Obsessive Law Student

I have about 4 half-written posts that I simply haven't finished. But, Milbarge's post on this piece from The New Republic finally prompted me to finish this post:

I have long held that the Bush administration's policies do not reflect Christian principles. Those who have read this blog long enough know this is a reoccuring theme here: I am both a Christian and a Democrat. I said this in 2000 when friends from a Christian leadership retreat I attended all questioned my desire to follow Jesus because I wanted to vote for Al Gore. "But, OLS, don't you see," one condescendingly began a lengthy e-mail, "that Bush is a Christian and more closely reflects the face of Jesus than Gore?" My reply? "I don't know what you mean. Bush's hair is pretty short and you would never mistake him for being Jewish." I then explained that I did not see Jesus' face in tax cuts for the wealthy but in anti-poverty initiatives and homeless shelters. I did not see Jesus in anti-abortion initiatives but in providing universal health care to ensure women who wanted to have children could have adequate pre- and post-natal care for them and their babies. I did not see Jesus' face in the creation of charter schools but in reforming public school funding and testing to ensure real quality education for every student. I did not see Jesus's face in a Presidential candidate who could not name the leaders of major hotspots but rather in the humility of recognizing how important international cooperation is to ensuring peace.

But, as I was told in a variety of funny-mean ways, I was an insane communist radical. Because Jesus loved Bush. And I don't mean Jesus loved Bush in the way that children sing in Sunday School "Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world" but rather in a "red and yellow, black and white, but Bush is the most precious in his sight" kind of way. Jesus loved Bush in a "heavens will fall if he is not elected; oh, and the end times are near enough without a Gore presidency" kind of way. Because Bush cared about faith. And he cared about Christians. And he cared about faith-based initiatives. And he cared about Jesus. And so Jesus cared about him. And not Gore. And I was a sinner for ignoring this. And not just in an "all have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God" kind of sinner, but in a very specific "you are ignoring God's extra, most recent commandment: Thou shalt vote Republican" kind of sinner.

And when I would cry, "But, he doesn't represent what Jesus talks about!" I was told that Jesus hates homosexuality and abortion. And I would point out that Jesus didn't talk about homosexuality and abortion but about poverty and humility and equality. But, I was foolish and naive because, as my born-again aunt once told me, abortion is the most important and crucial issue in the world right now and always until it is obliterated because abortion is the killing of innocent children and Jesus would have no other priority. And when I pointed out that there were then millions of children dying from hunger or a lack of adequate health care and from common diseases we had eliminated here in the United States and that if we looked to Africa, even then, millions were being wiped off the face of the earth from civil wars and now there's a genocide that we're consistently ignoring and that all effects innocent children. I was told that it was not the same thing because we could "do something" about abortion and those children would not take priority over the yet-unborn babies Jesus obviously loved more. And no, there was no Bible verse to support this but I would know this if I was listening to God because every other Christian listened to God and knew this. But, I knew this wasn't the God I heard when attending church. This wasn't the God I saw in the beatitudes. And it wasn't the God I heard late at night as I watched CNN or MSNBC (and yes, in those days, even Fox) and knew that the outrages occuring in inner-cities and in Africa needed to stop. The God I felt whispering to me internally, "These are my children - will no one stand up for them?"

Those were bad days. Lonely days. Cheese standing alone at the end of "Farmer in the Dell" days. Days when I started to wonder why it was that I had been raised a Christian in a Christian church by Christian parents who believed like I did but that none of the issues we viewed as being "Christian" were being addressed by the party and candidates claiming to be Christians. I sat in a Christian Legal Society meeting the week after the 2004 election and listened as someone actually said, "Praise God for this election. It could have been bad." And I said, what Romans 8:28 wouldn't have applied if Kerry was elected? God couldn't work that to good? And when exactly did Jesus become a Republican? But no one in the meeting understood what I meant and the girl who had praised God a moment before looked at me as if I was both anti-Christian and stupid. I remember earlier that year driving through a slum area in Cleveland. I wanted to cry or bang my head against the window or scream loud enough that I would be heard in Washington D.C. because I knew that millions of dollars were being spent in that year's election to ensure homosexuals were denied the right to marry when those millions would have been much better spent on jobs training and anti-poverty initiatives and early education intervention and drug clinics in the inner cities. That all those people trying to ensure that Christians rule America by denying homosexual marriage and campaigning on anti-abortion initiatives were doing nothing for poor women who sought out abortions because they didn't think they could afford another child. Those proclaiming to be Christians ignored fighting in southern and western Sudan in order to justify their invasion of Iraq.

