Some thoughts on my faith and electoral politics

So I’ve been doing quite a bit of processing in the last 48 hours or so – not to mention the last year or so of my life – regarding how my faith and politics interact. I have been at times an outspoken supporter of Barack Obama this year (and at other times more of a political fly-on-the-wall, esp. when the politics have become downright disgusting), which probably is of little surprise to those who know me. I am also an “evangelical Christian” (I hate being labelled, but ironically I love demographics…), someone who is hungry for Jesus and wants to see him transform every aspect of my life. Many of my friends are strong supporters of McCain/Palin – and would likely be strong supporters of every ticket the GOP could put forth, given a strong opposition to abortion and homosexual marriage. This is something I struggle with – I am definitely ‘pro-life’ in my own understanding of the term, and I am torn over the issue of homosexual marriage…

My friends from high school can attest that I was an extreme neoconservative back in the day, before my faith – and continuing education – transformed (and is still actively transforming) my worldview. Growing up, I’m not sure how I ended up so conservative. Perhaps my formative years in an affluent, relatively homogenous (homogenously Asian) suburb strongly colored my view of the world. I have a hard time remembering exactly what I believed back then, if only because I’ve changed so much. I very much thought of myself as a compassionate conservative – a glaring flaw, however, was my extreme distance from anyone I might have been compassionate toward, anyone who was remotely different from me.

Remembering all this makes me muse… What happened to the necon Jeff? Well, it’s not as if I had no inclination toward some more ‘progressive’ stances before I flipped. At some point in time, I began to realize I was an ethnic minority in this country. This may sound odd, but when you grow up going to Mission San Jose High, it may just never occur to you. I remember some of the reactionary responses to 9/11, seeing images on TV of outraged Americans who wanted to deport or go after all immigrants. While I dismissed such individuals as crazy lunatics from some part of America I avoid, I felt a troubling dis-ease with their narrow and nativist worldview. Furthermore, as much I rejected my Chineseness in high school, in college I began to learn about my ethnic identity and explore healthy aspects of my culture. Realizing I was Chinese in addition to being American really shifted some of my own nativist views.

Towards the end of 2006, I had a chance to go the Urbana student missions conference held every three years by InterVarsity. While there, I decided to attend a seminar taught by Shane Claiborne, as my college pastor had good things to say about Shane’s book The Irresistible Revolution. I didn’t know exactly what to expect, but the 1.5 hour seminar totally rocked my faith and blew my mind. I distinctly remember how awkward it was… I had chosen to sit near the front of a room that became totally packed behind me, and as Shane spoke about incarnating the Gospel in dark places and being good news, I alone bawled my eyes out for about half of his talk. Something was brewing up inside of me, and Urbana let it out. I realized how far my faith was from the way of Jesus, and incidentally how my faith less actively ‘informed’ my political views as it did let them rest in peace. My so-called faith, in a way, justified my conservative worldview (a worldview where I could succeed financially and self-righteously). Rarely did my faith bring me to places where I needed to rely on God and love people who were not like me. But truly this was only the beginning…

Shane terms his community as one of ‘ordinary radicals,’ and I quickly realized something that had never occurred to me before. This Bible that I hold in my hand, that I have multiple copies of on the bookshelf, has some of the most radical, crazy stuff the world has ever seen. I’m disturbed when I see conservative leaders try to marginalize ‘liberals’ as radicals while playing themselves as ‘moderate Christians,’ because honestly Christianity was never ‘moderate’ in the Bible. Jesus told one dude to sell all he had and give to the poor. It says in Acts that the early church ‘had everything in common’ and that there were ‘no poor among them.’ A far cry from the state of the church today. Many would dismiss such thoughts as ’socialism,’ but the reality is that the people had such community and such joy in following ‘The Way’ that it was only right in their eyes to support the needy brothers and sisters among them and pour out from their own poverty such that God’s name would be made famous. Jesus famously said “A new commandment I give to you, and you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

The Bible is chock-full of commands telling us to live justly, help the poor, and welcome the stranger, three things which admittedly tend to be far from mainstream political thought in America. We consume goods produced unjustly, ignore the billions of poor around the earth while we hoard wealth for ourselves, and turn away many who have sacrificed all they have to come to our borders. Did I mention Jesus’ radical idea of loving our enemies? Lost in all the talk about who should or should not talk to leaders of opposing countries is the fact that how can we love our enemies if we aren’t even willing to speak to them? The early church was known more for being a victim of violence than perpetrating it against others – in fact, the writings of many early church fathers seem to support the fact that the early church was pacifist. I don’t wish to come across as self-righteous. Many have failed, and I as much as most. I have been far from the poor and the oppressed, even as I so readily pontificate on justice issues. I have had trouble loving even my brothers and sisters, not to mention my enemies.

