c. 2006 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) This weekend in Washington, partisan preachers are gathering with religious Republicans for what they call a “Values Voter Summit.”

The elected officials speaking are all, without exception, Republican. Do these political preachers from across the country move in such small circles that their slate of speakers is devoid of Democrats?

They probably would say that Democrats don’t hold their values. Their values seem to start with abortion and gay marriage and end with school prayer.

But if they wanted a Christian against abortion, why not invite Pennsylvania’s Bob Casey, instead of just his opponent, Rick Santorum? Or if they wanted a Christian against gay marriage, why not invite Tennessee’s Harold Ford Jr. who also is running for the U.S. Senate? If they wanted someone who wrote a law letting our children pray (voluntarily and constitutionally) in public schools, then they could have really dipped down and taken this lowly state senator.

But then again, Casey and Ford and yours truly are, after all, Democrats.

Unfortunately, today many preachers proclaim not the Good News, but the bad. They tell faithful members of their congregations that they cannot be Democrats. Too many “values voters” think Jesus never rode a donkey and today rides only an elephant. I am tired of politicians, partisans and preachers spelling God “G-O-P.”

Are the Scriptures wrong? Is the Gospel not about grace, but politics? Not about what Jesus did for us, but what we must do for Republicans?

The truth is, God cannot be held hostage by any political party, and American Christians should not be either.

Many American Christians have stories like mine. I was raised in a faithful and loving church and a faithful and loving home. And from the time I was a child, I knew Democrats were about doing justice and seeking fairness and helping each American recognize his or her God-given potential.

My parents never confused FDR or any other politician with Jesus Christ. Nor did they equate or conflate the Democratic Party or any other political organization with the church.

But they also knew that the judgment of the nations found in Matthew 25 had lessons for how we live our lives _ as believers, as citizens. My parents believed, and my pastors and Sunday School teachers taught, that we are called by Almighty God to serve “the least of these.”

The more I studied Scripture in divinity school, the more convinced I became that God has a holy passion for justice. A passion found in the earliest Hebrew laws and on through the prophets, especially Hosea, Amos and Micah. A holy passion for justice also found in the Gospels and particularly the Gospel of Luke, right to the back of The Book, where I John teaches that God’s love does not abide in us unless we share with our brothers and sisters in need.

These are biblical values. And the Democrats and independents and independent-thinking Republicans who realize that God calls us to do justice and to love our neighbors are not mere “values voters” but something more: Biblical values voters.

I do not claim that Christians have to be Democrats. I have worked and worshipped, shaped policy and shared prayers, with many faithful Republicans. I have seen how they seek to do God’s will. I cannot and do not question their Christianity.

But I also know too many devout Democrats to believe they are not followers of Jesus just because they work as Democrats for freedom, justice and mercy.

That’s why another group of “values voters” also gathered together this month. A number of us launched a Web site, FaithfulDemocrats.com. We wanted to create an online conversation that helps people of faith share with each other, instead of denounce those who do not share our politics or party or position on every issue.

Those of us gathering at FaithfulDemocrats.com want to defend those values set forth in the Declaration of Independence and Constitution and to help America live up to our highest ideals.

We want to help the church avoid the heresy that Jesus is a captive of any political party.

And we want to lift up the biblical values found throughout Scripture but perhaps most poetically proclaimed by the prophet Micah: “What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, love kindness and walk humbly with your God?”

What if “values voters” voted for these values?

KRE/JL END HERRON

(Roy Herron is the Democratic floor leader of the Tennessee State Senate and a former Methodist minister. He is co-chairman of FaithfulDemocrats.com and the author of “How Can a Christian Be in Politics? A Guide Toward Faithful Politics”)

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