Folly, heresy and Christian politics on the Right

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, this sinful world
as it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right
if I surrender to His Will;
That I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with Him
Forever in the next.
Amen.

--Reinhold Niebuhr

The occasion of William F. Buckley, Jr.'s death- one of whose signal contributions to the conservative movement back in the day was denouncing the John Birch Society and playing a key role in isolating that bunch of paranoid fanatics from mainstream conservatism- provides a helpful backdrop for discussing this phenomenon. Buckley- a devout Roman Catholic- subjected all things, including things political, to the test of his faith. He could not reconcile that faith- or, indeed, his genuinely conservative political beliefs- with the racism, anti-Semitism, and general paranoia to be found- then as now- on the nutball fringe of the conservative movement. Separating the two not only in the public mind but in reality was one of Buckley's most signal contributions.

But consider, for example, this picture. It portrays Ron Paul- a man whose political extremism and naivette is something of a joke in Washington, but whose presidential candidacy is supported by many Christian conservatives- posing with a prime example of the kind of people Buckley fought to exclude from respectable conservatism, white supremicist Don Black.

Paul has denounced racism in no uncertain terms. There can be no reasonable doubt that he is dismayed by the sort of neo-Nazi, Klan-type racist trash that his politically marginal views have attracted in such large numbers. That needs to be clearly said. Yet he gathers a following of conspiracy buffs, racists, and generally unwholesome nuts that just doesn't seem to ring an alarm bell with some Christians. Not even the revelation that he permitted a newsletter to be published under his name for years containing some of the most insensitive, disgusting, boarderline-racist garbage you can imagine phases those well-intentioned Christian people who somehow are attracted to Paul. Paul has pointed out that he himself didn't write those articles, and that while the newsletter was published under his name, he personally had very little or nothing to do with it.

Yet how can any grown-up person of normal intelligence miss the point that when you permit such disgusting dreck to be printed under your name, that it occurred as a result of personal negligence is no excuse? How can it be that so many normally reasonable Christian people miss the point that when Paul refuses to return the campaign contributions of neo-Nazis and Klansmen- his buddy Black, pictured above, is a case in point- he is publicly associating himself with their views, whether he shares them or not? (Before anyone even asks, yes, Barak Obama's refusal repudiate Louis Farrakhan's support also quite properly associates him with Farakhan's racism, even though Obama repudiates it every bit as much as Paul repudiates, say, Black's).

But Paul's impractical positions and implausible and extreme ideology aside, how- in view of his quite voluntary association with the very kind of groups and individuals whose views he repudiates- can any reasonable Christian miss the point that the above is not only an utter disqualification for the presidency, but that Christian support for Ron Paul is an occasion of scandal?

Then there's our own Lutheran embarrassment, the Rev. Herman Otten- another fringe type with minimal credibility with whom self-respecting Christians somehow associate themselves with nary a blush. It should be said in Otten's defense that, as publisher of The Christian News- a badly-edited exercise in false witness whose spell-checker seems to be permanently broken- Otten did serve a useful function once in helping to expose the quiet takeover of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod by theological liberals in the 'Seventies. As over-the-top as he sometimes is, Otten and the Christian News have continued to serve a useful watchdog function where the theological Left in Lutheranism is concerned ever since.

But Otten is a holocaust denier- a position which ought to be an embarassment to anyone with an ounce of intellectual honesty. Otten is a kind of poster child for the latent anti-Semitism that seems to boil just below the surface of entirely too many confessional Lutherans. This is not something to be proud of. In fact, it is a scandal- in the biblical sense of the world skandalon.

Similarly, there is a great deal that Israel has done in the context of fighting for its existence and the survival of every man, woman and child in the country which is rightly subject to ethical questioning. Controversy regarding Israeli policy toward the Palestinians is fair game. But in entirely too many conversations with conservative Lutherans, one begins to wonder whether it is Israeli policy or Israeli Jewishness which is really objected to. It's remarkable, for example, the percentage of time that a conversation about holocaust denial will seamlessly become a conversation about Israeli inhumanity to the Palestinians without a pause to indicate a change in subject- or the slightest realization that the most obvious glue binding the two together is the Judaism of holocaust victims and Israelis alike.

