Normally I agree with Robert Parham's editorializing, but today his pen is off-target. Today Parham is taking Barry Lynn to task for reminding politicians that they "are not preachers, and political debate should not be turned into religious conflict." I think Lynn is right and Parham is wrong to criticize him.
Lynn is also right about Jim Wallis' accommodative approach to church/state relations being as dangerous as the theocratic approach of Dobson. Wallis' domestic partnership between church and state, changing the sheets for a different partner every time there is a change of administrations, could prove to be worse than a monogamous theocratic marriage.
Wallis is not known as a champion of the First Amendment. He has long been an advocate for government funding of religious institutions and organizations. I was present when he was warned by numerous constitutional advocates that politicians would distribute "charitable choice" funds in the form of political patronage -- using it to consolidate their power and thwart advances toward justice for the poor -- a prediction some now see being fulfilled. From personal conversations with him, I know that he comprehends the threat to the credibility of the church posed by the "easy money and loose accountability" of the Clinton/Bush government funded religion initiatives. (Here's a link for further information and documentation -- you'll have to scroll down to the 8-4-04 blog)
Barry Lynn did not say that religion and religious people should have no voice in the public square. He said,
"The nation's public square is not without religious debate, and no one is advocating for a suppression of religious discussion. But our nation's laws must be rooted in constitutional values and reasoned analysis, not someone's personal take on scripture."
Lynn is also right when he says, -- elected officials should make decisions based on the public good, not private religious belief." When all is said and done, as much as is possible, it is the responsibility of elected officials to make decisions that are based on convictions shared by people of all faiths and of no faith. No faith group's sacred scriptures, or interpretation of a sacred scripture, holds special or uncontested authority in the public square when public policies are being debated. The idiosyncratic convictions peculiar to certain faith groups, even if it is the majoritarian faith group, are not appropriate topics for legislation.
Parham needs to reconsider his unquestioning defense of Wallis and his myopic critique of Lynn.
3 comments:
Wow. Dr. Prescott, thank you. I have been a reader of Ethics Daily for a good while now. They are a great website and definitely are a voice speaking out in bleak places. I greatly appreciated what you wrote about them yesterday. And then today I was taken aback by what I read there.
You're saying what I was thinking this morning. Barry Lynn is right. The government of this country is for all the country, for all the people of whatever religion or of no religion.
Thank you for your blog, and especially for the resources you make available on your Mainstream website. You're giving me hope that moderate Baptist leaders may yet get themselves together and find a way to articulate user-friendly, congregation-accesible responses to fundamentalism. I have felt a sense of despair sometimes, thinking that moderates stumbled fatally several decades ago by not being able (or seeming not to be able) to articulate their views in a user-friendly way. Since I found this website (and many of the linking ones) I am starting to feel much better.
Neal
Neal,
Glad you find the weblog and website helpful.
It helps to have the internet on which to communicate.
The SBC was taken over before the days of the internet. Moderates had some very articulate spokespersons then, but it was much harder to get our message before the Baptist people.
Demogoguery always prevails over the mob, and the SBC takeover was mob rule. Churches busses in messengers just for the purpose of electing an autocratic president. The weakness they exploited was the lack of checks and balances in the SBC structure, and the absence of a sunshine policy that allowed for the dismissal of Seminary presidents, program directors, and missionaries behind closed doors. As long as these conditions still apply, and I don't see the present leaaders wanting to change what put them in power, the Convention itself will remain the way it is until the wolves in sheep's clothing have consumed the entire carcass.
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