Author Archives: Fred Yi

Douglas Koopman: Rhetorical Nod to Faith

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In 2000, I was fortunate enough to attend the Republican Convention in Philadelphia as an instructor in an experiential learning program for college students. That convention, which nominated then-Texas governor George W. Bush for president of the United States, was noted for its overt attempts to present a diverse public face to television viewers. Convention organizers paraded the widest possible variety of racial, ethnic, cultural, and age differences, all supporting the GOP. “Looking diverse” was the first goal in allocating prime-time podium minutes and around-the-clock media availability. It was a concerted effort, and it felt to me, as an up-close observer, a forced and artificial one, given the homogenous nature of the GOP and, particularly, its delegates and candidates.

While it may have reflected a good strategy, and even the personal disposition of that year’s Republican nominee, it rang hollow as a true representation of the Grand Old Party. No one can state with certainty whether those convention efforts helped Bush win in 2000, in what should have been, by most economic and political indicators, an easy Democratic year. In such a close race, perhaps it made the difference. But that did not take away the artificial feel of the convention nor the confirmation of that feeling in the lack of substantive movement toward diversity by the party in the eight years hence.

I have much the same impression in observing from afar the officially sanctioned faith expressions and other faith-related efforts surrounding this week’s Democratic convention in Denver. Faith is all around to see — and we’re sure to see it easily — with opening worship, daily faith-friendly events, greater willingness of prime-time speakers to give nods to faith in at least a generic sense, and a concerted effort not to criticize explicitly religious public language. But the faith on display is one fully consonant with longstanding Democratic Party positions on every key issue that have been in party platforms for years. It “feels” fake — much like the Republicans in 2000. There is this week, so far at least, no convincing evidence that this “faith talk” is anything more than merely a new strategy by party operatives to gain an additional slice of a voter demographic in November, so that once they win the party can govern as usual.

True faith, it seems to me, fits comfortably within no political party, and certainly not today’s Republicans and Democrats. A party that claims to embrace faith anew must show that new embrace in some changes from prior policy, not mere “acknowledgment” that there is a moral dimension to issues that ultimately get settled on the traditional side. The rhetorical nods, the small “tweaks” in the party platform, and the controlled events of this week are not enough.

Obama, by all evidence a thoughtful person of sincere Christian faith, has a chance to change that impression tonight. What I’m looking for is one position he has taken that has hurt, rather than enhanced, his and his party’s longstanding policies and electoral motives and that can arguably be based on a sincere faith which grapples thoughtfully with its consequences for public life.

I’ve not seen it yet. But I still have the audacity to hope that I will.

–Douglas Koopman is a professor of political science at Calvin College.

David Lose: Obama’s Challenge and Opportunity

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The religion of a political candidate should not matter. This principle is not only supported by the doctrine of the separation of church and state articulated by the First Amendment and developed by Jefferson and Madison, it is also supported by the dominant traditions of the Christian church. From St. Augustine to Martin Luther, theologians have argued that God works through political and other civic institutions to care for creation, as well as through the church to convey eternal salvation. Because political leaders are responsible for promoting a more orderly and just world, rather than preaching or teaching the faith, their own religious beliefs — or lack thereof — are irrelevant. The standard by which they are to be judged is fidelity, not to any particular creed but to the responsible discharge of their civil duties.

The religion of a political candidate shouldn’t matter…but it does. Many Americans associate religious faith with “character,” and because most of us tend to trust those who agree with us more than those who don’t, we have persistently preferred candidates whose faith is similar to our own. In years past, this has usually reflected the dominant cultural and religious ethos in two ways: candidates should profess belief in God in general and attend, or at least hold membership in, some recognized church.

Since the early 1980s and the welding together of conservative social stances and conservative religious traditions, the longstanding consensus about faith and politics has split. Conservative voters came to demand a higher standard of their candidates: a profession of personal faith in Jesus demonstrated by strict adherence to prescribed moral attitudes about abortion, gay rights, and a few other hotly contended issues. Liberals, meanwhile, wary of the new right-tilting religious and political amalgam, either distanced themselves from expressions of demonstrable religious piety or spent their energies resisting what they saw as the religious right’s incursion against the separation of church and state.

In the last five or six elections, this split has decidedly favored conservatives. It is not that Americans have become more religious — poll after poll indicates that about the same number of people profess faith in God as did in decades past (even as more people report belief that there is no God). Rather, it is that conservative religious leaders have offered their congregants a sharply defined religious identity grounded in political convictions, thereby forging an effective and powerful voting bloc. Noting their error, Democrats in the 2004 formed their own “faith-based” groups (recall “People of Faith for Kerry,” for instance) and made far more allusions to their faith than they had four years earlier.