Martin Luther's late and shameful pamphlet On the Jews and their Lies, written when Luther was a sick and crazy old man, is legend- legend enough that, as Uwe Siemon Netto has meticulously pointed out, the huge difference between his theological bias against them and the explicitly racial animus characteristic of true anti-Semitism in general and the Nazi regime in particular has been hopelessly lost in discussion of it. In fact, among many- including in Jewish and other circles most concerned with remembering the lesson of the Holocaust- the myth that Luther's position was somehow a forerunner of Hitler's is a virtual article of faith. Note, for example, how late this article, even acknowledges the rather significant distinction between Luther's theological animus and the racially based anti-Semitism of the Nazis- a distinction it's fashionable, especially on the Left, to ignore entirely.

But I've often wondered whether there might be just a thread of anti-Semitism lurking in the souls of many fine and upstanding Lutheran people whose attitudes toward the Holocaust and automatic hostility to Israel and all its works part company with reality and anything remotely resembling Christian values.

Then, there's this. Compared to what's come before, it's so mild as to be positively benign. But it reflects what I think is an underlying theme in all of this: not the depravity, stupidity, or irrationality of Christians who get caught up in the politics of the nutty Right, but their political (and often theological) inexperience and ineptitude.

I briefly supported Mike Huckabee during the rational part of his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination (though the author of the linked-to blog post seems to miss the point, John McCain is at this point a mere 72 committed delegates short of the 1,191 he needs to win the Republican nomination on the first ballot; there will be no brokered convention, and Huckabee's expressed rationale for remaining in the race is, to any objective eye, pretty threadbare).

I started this campaign in Fred Thompson's corner. I left Thompson because he philosophically favored the "right to kill," as utilized by Michael Schaivo in the death of his wife, Terri. In doing so, perhaps I fell victim to the very syndrome I'm describing; he did favor leaving the legalization of euthanasia-by-starvation to the states. Perhaps I should have been satisfied with that.

But I wasn't. I jumped ship, and- without doing adequate research- signed on with Huckabee. I left the Huckabee campaign and joined John McCain's after becoming too uncomfortable with the style of "evangelical" Christianity which dominated its public face to remain.

Part of it was the shock of actually finding myself on the same podium as- gulp!- Tim LaHaye. But then, Gov. Huckabee- in a series of statements too frequent and too consistent to be mistaken simply for sloppy rhetoric- publicly embraced a view of the relationship between God's Two Kingdoms which is as biblically unsound as it is politically illegitimate. God did not put Christians on earth to conform earthly laws to the divine will, and create a kingdom for Him here on earth. Rather, recognizing that God already rules this world- in no small measure through governments (Paul thought Nero's qualified) through humanity's universal apprehension of the elements of the very Law God reveals in Scripture (C.S. Lewis spoke of the Tao- the rough analog of the Ten Commandments found even in the social and religious codes of heathen societies before the missionaries even arrive- as a consequence of the reality Paul describes in Romans 1:18-28). It is not up to us to bring secular law into conformity with the Word of God. That Word is written in the human heart- and, for the purposes for which civil law is established, already is sufficiently in conformity with God's purposes. Special revelation is necessary to know about Christ, and therefore for salvation; it is not at all necessary for the effective and God-pleasing governance of the earthly realm, which consists chiefly in the protection of the weak from the predations of the strong. For that, common sense and the Word to the degree to which it is written-as Paul says- on the human heart, is sufficient.

There is more here concerned than politics. Huckabee- a former Baptist pastor- embraces a false teaching common among American "evangelicals," and having its roots in the theological flaws of the Reformed tradition, which habitually confuses the Two Kingdoms- and "brewing them into each other," as Luther observed, is one of the devil's favorite activities. A thoughtful examination of the relationship between the Two Kingdoms in the context of the American social and political scene by Uwe Siemon Netto can be found here. The degree to which a consistent Lutheran can support Mike Huckabee is questionable, in view of his theology of the Two Kingdoms; the degree to which the American evangelicalism buys into Huckabee's viewpoint provides a context in which a witness to the contrary is especially needed.

