Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, September 26, 1993 TAG: 9309260073
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: WARREN FISKE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Long
According to Spivey, a suburban Richmond home designer and evangelical Christian, Armageddon is fast approaching. He sees fiery omens everywhere he looks in a "secular, disobedient and hedonistic" society.
"The problem is the heart of man," he says. "The only solution is the church. The biggest problem we have today is that the church has taken a back seat in politics. We've allowed sin and transgression to take over. The church must rise up and take stands on issues and say, `We are the church of the living God.' The time is right. We're living in the final days."
McCall, a Roanoke computer installer, is a Unitarian who advocates acceptance of different lifestyles and faiths and believes in the separation of church and state.
"I'm frankly frightened of the fundamentalists," he says. "I'm scared the religious right wants to impose its own views on the rest of society. I have a huge concern about what would happen in our schools. If our children are only subjected to their values, then we'll be teaching narrow-mindedness. We'll have turned into another Middle East."
Spivey and McCall stand on opposite sides in a dispute that has moved to the forefront of the nation's political debate. At issue is whether the conservative, biblically based beliefs of evangelical Christians should become the laws of the land.
Perhaps nowhere is the battle being waged more furiously than in Virginia, home of conservative Christian leaders Pat Robertson and the Rev. Jerry Falwell. The struggle is reflected in this fall's campaigns for governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general, as evangelicals rally behind the GOP ticket, and will be center stage next year as many cities and counties have their first school board elections.
The stakes are high, and the outcomes could affect everyday life in Virginia on issues including education, abortion, spending and taxes.
Spivey belongs to the West Side Assembly of God, a church of 1,600 evangelical Christians in Henrico County who believe all truth is based on the Bible. McCall belongs to the 300-member Unitarian Universalist Church of Roanoke, which preaches that each person should find faith in his or her own way - so much so that it offers courses on Indian mysticism and opens its chapel on Sunday afternoon to a homosexual prayer group.
Both men attend weekly discussion groups where, over coffee and pastry, they mull issues of faith and fellowship with about two dozen members of their respective congregations. During a recent Friday night at Spivey's home and Sunday morning at the Unitarian church, the groups turned their attention to politics.
They had much in common. Both groups agreed that values and public education are the top issues facing the state, followed by abortion rights and crime. But they disagreed deeply on solutions - with the evangelicals insisting on answers from the Bible, and the Unitarians looking to their fellow man.
Each denomination identified the other as the source of friction in the world today. An evangelical described Unitarianism as a "new-age, secular-humanist religion." The Rev. Kirk A. Ballin, minister of the Unitarian church, likened the Christian activists to "Islamic fundamentalists in Iran, trying to take control of the political process in a way to direct the values of all."
The evangelicals argue that they have a right as citizens to try to influence politics through their numbers. "We don't care what other people think," said Ruth Lanham, a homemaker. "We stand on God's word - that's absoluteness."
"It's time to get militant," added Joann Dickerson, a social services worker. "We've got to take our schools back and take our government back."
The battleground for the war on values is clearly public schools. Christian conservatives lamented that schools, in their effort to assure religious neutrality in instruction, have turned their back on the Bible and are undermining Christian beliefs.
"Many of the teachers are Christians, and many of the students are Christians, but it's still a very hostile environment for Christians to be in," said Marcia Gillison, a homemaker whose son just graduated from public schools. "There's a pervasive fear by the staff that something is going to happen to them if they say something about the Christian faith."
Curtis Carey, a computer consultant, agreed. "The school libraries have books explaining homosexuality, like `Daddy's Friend' and `Samantha Has Two Mommies,' but they have no copies of the Bible," he said. "I find that frightening."
"To say you can't teach the Bible in school, even as literature, is to say you can't teach traditional values," said Ann Cook, a social worker. "That creates a vacuum."
But the Unitarians argue that proper values can be taught in school without the Bible. "When we talk about values, people think about religious values," said Inez Good, a retired college professor. "But that's not it. Values are implicit in everything we teach to promote an understanding of the world around us."
Added Kaye Johnson, a foreign language teacher at Franklin County High School: "The values we teach have to do with The Golden Rule, which pretty well states how people should get along . . . When we tell students to take care of their textbooks, that teaches a value: Don't destroy public property."
The Unitarians expressed concern over jammed classrooms and efforts by many financially strapped school systems to reduce cultural classes such as art and music. Many said they were willing to pay higher taxes to solve the problems - an idea the evangelicals found unpalatable.
The Christian conservatives, in fact, said they would like to take money away from the public schools and award vouchers, tuition grants or other forms of tax relief to parents who send their children to private academies. The Unitarians recoiled at the idea.
"People who get vouchers will still have to supplement the transportation and other costs of sending their children to private schools," said Mary Boenke, a retired psychotherapist. "That will leave the poor people in public schools and destroy our cultural diversity."
Abortion is a huge issue to both discussion groups, each well aware that the election of Republican George Allen as governor could lead to success for a longstanding effort to require that parents be notified before an unmarried teen-ager can have an abortion. Evangelicals are determined to see abortion rights restricted, if not eliminated; the Unitarians want those rights preserved.
But not everyone in the evangelical discussion group shared an equal passion for combatting abortion. Asked if they could ever support a pro-choice candidate, most heads in the room instantly shook. But slowly one hand, then another, then a third came up.
"My problem is that I don't want to be a single-issue voter," said Cook, the social worker. "I'm not going to tell you that I would vote for an adulterer and a liar, just because he happens to be pro-life. I think it's hurt Christian conservatives, because we're seen as one-issue people who can be led around by the nose by abortion. That has allowed us to be used by politicians."
Lisa Gordon, a secretary, agreed. She was the only member of the evangelical group to vote for Bill Clinton last fall. "It was a tough decision because, as a Christian, I was very bothered by Clinton's pro-abortion stand," she said. "But I voted for him on economic issues. I felt we were getting further and further into debt, and that something had to change."
Other issues, including crime and gun control, the centerpiece of Democrat Mary Sue Terry's campaign for governor, provoked widespread disagreement within the evangelical and Unitarian discussion groups. There was lots of grumbling on both sides that government is wasting money and that politicians can't be trusted.
"It seems like the politicians come around every four years jumping on bandwagons like education reform, but nothing ever happens in between," complained Kathy Ely, a medical researcher who belongs to the Christian discussion group.
"The most important thing is honesty," said George McFarland, a retired member of the Unitarian panel. "I get so tired of politicians saying one thing and doing another, that I get lost. There's no follow-through. Like with drunken drivers: If we really oppose drunken drivers, why don't we make sure they go to jail?"
Neither side expects this fall's election will solve many problems. The evangelicals say that the second coming of Jesus offers the only ultimate hope. "We've got to pray for our politicians, pray for the United States," said Lanham, the homemaker. "I hate to sound like doom and gloom, because it's not doom and gloom for me. But it will be for a lot of other people [who] have gotten away from the Lord."
The Unitarians say the long-run hope is in brotherhood and worldwide acceptance of all faiths.
"Right now, everything revolves on fear," said McCall, the computer installer. "The evangelicals are afraid of any truth divergent to their view. We're afraid they want to impose their values on us. The people pushing gun control are afraid of losing their lives. The people arguing for tough law and order are afraid of anarchy."
McCall paused. "Everyone is afraid," he said. "What a sad state of affairs."
by CNB