A reply to Barack Obama

So Sen. Barack Obama  (D-Ill) is trying to open a dialog between "progressives," and religion. Good for him.

I agree completely with the senator's basic points: that on one hand it is not only perfectly proper but inevitable, that people of faith carry their most deeply held beliefs and values into the voting booth and the public square, but that, on the other hand, a distinction must be made in a pluralistic society's public square between religious beliefs per se and public policy inspired by them. Nevertheless, dialog presupposes disagreement- and as strongly as I commend Senator Obama's speech to you, there are aspects of it with which I disagree. Not least of all do I disagree that godlessness, inconsistency, and hypocrisy should be called anything but what they are, regardless of whether or not those who exhibit them describe themselves as "people of faith."

The religious history of America being what it is, the context of the speech might be a good place to begin my faultfinding. The speech was delivered to a conference called "Call to Renewal's Building a Covenant for a New America." Now, "covenant" is a loaded word. It is not- contrary to what most people assume- another word for "contract." It does not assume equal obligations on the part of both parties, or even that both parties even have obligations. It does not even presuppose that both parties have given their consent. But it has been used historically to advance the dubious premise that the United States stands in a special relationship to God more or less analogous to that of Israel in the Old Testament, and the Church in the New. Yet I recall no mention of the United States in either testament. A question might be asked as to who, exactly, the parties to this "new covenant" might be.

I happen to agree that it was churlish and ungracious- as well as illogical- for the senator's opponent in his election campaign, Alan Keyes, to have called Sen. Obama's Christianity into question because he is pro-choice. I happen to agree with Mr. Keyes that the senator's position is inconsistent with Christianity. A human fetus is a human fetus, it is by every biological definition alive- and, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer pointed out, even if one were somehow to conclude that it is not, therefore, a human life, there can no question that God intends that it become one.

But challenging someone's logic or consistency is not the same thing as saying that he is not a Christian. I see no difference between holding Senator Obama's position on abortion accountable to the content of the Christian Faith, on one hand, and the perfectly legitimate practice of holding a politically conservative Christian's commitment to social justice accountable to it. But what makes one a Christian is not the content of his ethical beliefs, as true as it is that being a Christian has ethical implications. What makes one a Christian is faith in Christ. In Lutheran-ese, it is not a correct understanding of the Law which makes one a Christian, but faith in the Gospel.

I've spoken before of the religious Left- the theological and religious tradition, both far older and far more historically influential than the religious Right, which somehow escapes notice when matters of church and state are debated. As it happens, Senator Obama is a member of that tradition in direct line of descent from those who first sought on American soil to carry their religious beliefs into the public arena. He is a member of the United Church of Christ, which can trace its lineage all the way back to the Pilgrims. Even more than its fellow liberal churches in the Protestant "mainline-" the United Methodists, the Presbyterian Church-USA, the Episcopal Church, and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America,, for example- its identity is defined far less by its subscription to the traditional creeds and teachings of Christianity (UCC ministers are not required to believe in the Trinity, and active homosexuality is not only not seen as a bar to ordination but celebrated) than by its own political posture. Like the political ideology of the Mainline Protestant churches as a group, the political posture of the UCC is far to the left of the Democratic party. The Liberation Theology and much of the feminist theology which informs UCC teaching (as they inform that of the United Methodists, the Presbyterian Church- USA, the Episcopalians, and the ELCA) are openly Marxist.

None of this is mentioned to discredit either Sen. Obama or his arguments. It is merely provided for context. Despite the rhetoric of the secularist Left, by no means have the Jerry Falwells and the Pat Robertsons been the only people carrying theological concerns into the public square. As Senator Obama rightly points out, the civil rights movement had its origin in religious faith, too- as did the abolitionist movement, the movement against child labor, and in our day the movement against capital punishment. It is hard, in fact, to think of a social reform movement in American history which did not originate in the Christian Church!

