Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, November 16, 1994 TAG: 9411170058
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-11 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KENNETH CHAFIN
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Both are branches off the same root and when they join forces, as they have today, many of us fear both for our country and for the church.
The new-found political clout of the Christian right is being written about constantly. Much of the media focus is on the political perspective rather than analyzing what drives the movement's members, what they really mean by things they say, and what is their understanding of what's Christian and what's right.
The first mistake in dealing with the Christian right has been to allow its definition of the issues to go unquestioned. While the movement's reasoning is faulty, its use of rhetoric is flawless.
Whether political or religious, when they have finished defining the issues, they feel free to do whatever whey want to in implementing those issues - even if it involves the destruction of property or reputations, or, for some, the murder of a doctor who works in an abortion clinic.
All who disagree even slightly are branded as unpatriotic, murderous, immoral, perverted, communistic, heretical or loose on family values.
The whole Christian right movement feeds off a "theology of resentment" - things its members are mad about. They are not coming out of a love of righteousness or justice, nor do they exhibit compassion or mercy. They are mad!
Demagogues know that frustration and fear are powerful emotions in society, and the Christian right has developed an expertise touching those hot buttons that focus those frustrations on some external enemy. The existence of pent-up anger is as necessary to the Christian right as the fear of racial integration is to those recruiting for the Ku Klux Klan.
AIl groups organized by what they are against carry the seeds of their own destruction. If they run out of enemies, they have to find a new enemy or invent one, because without something to hate, they will lose their appeal.
Even worse, when they successfully take over an institution - whether a school board, a government or a denomination - they don't know what to do with it. They are geared to criticism, not responsibility. Unfortunately, by the time they self-destruct, they have destroyed people and institutions, an irreparable loss.
A much larger problem with the Christian right is that its agenda is too short either to address the real issues of our society or to reflect the great breadth of historical biblical faith.
Much of the heat goes out of the Christian right when it moves too far beyond its feelings about abortion and homosexuality.
These biblical literalists forget that their Bible never discusses abortion as society is dealing with it today. They are correct that both the Old Testament and the New Testament appear to treat homosexual conduct as a sin, but they ignore the fact that the same Bible supports war, never questions slavery, assumes that women are the property of their fathers or husbands, allows parents to execute children who disobey, and even pictures God as ordering the slaughter of innocent children.
The Bible is set in a specific time and culture, not a book to be put in the hands of some Forrest Gump-type preacher who applies it literally to the complex problems of our society.
Abortion is the Christian right's lead issue and it goes forth to battle under the banner "pro-life." No one doubts that they are against abortion, but people have a right to question whether they are really pro-life. If the movement is so pro-life, why are many in it unwilling to support legislation to benefit poor children?
While abortion and homosexuality are the emotional engines driving the Christian right, the movement's cargo also includes such goals as state-sponsored prayer in schools and government aid to religious schools. They are all too eager to merge church and state.
"Family values" are bywords with the Christian right, but what do they mean? I have spent a 45-year ministry, as a pastor and professor, supporting family values in my speaking, writing and teaching.
But when "family values" in the pulpit sounds more like the platform of the Republican Party than the Bible, it frightens me. It comes across not as an affirmation of family but a condemnation of every form of family that falls short of the Christian right's idealized family.
Unfortunately, society and the churches are full of less-than-happy marriages, failed marriages, children out of control, unwed mothers, single-parent families, blended families, couples who live together without marriage, and many other combinations. Does the Christian right offer nothing to these people but condemnation?
The worst thing about the Christian right is that, at its very heart, it is not very Christlike. That it springs from the church does not make it Christian.
History reveals that in God's name, unspeakable horrors have been committed or justified by the church. Wars were called Christian by putting a cross on the Crusader's armor; the burning of those who disagreed with official doctrine was called "purifying the church;" slavery and continuing racial discrimination have been upheld by countless preachers. Parts of the church even tried to rationalize the Holocaust.
The essence of biblical faith is righteousness, justice, mercy and love. These create a dream of a day when all people would be gathered into one family - living in peace with God and each other,
I have watched the Christian right closely for years - in its political and church activities. It does not have a dream of a better day, nor does it have "good news" - a literal translation of Gospel - for anybody.
For politicians to cater to the power of the Christian right will undermine democracy. From the church perspective, the Christian right has already sold its soul, abandoning a more powerful spiritual message for the illusion of secular power.
Kenneth Chafin, now an author and speaker, is a former professor of evangelism and preaching at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky. Reprinted with permission from the Louisville Courier-Journal.
by CNB