Negative Campaigns -- The End Result

George Will, in a Newsweek column near election time a few years ago, noted that nastiness in political campaigns continues to flourish because it works. People are quicker to believe bad things about the other candidate than they are to believe a refutation of the claim. He concluded, "The negative campaign leaves voters feeling cynical and increasingly resistant to positive campaigning, ready to believe bad news about everyone."

Christians who are rightly concerned about political issues have also discovered the effectiveness of a negative campaign. Followers are more easily attracted to our cause if we convincingly draw an "enemy" to be conquered.

I find myself increasingly uncomfortable with the messages of this Christian negative campaign which paints an enemy to fear, to fight and, presumably, to destroy.

The battle plan is drawn up in the form of marches, boycotts and letter-writing campaigns. When Christians launch a negative campaign, we also pay a price in terms of cynicism and readiness to believe bad things about everyone.

Writer Madeleine L'Engle, coming home from a series of speaking engagements, said there is a vocal minority who is looking for the devil. "Believe me," she says in her book A Stone for a Pillow, "when you look for the devil, you will find him." You will find him not only in the secular world but also in fellow believers. People who are not yet part of the kingdom respond to this attitude in kind.

A business friend listened carefully to my explanation of why I believed the message of Christianity. I was not prepared for his only questions. "Do you think you're perfect?" The only thing he could identify as Christianity was the negative campaign. It prevented him from hearing what I had to say about Jesus Christ.

When Christians set themselves up as judge of the rest of the world, it is understood as a claim to righteousness. They don't believe we are perfect, and the Apostle Paul comes down on their side. "You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things" (Romans 2:1).

In my opinion we should pause before we write our letters, make our banners, start our boycotts. Unlike the politicians that Will is talking about, we have instructions from our Lord on how to treat those we label enemies -- love them!

Are "they" out to get us? Maybe. Even if they are, Scripture gives a clear formula for silencing slander: "Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us" (1 Peter 2:12).

Actions do speak louder than words, and we can, by doing right, "silence the ignorant talk of foolish men" (1 Peter 2:15). The shocking fact is not that they say bad things about us, but that their audience finds it easy to believe them.

If the world has an anti-Christian bias, Peter says our behavior, not our boycotts, should silence them.

-- Bernice Karnop

"Christians -- Not Always Right"

A new study by researchers at Princeton University has found that religious groups, led by mainline Protestant denominations, are more interested in progressive causes than conservative issues favored by the religious right.

 A survey of 5,603 adults found that most people think churches should take the lead in advocating racial reconciliation, environmental protection and advocacy for the poor -- all issues that have been central to the mainline message for decades.

While the 1990s saw the rise of conservative evangelicals, the study found the causes advocated by mainline groups are the issues the public cares the most about.

"The perception that religious groups are really only interested in conservative issues is not true," said Princeton sociologist Robert Wuthnow, who led the study. "They are not only focused on abortion or prayer in schools. Progressive issues do seem to be of enormous importance to people."

Only 40 percent of the respondents said clergy should advocate political issues from the pulpit, and there was little support for organized political lobbying -- such as through the Christian Coalition -- or for religious leaders seeking elected office.

The study also found that mainline Protestants have a slight edge over evangelicals in following public affairs. Forty-nine percent of mainline Protestants say they follow the news "most of the time," compared with 42 percent of evangelicals, 39 percent of black Protestants, 37 percent of Catholics and 49 percent of Jews.

"We have too often assumed that mainline Protestants are politically dormant," Wuthnow said. "These results show they are politically interested and active."

There was also significant evidence that religious groups would like to see more social action on the local level, and less influence by religious conservatives on the national level.

"The public wants churches to be taking a more active role at the local level, but is less keen on religious groups exercising influence at the national level," Wuthnow said.

-- Religion News Service

"Religion and Politics -- Do They Mix?"

Many voices in the secular world are promoting the "privatization" principle -- the notion that strongly held religious and moral views should be expressed only in personal and private spheres, never in the public debates or domain.

 What may be surprising and confusing to many, however, is that there are voices coming from within the religious community itself counseling the same. Some religious leaders are calling for "unilateral disarmament" by religious activists, demanding that they use different weapons and strategies to impact the culture.

The focus of Christians in the culture wars, according to these pacifist strategists, should be almost exclusively upon "living holy lives," and proclaiming a "higher and better" kingdom.

So just what are Christians supposed to do? How active can or should they be in seeking to confront or change their culture -- to influence and change government policy and societal conditions?