The recent and highly publicized political forum at Saddleback Church illustrates this continuing trend, as the presumptive candidates of both parties were willing, even eager, to answer questions about faith and values by mega-pastor and bestselling author Rick Warren. But the forum also indicated something else: the evangelical consensus so dominant in recent elections is less cohesive than even four years ago. While still professing the need for a “born-again” experience and paying allegiance to their traditional moral stances, conservative evangelicals like Warren have also developed a greater concern for the environment, the poor, and other societal issues.

For this reason, Democratic strategists rightly note an opportunity for Obama to attract evangelical voters in numbers closer to those of Bill Clinton than John Kerry. To accomplish this, Obama will need to demonstrate to evangelicals the genuineness and depth of his religious commitment in the hope that they might trust him as a candidate despite marked differences on some social issues.

The great irony in all of this, of course, is that Obama is the most self-consciously and transparently Christian candidate to have a serious chance at the presidency since Jimmy Carter, easily eclipsing the major Republican figures of the last three decades. Ronald Reagan, darling of the religious right though he was, did not regularly attend church before, during, or after his presidency. The elder Bush was a quiet, if not lukewarm, Episcopalian, never fully trusted by the right, while his son, though crediting a turned-around life to God, could not articulate how his faith affects his policy decisions if his life depended on it. And John McCain’s testimony to his faith has been limited to generalities about its role in helping him survive as a P.O.W.

In contrast, Obama describes his journey from agnosticism to the Christian faith and traces easily the influence of his faith on his various political stances. He was nurtured by and remains active in a local congregation. His much greater challenge, therefore, will be to invite evangelicals to consider the possibility that agreement on matters of faith neither guarantees nor requires agreement on policy decisions. Whereas Obama’s own faith tradition allows for this possibility, the recent formula whereby orthodoxy of theology is determined by the correctness of one’s position on social stances (a peculiar reinvention of justification by works) makes the task difficult.

But it wasn’t always that way. During the debates over the abolition of slavery and women’s suffrage, to name only two prominent examples, self-described evangelicals could be found right, left, and center on all the prominent social debates in our country over the last two centuries. A new generation of evangelicals seems open to reclaiming this element of their heritage, acknowledging the deep ambiguities of life in this world and willing to embrace a unity of belief and purpose amid debates about policy.

If Obama can tap into this side of evangelical Christianity, making a space for evangelicals to join with Roman Catholics and Protestants as well as those from other religious traditions to join in addressing the critical challenges of the day, he will not only garner more votes but also help revitalize evangelicalism itself.

A candidate’s faith shouldn’t matter, but it does. With his address from Denver tonight, Obama’s faith and character will be on national display for the next seventy days. More articulate by far than any recent candidate about his faith, he stands in a unique place not only to win this election but also to unite disparate strands of American Christianity to follow Jesus’ command to care “for the least of these.” It’s a tall order, to be sure, but if any candidate can do it, Barack Obama can. Yes he can.

–David Lose is the Marbury Anderson Associate Professor of Biblical Preaching and director of the Center for Faith & Life at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Gary Dorrien: Party Unity and Convention Timidity

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She was buoyant, strong, eloquent, and convincing. Also classy and passionate, in a speech that pulled off her threefold task. Hillary Clinton endorsed Obama immediately and unequivocally. She spoke straight to the feelings of the many that wanted her, not Obama. And she stated the negative emphatically, stressing that if you care about the issues that she campaigned about, you have to support Obama; switching to John McCain would be absurd.

By now she is a one-name political giant, inspiring a huge following that identifies with her and loves her. Hillary had expected to be president, but she expressed no bitterness. She put behind her the loss of a twenty-point lead, the slings and arrows of a tough campaign, and a good deal of sexist abuse in the media, projecting a sunny determination that looked beyond even the recent disappointment of being passed over for the vice-presidency. Brushing off all of that, she set a gold standard example of doing the right thing. Unlike Ted Kennedy in 1980, who turned the Democratic convention away from President Carter, or Ronald Reagan in 1976, who did the same thing to President Ford, Hillary helped unite the party behind the party rival who had defeated her.

The speech was long on tropes that moved her supporters on the campaign trail—the personal narrative, the glass ceiling, the Harriett Tubman run—and it was carefully short in areas where an Obama supporter might have hoped for more. Hillary stood squarely with Obama, but did not specifically commend his abilities or his readiness for the job. She said “no way” about switching to McCain, but did not go after his record or policies. Somebody at this convention needs to lay out a case against Bush and McCain beyond a snappy one-liner.

