[Oe List ...] Chittister/candidates' faith

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Joan Chittister responds to the recent interview of Democratic  candidates 
about their religious lives
 
The baptism of a president
By Joan Chittister

Created Jun 7 2007  - 08:15

>From Where I Stand by Joan Chittister, OSB

June 7,  2007
Vol. 5, No. 5

Frankly, I thought the questions not only  completely missed the mark, they
trivialized the very subject they purported  to talk about.

"How do you pray?" they asked Hillary Clinton, Barack  Obama and John Edwards
on national TV. "What's the biggest sin you've ever  committed?" the
interviewer wanted to know. "Do you believe in evolution?"  she asked, "And
if so are the churches that believe in it wrong?" she  prodded. "What got you
through marital infidelity?" she went on. "Is this a  Christian nation?" she
asked while millions of people listened for right  answers with bated breath.

It was not a local faith sharing group we were  watching. It was part of the
televised process of electing a president in the  United States of America.

So where were the rest of the questions? Like:  Do you sleep at night knowing
that the longer you do nothing about ending the  war in Iraq that more people
will die? Or, does it bother your conscience  that the more money we spend on
war, the more children in this country will  go without food or education or
medicine? Or, do you ever pray that we'll  start spending money on child care
so women won't feel a need to have an  abortion? Or, do you ever ask God to
forgive you for supporting torture in  the name of security?

Religion, indeed, has become the flavor of the day.  The religion of
Democrats, at least, since Republican candidates were  woefully missing from
moral scrutiny. To be elected president these days, not  only must Democratic
candidates be able to promise that their religions guide  their personal
lives but they must be able to prove that they will work hard  to see that
their religious beliefs determine how they deal with everybody  else's
religion, as well.

Analyzing the question of faith in the life  of presidential candidates after
the televised debate, Ralph Reed, past chair  of the Christian Coalition,
made the point: quoting scripture is not enough.  Democrats, he inferred,
aren't really sincere about religion. "Liberal  Democrats," he insisted, with
their commitment to reversing tax cuts, to  universal health care and to
"cut-and-run policies in Iraq," cannot be  accepted in the polling booth by
Evangelical voters for whom "action speaks  louder than words."

The idea was that moral actions, not spiritual talk,  is what really counts.

The question is: What moral actions?

The  behaviors that matter, it seems, have more to do with personal positions
on  personal moral issues -- homosexuality, stem cell research, same-sex
marriage  and abortion -- than actions having to do with the moral dimensions
of the  public behavior of the nation.

And Ralph Reed may well be correct. Polls  tell us that the more frequently
people go to church, the more conservative  they are on social issues. For
those people, apparently, private morality  outweighs the social
responsibilities emphasized in scripture and  demonstrated by Jesus over and
over again.

Republican candidates  generally have run on issues of private morality. On
the other hand,  Democrats have built their platforms more on social issues.

Frequently,  therefore, the religious character of Democratic candidates is
suspect while  the religious character of Republican candidates seems to go
without  question.

As a result, the issue of what constitutes the kind of  religious commitment
that is equal to the political questions of the time  becomes paramount.

If the questions we are asking our presidential  candidates are any sign of
what we think religion is all about, Jesus would  not do well in these
elections.

The woman taken in adultery -- the  woman about to be stoned for sexual
behavior forbidden by the law -- Jesus  dismisses with a wave of the hand and
an exhortation.

But the cripple  -- in a world where sickness is seen as punishment for sin
-- Jesus cures.  The marginalized woman -- in a world where women were
invisible and  discrimination was rank -- Jesus raises from the dead. The
outcast leper --  in a world that shunned the wounded -- Jesus touches. In a
world where  Sabbath laws superseded individual discomfort, Jesus feeds the
disciples by  gleaning on the Sabbath.

"The blind see, the deaf hear, the poor have the  Good News preached to
them," he gives as a sign of the coming of the Kingdom.  In a world where
such as these are not only social outcasts but considered  morally unclean as
well, he takes responsibility for the marginalized of the  society. No
questions asked; no punishments imposed; no exceptions  made.
He does not demean them. He does not deny them entry into the social  order. 
He does not criminalize them. He does not call them  sinners.

Which gets us to the irony of it all.

What kind of a  society does each of these presently contrary moral
definitions produce?  Which is really the most religious? Whose religious
values should really be  in question: those who preach the Gospel of power
and wealth for the wealthy  and powerful or those who proclaim the rights of
the poor, both here and  everywhere else, in a society where wealth is
worshipped?

We're  beginning to see it happen.

An otherwise little touted but surprising bit  of information gives us a clue
to the answer to that question in contemporary  USA.

According to the Global Peace Index released by The Economist  magazine May
29, the United State is among the least peaceful nations in the  world. (See
www.visionofhumanity.com [1])

Of the 121 nations  evaluated, the United States ranks 96th, between Yemen
and Iran. Iraq the  report ranks as the least peaceful of all, right after
Russia, Israel and  Sudan.

This new Global Peace Index, rather than simply measuring the  presence or
absence of war as an index of harmony and public security, is  based on 24
indicators designed to explore what its creators call "the  texture of
peace."

The study's domestic indicators include "the level  of violent crime, the
level of respect of civil rights, the number of  homicides per 100,000
people, the level of its military expenditures, its  ease of access to small
arms, its relations with neighboring countries and  the level of distrust
among citizens."

Using grand words to glorify  war, making war and personal morality the
measure of the moral fiber of a  nation while ignoring the domestic climate,
the human needs and the civil  rights of the nation itself does not a moral
nation make.

There is, it  seems, a question about the quality of religion in this country
on both sides  of the divide.

Those who would lead us in the future may rightly be asked  whether or not
religious principles will guide their public behavior. But  those who are
leading us now have questions to answer, too -- which, if the  quality of
life in the United States for all its citizens and the character  of our
behavior toward the rest of the world is any measure -- certainly  equals, if
not far transcends, our concentration on private behavior as a  determinant
of our public morality.

>From where I stand, the model of  Jesus is a clear one: A religious life is
defined by more than personal moral  choices. It demands actions designed to
make the world better for everyone.  Those who claim to be Christian might
want to remember that when they start  choosing presidents on the basis of
their "Christian  principles."
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