While I’m not the most astute student of political history (forgive me for minor historical inaccuracies), I just want to provide a brief rundown of how the evangelical movement has found itself so closely tied with Republican politics, because I think this is important to understand. Let’s not forget that many evangelicals supported the candidacy of ‘peanut farmer’ democrat Jimmy Carter in 1976. It seems to me that it was Reagan in 1980 who really recast the electoral landscape and the position of evangelicals. Evangelicals (as values voters) were drawn into a coalition with foreign policy conservatives (hawks) and economic conservatives (neoliberal economists who believed in freer markets, Milton Friedman-style) to form the basis of the modern Republican party.

I’m disturbed even at this point, because I see little outside of the social conservativism of values voters in the Reagan neoconservativism which strikes me as Biblical. Foreign policy conservatives miss the point of ‘loving your enemies’ (who, in a global world, are also our neighbors…), while economic conservatives have long been guilty of implementing policies which oppress the poorest of the poor. Continuing on, religious conservatives (the ‘Religious Right’ which has come to be personified by the late Jerry Falwell, James Dobson, and others) now saw it in their best interest to see the GOP do well. Members of the religious right adopted other ‘right-wing’ positions on issues because of the nature of the coalition, which is one reason I believe we see Christian values mixed up with things like war and economic nativism coming from pulpits and pundits. The Religious Right, which operates from a self-important position of moral superiority, has sadly been drawn in to the ‘win-at-all-costs’ mentality the GOP is often known for. That means that members of the Religious Right (I once counted myself in their number) have stood too proudly alongside outright racists, fearmongers, and liars in their efforts to win elections. We stood idly by while friends or friends of friends sent out e-mails proclaiming Al Gore was ‘the anti-Christ’, either silently agreeing or believing that achieving the political ends are worth the dirty, dishonorable means. When we do this, I believe we dishonor the name of the Lord that we follow.

Meanwhile, we have bought into the meme of ‘compassionate’ conservatives so much that we ignore the fact that conservatives have constantly fought against healthcare (which is a big issue for the poor) reform, tightened our borders, created polities which favor the rich, and George W. has kept and tortured thousands of prisoners in violation of their civil rights on floating prison ships and in Guantanamo Bay. I think that even well-meaning compassionate Christian conservatives have been duped by their leaders and politicians.

This is not to say that everything progressive democrats say goes. In Jesus for President, Shane points out the numerous times Barack Obama has claimed that America is the world’s last, best hope. I hope we remember as Christians that Jesus and the Kingdom of God, not America, is the world’s only worthy hope. Certainly I do not support third-trimester abortions (really I don’t support abortions of any kind…), as Obama does. There are numerous other points where I believe Obama is just wrong (for instance, I do not believe the second commandment is a good policy…). I hope Christians are not in the pocket of either political party, because that is dangerous for the church and the world in which we live, and neither political party is the Kingdom of God.

In this election cycle, I’ve seen a disgusting amount of lies and false rumors spread by both sides. Trust me, I’ve kept up. But what bothers me the most is how many of these politicians call themselves ‘Christians’, and how many ‘Christians’ perpetrate these acts of hate and ignorance. Palin’s accusations that Obama doesn’t see America ‘like you or me’ stokes the fire of racism. That’s probably why her rallies attract people who shout things like ‘kill him’ about Obama and make racial slurs towards Black cameramen. Yet Palin seems to be the candidate du jour of evangelicals. For me, it’s not difficult to see Palin telling her supporters that I am not like ‘you or me’ because I, too, and college-educated and a person of color. Unable to keep the focus on the issues, Palin makes nasty aspersions regarding Obama’s association with William Ayers and Jeremiah Wright, while conveniently ignoring her own record. This is not to say that one of them is ‘dirtier’ than the other, but if Palin is running as a ‘Christian’ candidate it would be refreshing to see her avoid regurgitating the lies and half-truths propagated by the McCain campaign which mischaracterize Obama’s record and past. I think running a campaign which avoids attacks and lies would be a good way for a politician to live out their Christian faith. I react with similar negativity to Obama’s attack lines, and honestly at many points that has turned me off to politics in this election season in total. Still, I plan on voting, because I hope that voting is one small way I can help create a just system for the oppressed and marginalized in America and around the world.