John Whitehead says, "We (in America) are witnessing the end of traditional religion (especially Christianity) in the public sphere. America is moving toward religious apartheid." But can Christians quietly and biblically live with apartheid?

John Wesley wrote, "Making an open stand against all ungodliness and unrighteousness, which overspreads our land as a flood, is one of the noblest ways of confessing Christ in the face of his enemies."

Who has not been inspired by the story of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the "Confessing Church" during the Nazi reign of terror?

And who would suggest that William Wilberforce should have remained silent in the face of the infamous slave market in nineteenth-century Britain? Or that Dr. Martin Luther King should have remained in the safety of his church instead of carrying the battle for civil rights into the streets and the public square?

One can only imagine what conditions might be like today had there been more such activists. Francis Schaeffer wrote: "Most fundamentally, our culture, society, government and law are in the condition they are in, not because of a conspiracy, but because the church has forsaken its duty to be the salt of the culture."

Did not Jesus say, "You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled by men" (Matthew 5:13).

Glen Tinder in The Political Meaning of Christianity, says, "Christians should be a sobering presence in the political world," adding that "the notion that we can be related to God and not to the worldis in conflict with the Christian understanding of God." Madeleine

L 'Engle put it so simply: "It is impossible to listen to the Gospel week after week and turn my back on the social issues confronting me today."

Thus many Christians believe Christianity and spirituality must touch every sphere of life and that religious isolationism is out of sync with the Bible and will only serve to accelerate moral decline in any society.

Still, Christians should not expect that entering the public square and confronting their culture is without peril either to their specific cause or to the cause of Christ in general. Whitehead cautions: "Christians should approach the political process not as crusaders seeking to vanquish the infidels, but as servants anxious to share the benefits of Christian values."

Christians who get involved in politics must be careful that their cause not become the "mistress" of some political ideology. They must constantly remind themselves that the kingdom of God will not be ushered in through politics, presidents or kings, but only by the King of kings. Only God can save the world.

Even in countries where free elections are allowed -- perhaps especially in such, hope can be misplaced. Again, Whitehead cautions that "Christians who rest their faith in the next election are practicing a form of idolatry."

Commonsense wisdom laced with love even for those with whom Christians disagree is essential. It is easy to oversimplify issues and to reduce every issue to a clash of good and evil. "Christians must be aware of their own fallibility. Humility, not extremism, should characterize Christians."

Christians will not gain much of a hearing if they boldly rage against abortion and homosexuality, yet ignore racial and gender discrimination, conditions of the poor and reckless disregard for the environment.

Perhaps the greatest risk adheres to institutional activism. Robert Dugan wisely suggests: "Our Christian politics will be more effective and less objectionable if we emphasize individual involvement rather than institutional involvement." For a church to marry itself to a particular candidate or party is not only foolish, but illegal. It is to risk losing tax-exempt status. Even worse would be the risk of losing a soul God has brought under the church's care.

Nevertheless, pastors can and should address moral issues from their pulpits, and as private citizens are constitutionally guaranteed freedom of expression and involvement.

Christians have their feet planted in two cities -- the City of God and the City of Man. They cannot escape either. And surely it is inescapably clear that Christians cannot leave the City of Man without light from the City of God. We must, however, be tolerant in our views about how to best "light up" that city.

Robert Dugan says, "Under any form of government, a Christian's first political assignment is intelligent intercession for politicians." The apostle Paul wrote, "I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone -- for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness" (1 Timothy 2:1-2). One wonders how different our world might be if Christians faithfully practiced this one exhortation alone.

What additional involvement is expected or desired may always be open to some debate. It is likely that some Christians are better equipped by temperament, by education and by experience to effectively engage the culture publicly.

Those skeptical of social and political activism on the part of Christians point to the Christian believers in China, observing that though persecuted and driven underground, the church has flourished -- not by seeking to change the policies of a Communist government, but simply by faithfully practicing their faith.

The splendor of holy lives in the midst of the sordid ugliness of an evil culture is undoubtedly the best hope for the redemption of that culture and is what the gospel is all about. Still, it is difficult to imagine God being pleased with any form of religious apartheid that would be indifferent to a political and cultural slide into tyranny and societal decadence.

Charles Colson reminds us: "While the battle rages on planet earth, we can take heart -- not in the fleeting fortunes of men or nations, but rather in the promise so beautifully captured in Handel's Messiah. Stop. Listen. Over the din of the conflictyou will hear.'The kingdom of this world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ.'" Until then, we have our feet in two cities.