That being the case, the studied hostility of the political Left to religious involvement in political affairs is hard to understand. Senator Obama's speech is long overdue.

I am not sure I agree with Sen. Obama that we ever were a "Christian nation." It is true that the Founders sometimes use that phrase- and at least on one occasion if I recall, so did the Supreme Court. But in context, that phrase always is a reference to Christian ethics and values- which, of course, are not specifically "Christian" at all. The Western ethical tradition is sometimes spoken of as "Judeo-Christian," and that phrase is generally understood. But all sorts of mischief has come of the misuse of the term "Christian" by the Founders and by the Court. In no sense does this idiosyncratic and misleading use of this word refer to Jesus as Savior- much less, of course, to an establishment of religion.

Sen. Obama decries the peril of "sectarianism." That word, too, is often misunderstood. Rick Abanes, an apologist for Obama's friend Rick Warren, uses it to refer to Christians who resist the watering down of Christianity to its lowest common denominator, a thin and insubstantial gruel Abanes regards as its essence and somehow the only part of the Faith God really cares about. I don't think the senator meant to use the word in that sense, but he would have done well to have defined it.

Now comes the truly problematic part of Sen. Obama's speech:

And even if we did have only Christians in our midst, if we expelled every non-Christian from the United States of America, whose Christianity would we teach in the schools? Would we go with Jim Dobson's or Al Sharpton's? Which passages of Scripture should guide our public policy? Should we go with Leviticus, which suggests slavery is ok and that eating shellfish is abomination? How about Deuteronomy, which suggests stoning your child if he strays from the faith? Or should we just stick to the Sermon on the Mount - a passage that is so radical that it's doubtful that our own Defense Department would survive its application? So before we get carried away, let's read our bibles. Folks haven't been reading their bibles.

Part of the problem here is precisely Sen. Obama's own approach to Scripture. The historical-critical method, practiced by the mainline Protestant churches as well as by Roman Catholics, assumes for practical purposes that the Bible is merely an inconsistent collection of purely human documents whose provisions it is quite reasonable to contrast with and set over and against each other. The historical-grammatical method- the method historically practiced by the Christian tradition, and which conservative Protestants still use- assumes that, to the contrary, the documents are both human and divine, like Christ Himself; that behind their multiplicity of authors stands a single Author, and that therefore the teachings of Scripture are to be sought, not by isolating individual passages, but by examining each in the light of all the passages which speak to the same subject. A practitioner of the former approach will see in Scripture a smorgasbord of possible beliefs, often mutually contradictory and exclusive, from which one may pick and choose; a follower of the latter will see a single, ascertainable teaching, expressed in various ways and applied to various differing situations, but still consistent, in context, with the whole.

Even practitioners of the historical-grammatical method differ, of course, as to their understanding of what the Bible teaches on many subjects. Followers of the historical-critical method would ascribe that- as Sen. Obama seems to ascribe it- to differences in teaching among the texts; conservative Christians themselves would ascribe it rather to the presuppositions of the interpreter, including which of the passages are seen by the interpreter as most central.

Either way, Sen. Obama knows quite well that few Christians regard kosher dietary laws, the laws given to ancient Israel regarding slavery or the sanctions prescribed for a nomadic society for dealing with incorrigible children (nearly all socially disruptive misbehavior is punished by death in Deuteronomy, practical alternatives being somewhat limited under the circumstances) as being anything but time and culture-specific, and the suggestion that Jesus had the Department of Defense in mind when He preached the Sermon on the Mount borders on the bizarre. While it's undoubtedly true that folks should be reading their Bibles more, that entire paragraph of Sen. Obama's speech is disingenuous, and he would have done well to omit it.

