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Recent polling data has confirmed that we're seeing a defection of religiously conservative voters from supporting Republicans to supporting Democrats. "An analysis of USA Today/Gallup poll trend data indicates that while Democrats have made gains across the board on the generic Congressional ballot in the latest Oct. 6-8 survey, the change has been greater among religious whites than among less religious whites and among non whites. At this point, religious whites are equally as likely to say they will vote Democratic as Republican, a marked change from their strong tilt towards the Republicans in surveys conducted June through September." "The data reviewed here suggest that the Republicans have lost -- at least temporarily -- some of the disproportionate advantage in voting preference they have enjoyed among religious whites. We're also seeing discussions on evangelical blogs that would have been unthinkable only a year ago. My background is evangelical and I graduated from Wheaton College, the school identified with Billy Graham,'43 and also the alma mater of Dennis Hastert,'64, the embattled Speaker of the House of Representatives. And, in the decades since, I'm quick to respond to those who appear not to understand our faith. For example, this is part of a letter I wrote to the Arizona State University State Press: "My wife lost perhaps a dozen in-laws in the concentration camps of Nazi Germany, and this informs my conviction that tolerance for people with different backgrounds and outlooks is certainly a moral imperative. However, Mr. Kleinman's column defeats his goal in teaching tolerance by radiating contempt. "The literalist tradition in the Bible has inspired men and women throughout the ages to fight against intolerance and injustice. Many of the early feminists and civil rights leaders knew and read the Bible to great effect. My father took an absolutist position from the Bible that killing was wrong and was a conscientious objector during World War II, at a time when it took great moral courage to take that point of view. "There is certainly injustice, dishonesty and hate within religion, and people and groups that manifest these attitudes should be challenged. However, Mr. Kleinman undermines his argument for tolerance with his sweeping generalizations and contempt for those that don't share his religious views." But in the wake of the Foley scandal, religious people are starting to no longer identify Republicanism with morality. "Since this situation involved issues of morality on the part of Foley, and allegations of a cover-up on the part of Republican leadership," Gallup writes, "it appears plausible that religious whites may have become disproportionately disillusioned with the Republicans and as a result lost more of their fervor for voting Republican than others in the population." Yet, there is more to it than that. I've read with some fascination the spin that leaders in the faith community have given the Foley case. For example, Cal Thomas admits surprise at the Foley scandal. "One frequently encounters the word "disgraced" modifying Foley's name and "scandal" to describe his behavior," he writes. "These are moral words, created for the purpose of labeling aberrant (and abhorrent) behavior. "In his classic, "The Abolition of Man," C.S. Lewis observed three generations ago that we are engaged in a type of tragic-comedy: "...we continue to clamour for those very qualities we are rendering impossible. ... In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful." "Scandal? Disgrace? I think not. Foley and others could only be so labeled if popular culture condemned, rather than promoted, immorality." Thomas' point is that in a corrupt world, we shouldn't be surprised to see corruption. However, his argument is at odds with the revulsion that most folks took to Foley's behavior. This revulsion wasn't an act of moral relativism. It's a sign that people can discern right from wrong. James Dobson is just as weaselly. He suggested that the Foley incident was perhaps a prank. "This is yet another sad example of our society's oversexualization, especially as it affects the Internet, and the damage it does to all who get caught in its grasp," says a statement from Focus on the Family. Thus, if everyone is guilty, no one is guilty. There is nothing about individual responsibility and moral obligation. Finally, we have the musings of Charles Krauthammer. "In 1983, representative Gerry Studds, Democrat of Massachusetts, admitted to having sex with a 17-year-old male page. He was censured by the House of Representatives. During the vote, which he was compelled by House rules to be present for, Studds turned his back on the House to show his contempt for his colleagues' reprimand. He was not expelled from the Democratic Caucus. In fact, he was his party's nominee in the next election in his district--and the next five after that--winning reelection each time. He remained in the bosom of the Democratic Caucus in the House for the next 13 years. "In 2006, Republican congressman Mark Foley was found to have been engaged in lurid sexual Internet correspondence with a 16-year-old House page. There is no evidence yet of his ever laying a hand on anyone, let alone having sex with a page. When discovered, he immediately resigned. Had he not, says Republican House Speaker Dennis Hastert, "I would have demanded his expulsion." Not only is Foley gone, but half the Republican House leadership has been tarred. Hastert himself came within an inch of political extinction. Krauthammer then asks: "Am I missing something?" The answer is: Indeed. That was then. This is now. It's proof of our collective moral growth. In the wake of the religious pediophila scandals, we are much more aware of the consequence of such aberrant acts. This also extends to others groups of people-- an unwillingess to tolerate "the rule of thumb"-- that you can beat your child or wife with a stick that has a diameter less than your thumb, an unwillngess to tolerate intolerance to gays, and an unwillingess to tolerate a flight from individual responsibility. I suspect that if Studds were caught in that same situation today, the reaction from most people would be no less as harsh as that which was inflicted on Foley. What exactly is animating the inner world of Dobson, Krauthammer, Thomas, and other mouthpieces for Republicanism? Given the culture of corruption, it surely isn't the Idea of Truth. It's another idea: The Idea of Power-- the drive to keep power by compromising the truth. It seems to me that whatever your convictions are either as a person of faith or a person that lacks faith, that the ethic of truth-- the unyielding search for truth-- trumps the zeal for power and also proximity to power. Nothing dulls the pencil of a journalist more quickly than when a man of power asks that journalist for advice. The Bush adminsitration has gone out of its way to nuture a key element of its base, the evangelicals. The only veto Bush cast was presumably to appease the religious right-- on stem cell research. But we are now just starting to see our cynical the administration is towards evangelicals, with Rove recently referring to them as nuts. In my The Torture President, I remark on the paradox that President Bush claims to be a man of principles that are rooted in absolutes. Any yet his epistimology is much more akin to the post-modernists in his pliability of words to reflect reality, or, to put it bluntly, to lie. Bush is "a defector from the reality-based community where evidence, facts, logic, reality, and decency have meaning." I recently wrote a letter to the alumni magazine, that at least for me encapsulates the relationship between faith and power. "In your article "War and peace." I saw many words written about war and physical courage but few words written about epace and moral courage. I don't question the bravery of those Wheaton graduates and others who have put their lives on the line iun Iraq. But I submit that courage is more than elading a brigade into a firefight. We must honor our leaders but we should never blindly trust them. And if I had it in my power, I would carve in that monument on the Wheaton campus under the phrase "For Christ and His Kingdom" the words from Psalms 146:3. "Put Not Your Trust in Princes." |