not to say that this year’s election did not bear witness to such ridiculous evocations of our nation’s “Christian” heritage. Georgia’s new Governor Nathan Deal opened his victory speech with “to God be the glory, great things He has done,” as if God Himself stumped for a man accused of a veritable checklist of ethics violations. In a race in which choosing a candidate seemed more like picking which form of execution you prefer for yourself than which man was better fit to lead a state, my guess is that The Almighty didn’t have much to do with it. Glenn Beck, grand dragon of ignorance and hysteria, had the audacity to claim the torch of Dr. Martin Luther King as the leader of the new struggle for civil rights, while simultaneously accusing hosts of individuals of things he knew to be spurious and defamatory. No need to come back to Mr. Beck. I doubt that God will.
Granting that these instances were not exactly aberrations, the theme of Republican candidates in this election had far more to do with fiscal responsibility and opposition to “socialism” than their God complex of previous elections. It was the debate surrounding those elections the led me to divinity school. I quickly tired of people with zero knowledge of history, theology or the Constitution claiming that we were a founded as a theocratic Christian nation, the Founding Fathers were all devout and practicing Christians and the Constitution was some political facsimile of a Second Covenant with the Creator. So I majored in history, am now in seminary, and will go on to law school to focus on Constitutional law.
It is clear that neither side of the aisle actually grasps what it means to be both a Christian and statesman. It’s not much of a stretch to say that neither side meets either qualification very well. While the Democrats claim the message of caring for the poor, the infirmed, the downtrodden and the suffering, many of their policy initiatives actually exacerbate these conditions. As for the Republicans, it’s difficult to maintain integrity when many prominent representatives and supporters are getting caught with male prostitutes or are off on dalliances in Latin America with their mistresses after extolling Christian values and the sanctity of marriage. Perhaps even more disturbing is their outright vitriol at the possibility of allowing for a 3% rise on the income tax of people who by definition make at least twelve times the stated minimum standard of living. They can couch this policy in language of job creation and fairness all they want, but in reality it is nothing more than greed. Not much in the way of Christian virtue there.
So here’s the deal. Neither party has any right to claim authority as the party of Christ. The Republicans were, at one time, the party of Crist, but they abandoned him as well. The Constitution is not a religious document, nor were the Founders all devout Christians. They were extremely intelligent and forward thinking men who realized the positive aspects of Christian faith for a new republic and created a government charter that allowed religion to thrive by formally separating its role from that of the government. Christian values could be of great benefit in policy making, but politicians must first learn what Christian values actually are. They do not favor the wealthy nor condone bigotry. Neither do they legitimize abortion or advocate gay marriage. They are not the weapons of political strategists. So Congress, do your job. Fund education, build new roads and bridges, protect our nation and ensure our progress. And for goodness sake, please leave God out of it. He has enough to do without having to answer for your sanctimony in His name.
Sincerely,
The Faithfully Concerned
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