But the theological errors which Huckabee made part of his political agenda aside, the operative point is that it's over. Huckabee lost. The Republican presidential nominee will be John McCain. Though the naive (I choose not to think dishonest) author of the blog post we're considering is in denial on this point, there will not be a brokered convention. There will not be a Huckabee nomination. Ain't gonna happen- and this is not a matter of opinion. It is a matter of settled fact. The central premise of the blog post we're considering is simply untrue.

But now we come to the really problematic part.

I considered John McCain's candidacy early on, when the campaign first began. I rejected him at the time for the very reason the blog post mentions- because he favors the use of already existing fetal stem cells that would otherwise be thrown away for stem cell research. It should be parenthetically noted that Mitt Romney- who for some reason was never challenged on this point- holds essentially the same position.

McCain steadfastly opposes the creation of new stem cells for the purpose of experimentation. And in any case, recent breakthroughs by which adult stem cells can be made pluripotent basically render the entire controversy irrelevant. And is it that it's so hard for Christians, even when not actively bearing false witness, to ignore rather relevant distinctions like the one between McCain's actual position and what the blog post implies it to be?

For the blog post I'm picking on to conclude that anybody who supports the inevitable alternative to Barak Obama must favor experimentation on fetal stem cells isn't merely uncharitable. It isn't merely illogical. It's downright silly.

One of two men (the possibility of a third person- a woman- is dwindling to the vanishing point even as we speak) will take the oath as our next president on January 20. One of them is pro-life- and, despite the highly debatable claim one of the commenters to that blog post makes to the contrary, has a reliable record of supporting solid, conservative judges. The other will be the most radical candidate nominated by an American political party in recent years- and his strongly and consistently both pro-choice and pro-judicial activism. To pose the question of whether or not to support John McCain against Barak Obama- the only actual alternative, at this point- in any other context would be dishonest, if it wasn't disingenuous.

But it is disingenuous. Such nonsense on the Christian Right is nearly always disingenuous. For one thing, Christians as a group are unspeakably naive politically; most of us simply don't have the political experience to easily make rational choices. And we're idealists. Politics, as Lyndon Johnson famously observed, is the art of the possible- and Christians want to treat it as the art of the miraculous.

Yet political reality is the only realm in which it's possible to be politically effective. Christian conservatives tend to be purists who view compromise as inherently evil. But compromise is the only way, in this fallen world, that things get done. Speaking theologically, conservative Christians tend to react to politics as Gnostics. Without realizing it, we deny the limitations imposed on politics by human nature and by the Fall. We insist on the impossible- and then are disillusioned when they don't get it. So we take up arms against the evils of our society without adequately reflecting upon the evil which resides in our own hearts. Where Jesus told us to be as wise as serpents but as harmless as doves, we reverse the process, become politically bird-brained- and end up doing countless damage through the venom of the undeserving people to whom we give our support. We define reality as we wish it were, and pretend that that's what reality really is-and, in the process, become first wholly ineffectual, and finally disillusioned.

But Christ chose to enter this fallen world in order to redeem it, not to pretend that it hadn't fallen. He did not hesitate to get his hands dirty by becoming involved in the less than ideal realities of the sinful world in which He assumed flesh. We need to recognize that serving the cause of what is right in the realm of politics means, in this fallen world, getting the best deal we can, and not in effect surrendering to evil because we can't get all we wish.

We need to grow up. We need to recognize our own fallenness, and our predilection both for ignoring evil where we'd prefer not to see it, and for embracing the evil in ourselves, refusing to see it for what it is.

We need to learn to pray, with Reinhold Niebuhr, that we might emulate Jesus in "Taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is, not as (we) would have it."

And I would suggest that, at this particular moment in time, that means accepting that we face a choice in November between getting conservative Supreme Court justices appointed by supporting John McCain just as strongly as we can- or accepting that, should Obama be elected because we fail to do so in a fit of perfectionism or pique, the blood of the aborted thereafter will be on our hands.

Politics is about reality, whether we want to admit it to ourselves as not- hard, cold, fallen reality. And we need to be grown up enough to deal with the consequences that come with the choices we make, even if we aren't particularly comfortable with those choices.