Divided Church is Dividing the Nation

By Derek Darves

Together with some coworkers, I played hooky from work last week and went to see the activist filmmaker Michael Moore speak at the county fairgrounds in Eugene, Ore. Although he certainly gave a great speech, I knew what his political views were ahead of the event. What I learned was: If there is anything positive about this horrendous presidency, it is that the left is probably more unified and active than it's been for many years.

Yet despite a mounting mobilization to oust the current administration, the truth is that many of us, for years now, have stood idly by while radical ideologues deepened their hold on power through a devastatingly effective manipulation of the American psyche. This campaign started long before Bush took office and has been so effective that “liberal” is now a dirty word even among “liberals.” Even I cringe to use the word when describing my political views, adopting the term “progressive” instead.

How did what was once the numerical majority of the electorate allow ourselves to become so self-effacing that we reject the label historically associated with our general political perspective: “liberal”? And how have “conservatives,” once known as the progenitors of fiscal discipline and integrity, managed to create such staggering deficits?

One might reasonably ask how this ever happened. How did what was once the numerical majority of the electorate allow ourselves to become so self-effacing that we reject the label historically associated with our general political perspective: “liberal”? And how have “conservatives,” once known as the progenitors of fiscal discipline and integrity, managed to create such staggering deficits? The modern politician passing as a “conservative” apparently has no compunction about engaging in an extended shopping spree on the backs of future generations.

While there are tyrants in every generation, few administrations in our nation's history have so rapidly, effectively, and radically used power in ways that will take years to reverse, if ever. Yet at a time when the media has been desperately needed to provide an honest accounting, a dangerous form of epistemological relativism dominates the news cycle – every “perspective,” irrespective of its correspondence to the known facts, is imbued with equal credence. This system strongly favors the Republicans, as they have repeatedly demonstrated a willingness to purposely blur the contours of public opinion, seamlessly combining facts and ideology as if the two are indistinguishable aspects of political reality. And our media have failed miserably to demonstrate to the American citizen that the deceits of the incumbent cannot seriously be compared to the exaggerations of the challenger. This is why it is so disingenuous for the right wing to complain about the “liberal” media, when they so clearly benefit from the way it regards as equal the lies and hyperboles of the two main political parties. Far from unfair to the Republican cause, this system has been mastered to exact maximum political advantage for that party.

Despite these gloomy circumstances, standing among the crowd of 4,000 Michael Moore supporters in small-town Oregon suggested to me that the numbers are on our side. Yet this begs another question: if the Republicans are truly a minority party with an unpopular policy agenda and a tenuous grip on power, why is this election sure to be won or lost by a razor-thin margin? Pundits will say it is because Kerry, like Bush, is deeply unpopular among voters.

In contrast, I would suggest that voters ended up with Kerry because we are deeply divided religiously. The religious dimensions of contemporary political conflict in the U.S. cannot be overstated. And while the GOP has manipulated religious intolerance to gain electoral support for what is an essentially negative and widely unpopular policy agenda, it cannot be credited exclusively with creating this intolerance. Likewise, while Michael Moore can work to mobilize political opposition to the current GOP assault on our democracy, any such opposition is bound to have little more than 50% popular support until broader religious conflicts are brought to some resolution.

Contemporary U.S. religious conflict is not, principally, a war of civilizations – that is, Occident versus Orient, Christian versus Muslim, Protestant versus Jew. While this is certainly one dimension of the conflict, what we are really seeing unfold is an extended conflict of Christian versus Christian.

Contemporary U.S. religious conflict is not, principally, a war of civilizations – that is, Occident versus Orient, Christian versus Muslim, Protestant versus Jew. While this is certainly one dimension of the conflict, what we are really seeing unfold is an extended conflict of Christian versus Christian. Yet, paradoxically, it may not appear as a conflict to outside observers because one side – that of the fundamentalists – has been far more effective at organizing their religious expression across denominational boundaries, forging a sizable political coalition that creates remarkable political divisions within the electorate (with large numbers of the poor and working class voting for Bush in spite of their economic interests, for example).

Just like Bush and his groomers have taken the federal government hostage in order to pursue a radical political agenda, the religious right has all but taken U.S. Christianity hostage. One would be forgiven if they believed this was not in fact the will of most Christians. Among the Christian faithful who oppose the religious right, many watched silently – for years now – as the Christian Coalition and others assumed the “voice” of Christianity in the U.S. Moreover, Christian opponents of the social conservatives' takeover struggle to even define the coalition since it now stretches across religious groups once thought to be at odds with one another, from conservative bishops in the Episcopal and Roman Catholic churches to the Assembly of God and Southern Baptists.

The moral vision of this diverse group of conservatives centers on a series or preposterous and incongruous assertions: that the maintenance of the so-called sanctity of marriage is a more pressing social issue than rampant homelessness amidst abundant wealth; that scientific progress will only dilute our moral integrity and must therefore be rigidly controlled; that the separation of church and state results in moral degeneration because we are “really” a Christian nation anyway; and that achieving a narrowly defined sexual purity is more important than the New Testament emphasis on social justice and forgiveness.

My sense is that religion, which I believe is at the heart of the rampant political conflict in the U.S. today, holds the key to breaking us free from what looks like years of bitter deadlock ahead. We need to make progress on too many important issues – from global warming, to rampant international poverty and AIDS research – to allow this religious and cultural stalemate to be sustained.

In reading the New Testament, one cannot avoid the centrality of a few simple, yet radical, assertions: that the most noble life is one that protects the poor and vulnerable among us; that children should be protected and cherished; that forgiveness is of paramount important and that we are too flawed, anyway, to base our systems of faith on negative judgment of the behavior of others. Yet none of these assertions assume anything like prominence in many contemporary Christian congregations. Abortion and homosexuality have deeply divided U.S. Christian churches in a way that has limited their ability to organize and work for progress on a broad range of social and economic issues.

Christians, and I include myself, simply cannot move beyond our often limited and unchanging perspectives. In a world where few issues are resolved through the adoption of stark alternatives – pro-choice or pro-life, black or white, wrong or right – Christianity in the U.S. needs to redefine its core values to focus once again on social justice and mercy, and to seek compromises that do not entail one side entirely embracing the perspective of the other, because this will never happen.

The truth is that a key reason we are a deeply divided, “Red and Blue State” country is because Christians have made little effort to find solutions to these issues. All sides have dug in, holding on to their positions, while a range of issues we all agree pose serious threats have taken a backseat to our endless – and ultimately selfish – religious war. It is time for a cease-fire and, more importantly, it is time that Christians take back their faith from those who would manipulate it for profit and political gain.

To be sure, I deeply affirm the value of the separation of church and state. Nonetheless, I see the state as the ongoing and inevitable hostage of the church so long as it remains locked in a cultural battle that only distracts from its true destiny as a vessel of compassion and decency.

Derek Darves is a data analyst for a non-profit social research company in Eugene, Oregon. Born in Montreal, Canada, he has lived in the U.S. for over a decade. Derek may be reached by email at derekd@ori.org.