Conventions are about binding up and marching on, not the finer points of policy issues, or even the broad policies. Substantive proposals about issues and policies come later. How to restore fiscal sanity in Washington? How to pay for universal health care? How to manage the current economic meltdown? How to deal with Russia, China, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, and North Korea, much less Iraq?

I accept that fiscal sanity and Russia must wait for the debates. At this convention I even accept, sort of, the decision to go light on racial justice issues, as Obama and the party are wary of scaring off undecided white voters. But wariness has extended, thus far, to almost anything that smacks of blasting the incumbent party.

The convention is more than half finished, yet very little has been said about George W. Bush, and virtually nothing has been said about Dick Cheney, a disastrous invasion of Iraq, the $12 billion per month bill for Iraq, war-gaming for Iran, torture, Guantanamo, the collapse of the housing market, and the trashing of civil and individual rights. A Democratic Convention in 2008 needs to hammer on some of this, especially if it has a cerebral, gentlemanly nominee who is averse to doing it himself.

Thus far this convention is too much like Obama’s post-primary campaigning, which has featured vague generalities and a tone of tepid niceness. For such a convention, Mark Warner was a perfect choice for keynote speaker. There is still time for the convention to sound more like Obama in the days just before the convention, when he seemed to discover his inner populist. If Hillary had found her populist voice three months sooner than she did, she probably would have won the nomination. Obama may need to be dissuaded from waiting until mid-October; in the meantime, Joe Biden needs to step up as the campaign’s happy warrior.

Hillary’s greatest gift to the Obama campaign, until Tuesday night, was to run as the self-satisfied front-runner for months. She topped that on Tuesday in the only sentence devoted to her husband, by linking Bill Clinton’s successful presidency to the necessity of an Obama presidency. That passing of the torch took a lot of class, and it will make a difference.

–-Gary Dorrien is the Reinhold Niebuhr Professor of Social Ethics at Union Theological Seminary and professor of religion at Columbia University.

David Gray: Democratic Outreach to the Religious Left

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It is historic that there is a Faith Caucus at the current Democratic National Convention. The interfaith gathering last Sunday (August 24) and the events all week are diverse in terms of representing different religions, but not in terms of ideology, which is progressive across the faiths. The caucus panels are moderated mostly by Obama’s director of religious outreach, Joshua Dubois, or by Jim Wallis, a principle architect of the religious left, which became politically active following the 2004 elections and formed Faith in Public Life, among other projects, to engage people of faith for the Democratic Party.

–David Gray directs the New America Foundation’s Workforce and Family Program. An attorney and ordained Presbyterian minister, he is an associate pastor at Georgetown Presbyterian Church and a chaplain at American University in Washington, DC.

David Gray: Faith in the Democratic Platform

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It is interesting at the start of the Democratic Convention to note that the draft platform the delegates are beginning to discuss says more about what a faith initiative will not be than what it will be in an Obama administration.

I bet the GOP platform will be more positive. Not that the Democratic platform is negative. It is just less positive than one would imagine. This contrasts with Obama’s rhetoric in July about his plans for a Council of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships (as he will call it), though it does track somewhat his well-known 2006 Call to Renewal speech, which sought to show the complexity of faith and policy in America.

Below is the draft section on faith in the Democratic platform. It uses traditional language in praising the place of faith and its importance in solving problems in America. When it comes to specifics, however, the draft Democratic platform wants to make sure any faith-based initiative does not endanger First Amendment protections, does not allow proselytizing, does not allow discrimination (they main issue of controversy in Congressional debates on the issue), and is used on programs that actually work.

All these points are right and important. They show more concern from the Democrats about faith and government than the flowery language they have used in the past or than one would imagine in such a document.

Draft Democratic Platform Statement on Faith

We honor the central place of faith in our lives. Like our Founders, we believe that our nation, our communities, and our lives are made vastly stronger and richer by faith and the countless acts of justice and mercy it inspires. We believe that change comes not from the top-down, but from the bottom-up, and that few are closer to the people than our churches, synagogues, temples, and mosques. To face today’s challenges — from saving our planet to ending poverty — we need all hands on deck. Faith-based groups are not a replacement for government or secular non-profit programs; rather, they are yet another sector working to meet the challenges of the 21st century. We will empower grassroots faith-based and community groups to help meet challenges like poverty, ex-offender reentry, and illiteracy. At the same time, we can ensure that these partnerships do not endanger First Amendment protections — because there is no conflict between supporting faith-based institutions and respecting our Constitution. We will ensure that public funds are not used to proselytize or discriminate. We will also ensure that taxpayer dollars are only used on programs that actually work.