-- Stan Meek

Accidental Conspirator

by John Leo

One morning IN THE 1980S my friend Harry Stein awoke and realized he was no longer a liberal, a story he tells in his new book, How I Accidentally Joined the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy (and Found Inner Peace).

Stein, a veteran New York journalist and novelist, is amazed to find himself a right-wing conspirator of the sort Hillary Clinton so helpfully alerted us about. But he knows the early warning signs and is eager to share them. He says you are in danger of joining the vast conspiracy if:

· You hear someone talking about morality and you no longer instantly assume he must be a sexually repressed religious nut.

· You sit all the way through Dead Man Walking, and at the end you still want the guy to be executed.

· Christmas season rolls around, and it hits you that there may be a religious connection.

· Try as you might, you just can't get yourself to believe that cheating on your mate qualifies as an addiction.

· At your kids' back-to-school night, you are shocked to discover that the only dead white male on your 10th grader's reading list is Oscar Wilde. And by the end of the night you realize that the only teacher who shares your values teaches phys ed.

As late as 1984, Stein still considered himself a liberal Democrat, though one who thought Ronald Reagan had won re-election in part because the left had handed the "values issue" to the right by default. He thought that Democrats had lost millions of possible allies by imposing litmus tests on so many issues, from abortion to bilingualism. Little by little, mandatory orthodoxy began to weigh on Stein. He noticed that the Hollywood establishment savaged Tipper Gore for her rather mild suggestion of a rating system to warn parents about obscene and violent song lyrics.

Stein wrote an article for Esquire posing the question of whether day care met the needs of children. It brought an "avalanche of denunciations." He had violated an unspoken rule: No doubts can be voiced on the left about day care. In TV Guide, another Stein piece challenged another dogma, that AIDS is just as much a threat to heterosexuals as it is to homosexuals. More outrage, particularly for quoting an AIDS researcher who said, "By and large, people who are responsible will not get AIDS."

Liberals seemed to be defecting on most values issues. "Something odd began to happen -- mainly to the country, and incidentally to people like me," Stein writes. "As feminism and multiculturalism more and more sought to remake society, attacking much that had served humanity well as narrow or even antique, we concluded we could no longer in good conscience remain on that side. There was both too little respect for the accumulated wisdom of the ages and too much playing havoc with truth and common sense."

Stein is still no great fan of the Republican establishment and some of the religious right. "Extreme right-wing zealots are the second-scariest thing out there," he says. "Extreme left-wing zealots, who would impose their view of what's appropriate thought, scare me more, because they have a hell of a lot more institutional power, mainly through the media and the universities." He was relieved to discover that the world of social conservatives "was a world less of yahoos than of humane and principled souls, fighting against the junk values that pervade the culture, and perhaps even more so, against the dumbed-down thinking that allows them to flourish." And he knows what drives social conservatives: "the gut-wrenching sense that, when no one was looking, the social norms and shared understandings -- the very moral order that for so long gave life a semblance of coherence and sanity -- were ripped asunder." Listening to liberal friends struggling to defend Bill Clinton, Stein says: "That used to be me! If not for a few happy twists of fortune, it could still be me!"

When liberals turn conservative, the media normally chalk it up to fear of change or hardening arteries. But there's another way of looking at it. Traditional liberals like Stein have the same principles they had 20 years ago. They haven't changed, but American liberalism has, mutating into something they no longer accept or even recognize. New York Post columnist Rod Dreher sounded this note when he called Stein "an old-fashioned New York liberal who got dumped when the race, gender and sexuality brigades hi-jacked the Democratic Party."

  Post-l960's liberalism has lost its communal sensibility and now talks almost exclusively of autonomy and rights, not obligation or moral accountability. As Stein points out, it has aggressively labored to devalue society by trying to banish moral and religious discourse from the public arena. Values are viewed as matters of personal taste. Even the famous liberal belief in openness, tolerance and free speech now looks like a discarded tenet. Witness all the disinvited speakers, stolen newspaper and current not-very-liberal efforts to silence Laura Schlessinger and derecognize campus Christian groups. What passes for liberalism now, Stein says, is often an attempt to impose rectitude, "usually with the active cooperation of the news media, government agencies and Hollywood, all of which somehow get to call their own agenda 'inclusive' instead of 'narrow.'"

Amen, Harry, and welcome to the vast conspiracy. 

JOHN LEO © by John Leo for U.S. News and World Report. Reprinted and condensed with permission of UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE. All rights reserved.