Of course, many well-meaning Christians do approach voting (and vote conservatively) from a Biblical perspective. To them (and to me), abortion is clearly wrong and results in the deaths of millions of innocents every year. It appears homosexuality is clearly labeled sin in Romans 1, and as a result many Christians feel compelled to vote against gay marriage. There are two issues that come up for me when I think about these issues. The first issue is comparing the someone’s intent with the result of their actions. Christians have been focused for a long time on reversing Roe v. Wade and making abortion illegal. However, I’m sure most would tell you that they would prefer that there were no abortions over the possibility that abortions were simply illegal. Does the result match the intent? Many believed that under Bush, Roe v. Wade would eventually be overturned. It hasn’t been. However, we have gotten abstinence-only sex education, which arguably contributes to youthful ignorance and more unwanted pregnancies (I’m not even sure where I stand on abstinence-only sex ed, but I’m just pointing out some interesting consequences of our latest administration). Perhaps, if we ever do manage to make abortion illegal, abortion rates will go down, although this theory has not held true around the globe – studies have shown there is little difference in abortion rates in countries with and without legal prohibitions. However, maybe a more Christ-like way of reducing abortions (which I feel very strongly about) is walking alongside those who have unwanted pregnancies, sharing in their joys and pains and encouraging them to keep their babies from the perspective of a friend. Jesus spent much of his time amongst the marginalized and broken and I hope we will learn from His example.

The second issue that comes to mind when Christians focus on these two issues over issues like justice, kindness to foreigners, and peace, is the question of why certain issues are more important in the evangelical mindset. From my own personal experience, I can say it was a lot easier for me to live my extant, affluent, safe lifestyle while those were my two main electoral goals, than when I care about a lot of the other stuff. It seems to me that most evangelicals aren’t about to go run out and get an abortion or a same-sex marriage. However, many evangelicals WOULD be affected when we start talking about justice issues and tough commands like enemy-love. I don’t mean to come across as judgmental – God knows I struggle greatly to live a life which remotely reflects justice, and I can honestly say I haven’t been in a hurry to find people who hate me so I can love them. But I just want to put it out there that while I believe in things like ending abortion (not ‘making it illegal’ but literally changing peoples’ hearts so that nobody ever wants to kill their baby ever again), it is much easier for the evangelical electorate to swallow positions that don’t affect their lives than to take a long, hard look at how the commands of Jesus are reflected in their own life. I hope that however we vote, we will be willing to examine how we reflect the Gospel through the entirety of our lives.

Greg Boyd, in the Krista Tippett-moderated forum I referenced in my last post, noted that perhaps a reason Jesus attracted the tax collector and prostitute-types that the modern church seems to have so many problems with is that he wasn’t all about trying to pass laws against them. I too have wondered about this question a lot – why the modern church in America fails to attract the outcasts and the marginalized that were so drawn to Jesus. On some level, I feel like the American church has lost its way. We’ve forgotten what it means to live out the Gospel, and instead many have simply decided the Gospel will just be something they experience on Sundays and at the ballot box. I hope that we can regain the saltiness, the love that made the early church stand out. I hope that we can regain the captivating uniqueness of the way, such that we reflect the early church in Acts 4 – “None of the rest dared join them, but the people held them in high esteem. And more than ever believers were added to the Lord, multitudes of both men and women…” The Gospel is not a set of political goals (incidentially a mistaken belief some of the earliest disciples had), whether liberal or conservative, but rather it is good news which should transform our lives and our communities.

Jesus proclaimed that His Kingdom was ‘not of this world,’ and I do not place my hopes in any nation-state or human economic principle to bring Shalom. My hope rests in Jesus alone, and I hope that in some small way we can all be His hands and feet to a suffering world. As easy as it is to get caught up in politics, I love what Shane had to say in Jesus for President, that perhaps more important than who we vote for on November 4th is how we choose to live on November 3rd and November 5th. I want to live in a way that makes the name of Jesus famous. To me, Christians living out the Gospel message is far more important than whichever party takes power in January. I still struggle about whether or not Christians should vote at all, but if we vote, let our faith show in our votes just as it is shown in our lives. God bless you all, and I hope God is with us as we struggle to reconcile our faith with our voting choices.