–David Gray directs the New America Foundation’s Workforce and Family Program. An attorney and ordained Presbyterian minister, he is an associate pastor at Georgetown Presbyterian Church and a chaplain at American University in Washington, DC.

Democrats Gather in Denver for Interfaith Service

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Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly senior associate producer Patti Jette Hanley captures some of the sights and sounds at the Democratic Party’s August 24 interfaith service in Denver on the eve of the Democratic National Convention.

Gary Dorrien: Yes We Can…Change the Subject?

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Barack Obama cannot help that the election campaign until now has been mostly about him — his background, his personality, his race, his politics, his oratory, his church, his newness, his inexperience, his family, his primary victories, his victory over Hillary and Bill Clinton, his rock star tour of Europe. His star power and unprecedented attainment of the Democratic nomination have made him, inevitably, the chief subject of the campaign thus far, with or without Republican attack ads.

But the Democrats have two chief tasks at their convention this week. One is to shift the focus to the Republican record of the past eight years and the unacceptable prospect of a third Bush-like term. The other is to make a hugely favorable impression on the tens of millions of Americans who haven’t paid enough attention thus far to make a decision about Barack Obama. The fact that these goals are contradictory does not lessen the urgent necessity of either one.

This is a blow-out election year for the Democrats. The incumbent Republican administration has done a bad job; seventy percent of Americans say so. Approximately the same percentage say the same thing about the administration’s handling of the economy and the war in Iraq, two things that go together, given the staggering costs of the war.

In a normal election year, any one of these three issues would be enough to dispatch the incumbent party, and the watershed elections of the past 75 years have been two-for-three affairs. 1932 was a referendum on a disastrous economy and a failed presidency, but no war; 1968 was about a disastrous war and a failed presidency, but the economy grew anyway; 1980 put Jimmy Carter’s presidency and economic performance on trial, but it was mere piling on to claim that Carter botched the Cold War and embarrassed the U.S. in Iran. This year marks the first legitimate three-for-three election of modern times, and Democrats are going to clean up — except, perhaps, at the top of the ticket.

The very real possibility that Democrats will lose the presidential race despite their enormous advantages is scaring many of them. I hear it all the time on the lecture trail. “Do you really think that Obama can win?” anxious liberals ask me, especially academics. The question is not, “Will he win?” but, “Do you think it’s even possible?” Others are already bracing themselves against disappointment, muttering quietly, “You know he’s going to lose, don’t you?”

No, I believe that he can and will win, and I think he is the most compelling candidate and human being to be nominated by either party in my lifetime. But I understand the anxious foreboding of many Democrats, because I have a good deal of it. The Republican field, the weakest in memory, had only one candidate, John McCain, who had any chance of winning the presidency this year, but the Republicans lucked into nominating him. If the Democrats had nominated one of their usual bland, white, male, career politicians — think John Kerry in 2004, Al Gore in 2000, or Walter Mondale in 1984, or this year Joe Biden or Chris Dodd — they would be leading handily in the polls. Hillary Clinton probably would be leading by a smaller but still sizable margin at this stage, too.

Obama, the candidate I have supported since the day he entered the race, has a much steeper mountain to climb, even among Democrats. Approximately 27 percent of Hillary Clinton’s supporters report that they are not willing to switch to Obama. That is the third most pressing problem that Democrats have to deal with this week.

Michelle Obama’s luminous, beautiful, wonderfully personal address went as far as one speech possibly could to deal with the personal side of the electoral equation. Her buoyant expression of her faith and hope had perfect pitch for the occasion and its urgent necessity of reaching across a disturbing popular divide in the American electorate.

According to a mid-July New York Times/CBS News Poll, thirty percent of white Americans hold a favorable view of Barack Obama, and 24 percent view Michelle Obama favorably. These pitiful numbers are the yield, thus far, for the Obamas among white Americans after two years of overwhelmingly favorable news coverage, countless magazine cover stories, and dozens of primary and caucus campaigns that ended with a soaring victory speech.

Michelle Obama obviously understands that she and her husband must reach the reachable in a personal way before they change the subject to the Bush debacle and John McCain’s guardianship of it. To the extent that one speech can do that, it was done on Monday night.

Now, we will see how many Americans are actually reachable, and if the Democrats are able to highlight Obama and change the subject at the same time.

— Gary Dorrien is the Reinhold Niebuhr Professor of Social Ethics at Union Theological Seminary and professor of religion at Columbia University.