c. 2006 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) If the Christian movement _ splintered and acrimonious as it is _ wants to make a useful contribution to the nation, it will address ideas and ideals in upcoming elections, not tactics for gaining power.

Partisan politics, as we know, is about power and doing whatever it takes to attain power. If fear wins votes, spread fear. If greed and/or economic insecurity seem rife, talk pocketbook issues. If patriotism has cachet, wave the flag. If there’s a button to be pushed _ race, gender, class, sexuality _ partisan politicians will push them.

Religion can play that game, too. Over the past two decades, conservative Christian groups have pushed morality buttons on a narrow agenda and gained political heft with aggressive tactics. They have made parish rosters available to politicians, threatened reprisals and encouraged politicians to see themselves as true believers on a holy mission. Most recently, as the New York Times reported, some have even encouraged deceptive practices such as having parishioners pretend to be pollsters to gauge support within their church for a particular candidate.

We, as a country, are facing an unpopular war overseas, an escalating collision with radical Islam, a global economy demanding more nimbleness than we can muster and weak schools getting weaker. At this fragile moment in our history, we need to discuss ideas and ideals; more of the same isn’t what our nation needs from us.

What kind of nation do we want to be? How do we, as faithful people, address torture, immigration, domestic spying, and basic freedoms? Can American values coexist with cultures that have markedly different values? How do we address vexing moral issues (the full range of them, not just sex)? Can we find enough common ground to continue as a civilized, democratic nation grounded in a Bill of Rights?

Politicians have no clue how to enable such a discussion. It isn’t their world. Ideas, to them, are just mortars for trench warfare. Ideals are flags of convenience. They want votes, not an informed and discerning electorate discussing ideas and ideals.

It is time for religion to put aside voter-manipulation strategies and to give up the delusion that we can further a “Christian agenda” by sleeping with Republicans or Democrats.

We need to treat citizens as intelligent enough to grapple with ideas. We need to see our neighbors as decent and beloved, not as enemies or allies to be harvested for votes. We need to address the full range of cultural, social and religious values, not just the few that stir easy passions.

After 400 years of snarling at each other across religious lines, I doubt that we are suddenly going to hear Jesus’ call to oneness. But, if nothing else, we need to accept the basic theological point that none of us can work out our salvation by voting a certain way in November.

In time of trouble, our help is in God, not in a political party or its agenda. Nothing is served when some of us, claiming to speak for all of us, baptize a partisan platform and call it “holy.” God can’t be purchased that cheaply. The nation is ill-served when we allow politicians to wrap themselves in a gospel that they, without hesitation, will sacrifice to their aspirations.

Our province is to grapple with ideas and ideals and to change the public dialogue to something more life-giving than red-state vs. blue-state.

Democracy still comes down to voting, and in that we will disagree. But at least we will have talked about things that matter to God.

KRE/JL END EHRICH

(Tom Ehrich is a writer, consultant and leader of workshops. His book, “Just Wondering, Jesus: 100 Questions People Want to Ask,” was published by Morehouse Publishing. An Episcopal priest, he lives in Durham, N.C. His Web site is http://www.onajourney.org.)

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