I was going to talk about Eric Miller’s article regarding his choice for president, but Keith has already commented on that, and, for the most part, I agree with him.
Eli passed this along to me this morning, and it’s pretty interesting.
I think what I really want to talk about is the “cultural war” that has suddenly been front-and-center lately (at least on the web). It goes a little something like this:
Democrats accuse “Christian evangelicals” of trying to Bible-cize our great country, and Republicans see Democrats as trying to drag this place back to Gomorrah. “Moral issue voters” came out and made their statement.
The truth isn’t so simple. First, the number of church-going folk who voted was roughly the same as 2000. Chances are, their vote was generally the same as 2000 (from a Republican/Democrat perspective). What the left doesn’t realize is that while it’s easy to say this is a “religious” country, the definition of “religious” is not easy to pin down. I believe that 75% of the country believes in “God” but I don’t believe that more than 45% actually understands what that means to their everyday lives. And even fewer of those people have Biblical basis to what they believe (other than God created the earth, and Jesus rose from the dead) to what they believe.
That said, there are plenty of “evangelical Christians” who believe the best way to bring about Christianity is through legislation. Some are outright theonomists, others are closeted. But their theonomy is woefully illogical and incomplete. Yes, they say, ban gay marriage and abortion. But whither are the calls for laws against adultery, fornication, and drunkeness? What about bringing back the Blue Laws? I guess theonomy has to start somewhere. But I still think these folks are a minority on the right. They may have loud voices (I’m thinking of the TV evangelists and the Christian Right), but they aren’t the majority. The majority of the “moral issue voters” (I promise, that’s the last time I’ll use quotation marks) are God-fearing, but not necessarily God-knowing. Killing babies is wrong, and being gay is even worse. It’s not about a well-reasoned belief — it’s about disgust. People are so thoroughly disgusted by gays that they had no choice but to get out and vote. And don’t discount the collection of economic libertarians who still cling to a greater moral code and aren’t quite social libertarians. Most of these folk know they’ll never see a libertarian president in their lifetime, so the Republican candidate is their best choice, even if he is a big government, spend-spend neo-conservative.
All that said, let’s talk about that cultural war again. Plenty of Christians (and I mean theologically grounded folk) believe in that legislation is an effective tool of evangelization. Some believe that the U.S. has always been a Christian nation (history and political theory be damned), and therefore our laws should reflect that. But there are those of us who believe things work the opposite way — by redeeming the world through the things we do (either through our work, our relationships, our hobbies) we can work towards spreading the Gospel. So we may be fighting a cultural war as it were, but we are fighting it in the world instead of in the halls of Congress. It is a cultural war, in a sense, but not one to be fought with swords and laws. If anything, it’s a counter-cultural movement trying to change the way people fundamentally look at Things.
But that doesn’t make good politics (as most counter-cultural movements). And it doesn’t make for good copy. The political handlers on both sides of the aisle want to toot the horn of cultural war because nothing less seems to rally the troops. The Democrats failed to get out the vote with the specter of the war on terrorism and the war in Iraq, and Bush’s apparent bungling of both. So now, instead of looking for answers through changes in the party, they are crying war. And the left is listening. It’s not the Democrats fault — blame those close-minded Christians (who, of course, do deserve some blame)! And the Republicans will be happy to play along. Obviously it’s worked for them so far, and now, with many of the “moral” leaders of the party feeling the power, expect more in the future.
Posted on 10 November 2004