Except, of course, for the perfectly valid question about the various approaches to Christianity taken by various Christians. A liberal Christian like Sen. Obama would see these as an inevitable function of the multiplicity of contradictory teachings in Scripture; a conservative Christian would see them as the fault of the reader (or readers), rather than of the text- and argue that objective truth ought to ultimately ascertainable by enough mutual study and dialog. Both, however, would hopefully agree with Sen. Obama's main (and rather obvious) point, that being the impracticality of theocracy in a society whose members don't subscribe to the same religious beliefs- even if they were all, in some sense, Christians!

I rejoice at reading Sen. Obama's next words because they are the words of someone who "gets it" in a way many on the social Right and most on the social Left simply do not:

This brings me to my second point. Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values. It requires that their proposals be subject to argument, and amenable to reason. I may be opposed to abortion for religious reasons, but if I seek to pass a law banning the practice, I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or evoke God's will. I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all. Now this is going to be difficult for some who believe in the inerrancy of the Bible, as many evangelicals do. But in a pluralistic democracy, we have no choice. Politics depends on our ability to persuade each other of common aims based on a common reality. It involves the compromise, the art of what's possible. At some fundamental level, religion does not allow for compromise. It's the art of the impossible.

Fair enough. I differ from only one thing the senator says here: I don't see why it should be difficult for those of us who believe in the inerrancy of the Bible to accept this at all. I would certainly think that the notion of arbitrarily dismembering living members of our own species because someone else finds it inconvenient for them to live would be something one might well disapprove of regardless of one's faith or lack thereof- and a precedent which is, on purely secular grounds, very bad public policy indeed. And the principle Sen. Obama enunciates comes naturally to anyone with a good Lutheran understanding of the Two Kingdoms- and who therefore knows that what Senator Obama is more or less trying to say next is profoundly biblical:

If God has spoken, then followers are expected to live up to God's edicts, regardless of the consequences. To base one's life on such uncompromising commitments may be sublime, but to base our policy making on such commitments would be a dangerous thing. And if you doubt that, let me give you an example.

We all know the story of Abraham and Isaac.  Abraham is ordered by God to offer up his only son, and without argument, he takes Isaac to the mountaintop, binds him to an altar, and raises his knife, prepared to act as God has commanded.

Of course, in the end God sends down an angel to intercede at the very last minute, and Abraham passes God's test of devotion.

But it's fair to say that if any of us leaving this church saw Abraham on a roof of a building raising his knife, we would, at the very least, call the police and expect the Department of Children and Family Services to take Isaac away from Abraham. We would do so because we do not hear what Abraham hears, do not see what Abraham sees, true as those experiences may be. So the best we can do is act in accordance with those things that we all see, and that we all hear, be it common laws or basic reason.

Contrary to the common misunderstanding, Luther's"Two Kingdoms" are not the Church and the State, but rather the realm of grace and the realm of compulsion. The former is found only in the Church, but the latter is found in both Church and State. Only Christians are citizens of God's Kingdom of the Right, but all of God's human creatures- Christians and unbelievers alike- are citizens of the Kingdom of the Left. That being the case, the Kingdom of the Left cannot be run by the Christian religion and is not intended to be. Rather, it's in the realm of nature and reason that God's decrees in the Kingdom of the Left are to be sought, even to the point where the moral requirements of Scripture itself are subject to examination in the light of natural law.

In the Kingdom of the Left, not everyone "hears what Abraham hears, and sees what Abraham sees." So we agree to operate by reference points available to us all. And that is precisely why specifically religious beliefs have to be translated into the language of what is accessible to all of us when they are taken into the public square- and by that very act cease to be religious beliefs, to be examined on the basis of Scripture, and become proposals of public policy, to be examined on the basis of nature and reason.

This, I think, is the heart of the matter- and Senator Obama, by and large, "gets it." If those who share his political persuasion also "get it," we will be well on the way to being able to discuss our differences as we should be able to.

Regrettably, I am not sure that most on Sen. Obama's side of the aisle want to "get it."

