COMMENTARY: The Campaign: What We Need, What We Get

c. 2004 Religion News Service (Tom Ehrich is a writer and computer consultant, managing large-scale database implementations. An Episcopal priest, he lives in Durham, N.C. Visit his Web site at http://www.onajourney.org.) (UNDATED) Our family of five plus a girlfriend gather in my oldest son’s first grownup apartment and enjoy a superb Cajun shrimp-and-sausage stew. He […]

c. 2004 Religion News Service

(Tom Ehrich is a writer and computer consultant, managing large-scale database implementations. An Episcopal priest, he lives in Durham, N.C. Visit his Web site at http://www.onajourney.org.)

(UNDATED) Our family of five plus a girlfriend gather in my oldest son’s first grownup apartment and enjoy a superb Cajun shrimp-and-sausage stew. He sits at the head of the table and leads the family prayer.


Haunting French music accompanies our lively conversation. Ideas, dreams and laughter flow around the table. I relish the subtle shifting of roles.

Beyond this second-floor apartment, crowds gather to hear politicians. Rather than deal with their basic job of managing government, leaders of both parties wrap themselves in the mantles of faith and family.

We need to hear substantial thoughts about Social Security benefits, jobs being shipped overseas, budget deficits, a stalled economy, collapsing state services, national security, terrorism and a war that drags on beyond even its enthusiasts’ expectations.

Instead, politicians fling moral grenades at each other, invite clergy and other symbol-laden bedfellows to stand with them, and employ their own family members as props connoting the common touch.

Men and women who rarely stoop to the labor most of us take for granted, whose only checkbook worries concern television ad buys, who don’t send their children to tattered public schools or worry about gangs and drug dealers waiting there, and whose idea of the American Dream is take-no-prisoners campaigning for public office presume to talk to us about faith and family.

Gladly sharing the election-year spotlight are religious leaders, some bearing church membership lists, who evidently hope that blurring the lines between Caesar and God will pay off in career advancement, narrow doctrinal victories and Sunday visitors.

Meanwhile, the real thing holds hands in prayer and celebrates a young man’s early steps into adulthood. Our version of family isn’t everyone’s, of course, and our faith experiences reflect our unique histories. In this diverse and free land, families take many forms, and faith finds many expressions. In this apartment complex are singles and couples, young professionals and retirees, not to mention a racial, ethnic and religious melting pot worthy of the Statue of Liberty.


What we hold in common is authenticity. Up and down the streets where Americans live, families are doing their best. Under constant pressure, they balance dreams and checkbooks, wonder if trouble will come close, wonder if love can survive.

I think we have enough to deal with. We don’t need the political class to be manipulating our symbols in order to garner votes. We don’t need hypocritical platforms and harrumphing about “values.” We don’t need vote-seekers giving us ammunition for hating our neighbors. Playing citizens against each other is the shameful side of American politics.

Politicians’ business is government, as aggravating and mundane as it is. Our business is family and faith. Truly wise and courageous leaders would celebrate American diversity and lead the way in promoting the very tolerance and freedom that makes us targets of terrorists. We could then listen to their policy ideas, disagree with each other, and cast informed ballots on matters that actually can be resolved in free elections.

If there be any tension between this dinner-table scene and the world, let it be the tension spoken by Jesus. That is the tension between what we know and what God knows, the tension between the love we can muster and a love that goes deeper and stands the night watch, the tension between what we are able to give and what can come only from grace.

We don’t need campaign slogans about “family values.” We don’t need politicians and their religious sycophants telling us what family is about. We know what family is about. What we need is the strength, patience and humility to love our families in all seasons, to provide for them as best we can, to celebrate our children as they grow up, to love our partners and to be persons worthy of respect.

That is our work, not the government’s. I wish politicians would do their jobs and stop trying to curry favor with narrow-focus religious zealots by presuming to do mine.


DEA/JL END EHRICH

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