Sen. Obama goes on to make a distinction which needs some work:

Even those who claim the Bible's inerrancy make distinctions between Scriptural edicts, sensing that some passages - the Ten Commandments, say, or a belief in Christ's divinity - are central to Christian faith, while others are more culturally specific and may be modified to accommodate modern life.

The American people intuitively understand this, which is why the majority of Catholics practice birth control and some of those opposed to gay marriage nevertheless are opposed to a Constitutional amendment to ban it. Religious leadership need not accept such wisdom in counseling their flocks, but they should recognize this wisdom in their politics. 

But a sense of proportion should also guide those who police the boundaries between church and state. Not every mention of God in public is a breach to the wall of separation - context matters. It is doubtful that children reciting the Pledge of Allegiance feel oppressed or brainwashed as a consequence of muttering the phrase "under God." I didn't. Having voluntary student prayer groups use school property to meet should not be a threat, any more than its use by the High School Republicans should threaten Democrats. And one can envision certain faith-based programs - targeting ex-offenders or substance abusers - that offer a uniquely powerful way of solving problems.

"Proportion" isn't the issue. The issue is context. As we've seen, there are certainly matters of biblical teaching which, precisely because they are culturally specific (not being a part of the natural law), may not only be modified but aren't applicable to us at all- and were never meant to be! Sen. Obama cites some of them in that rather lame paragraph on the alternative subjective "Christianities" from which one may supposedly choose by isolating and fixating upon individual passages.

We Americans seem to have a hard time with that notion. Sen. Obama mentions that "folks don't read their Bibles;" one will search the Bible in vain for any notion that any day but Saturday was ever ordained by God as the Sabbath, and both Romans 14 and Colossians 2:16-17 are rather straightforward passages which American religious history, custom, and usage gives little evidence that many of us have ever read. How many American states and municipalities, after all, have "blue laws?"

But to speak of "proportion" runs the same risk as the undefined use of the word "sectarianism." As Sen. Obama rightly observes, when God commands, the obligation to obey is absolute. Yet the question remains, as Luther observed, as to whether what He commands is addressed to us.

To say that is not to imply- as some, unfortunately, do imply- that there are small and unimportant matters in which God doesn't care whether we obey Him or not. And Sen. Obama's examples are not of the highest quality, and can easily lead to that conclusion. A Catholic (or other Christian) who accepts the teaching of Scripture and of the Faith since the very beginning about homosexuality, yet opposes a constitutional amendment outlawing same-sex "marriage" does not do so out of a sense of "proportion," but more than likely because he or she questions whether amending the Constitution is wise in a matter best left to the individual states. And a Catholic who practices birth control- no matter how many of them there may be- is still involved in a conflict between her professed belief in the infallibility in matters of faith and morals of a pope who pronounces her actions not only wrong but seriously sinful.

Like Sen. Obama, I hope that the time comes when we can talk about our differences about the places where faith and public policy intersect with greater mutual understanding and respect. But I must confess that I do not see faith very often "used as a tool of attack...used to belittle or to divide." I see faith in many cases addressing unbelief as exactly what it is- the unbelief of people who attack faith precisely because of what it is. And make no mistake: aggressive unbelief- even among those who consider themselves to be "people of faith-" is pandemic in this country. So, too, are godless behavior and attitudes among people on both the Right and the Left- including some of those who would most resent hearing their behavior so described. And I would be remiss in not categorizing specifically abortion on demand, as well as many of the other causes defended by the social Left, as precisely "godlessness." There is simply no other word for proposals of public policy which institutionalize the assumption that individual preference is the highest possible source of moral authority in terms precisely analogous to the institutionalization of an established religion in a theocracy. "Moral anarchy" is, after all, two words.

I am grateful to Sen. Obama for his speech. I hope it bears fruit. But this conversation has a long way to go. And civility cannot require, and should not be seen as requiring, that godlessness is called anything other than it is, or that believers on either side of the political divide not be held accountable for their own inconsistency and hypocrisy.

HT: Real Clear Politics