And it wasn't just from the Christian perspective that I felt alienated. One human rights minded friend asked how I could associate myself with something that was associated with the Crusades and Hitler and the current war in Iraq and the assault on abortion and homosexuals. And I would say that the Christian rights' positions on those issues did not represent the God I knew. And that Hitler did not represent Christianity anymore than bin Laden represented Islam. And they would say, "But you're the only Christian I know who thinks like you do." And once again, I would be the Cheese standing alone.

And then, as if Jesus was finally shining my own "red and yellow black and white; OLS is most precious in his sight" light, I heard of Jim Wallis and Sojourners. And I would tell people, "But there are others just like me. People raised, like me, on the Christian ideals of Ida Wells-Barnett, Sojourner Truth, Martin Luther King, John F. Kennedy, and, oh yeah, Jesus and the original 12 disciples." And they would say, "But all those other people you cite to have died away. You're the only one who still thinks like you do. I don't hear of any Christians talking about poverty like Jesus did." And they would curse the "damn Christians," and I would point out that I am a Christian, so then they would curse the damn born-again Christians and I would tell them that I am a born-again Christian so they would curse the evangelical Christians but I would remind them that I am an evangelical Christian and they would say that I didn't count. I don't know why I didn't count, but I didn't. It's like when someone said that black people were all lazy in front of my friend Fannie, who is black, and when she pointed out the usually-obvious fact that she was black she was told she didn't count because she didn't act like black people. She didn't take comfort in this classification. And I didn't take comfort in the fact that I didn't count because I wasn't the kind of damn born-again, evangelical Christian that people meant when they cursed the damn born-again evangelical Christians.

I didn't count.

Because Christians voted for Bush and human rights advocats were smart enough to not believe in God. And I was just stupid.

I see the same dichotomy in this year's election, when all the news cameras headed to Tennessee following the Mark Foley scandal to determine whether evangelicals would still vote for Republicans. And I kept waiting for them to interview someone - anyone! - who would say that no, the scandal would not affect her vote come November not because there was "no other way" as one responder stated but because she was already planning on voting for the Democrats.

But, thankfully, by this election, I knew I wasn't alone. Barack Obama was on my side. So was Ted Strickland, Jim Wallis, and so was a whole network of other Christians who read Sojourners magazine. And others knew I wasn't alone anymore. Many of my human rights minded friends saw Jim Wallis on The Daily Show and would run up to me proclaiming, "OLS, you won't believe it but I saw a guy on T.V. that I think thinks like you do!" Yes, he does. I had already bought the book. I now have two copies - both signed by Wallis, one thoroughly highlighted and the other my newer copy that I'm trying to keep a little cleaner.

And yet, I am still told by the likes of Ken Blackwell and Rod "I want to be the next Jim Bakker" Parsley that I cannot really be a Christian because I'm not voting for Republicans. And my roommate's boyfriend still feels free to tell me I'm naive and stupid for thinking that Democrats represent Christian ideals.

So, all this to say, you can imagine my surprise and excitement when I heard David Kuo on NPR last week talking about how un-Christian the Bush administration actually was. Talking about how Bush wasn't influenced by the Christian right but rather was influencing the Christian leaders to believe that all his policies were Christian policies handed to him, more or less, directly from God himself. Tempting Faith is Kuo's inside account not just of the Bush administration's lack of focus on Christian issues but, more interestingly, it also details the President's and his administration's for their contempt of the faith-based community.

"Contempt of the faith based community? Surely not," the Democrats have apparently responded. I mean, that's the only explanation for why this is not making a bigger splash on the news. It has been a minor blip when it could have been a major call to arms for Christians who are also Democrats. Sherrod Brown's book begins with a recounting of his reading of the beatitudes on the hill where Jesus first delivered them. While I am only partially through Barack Obama's book, it starts with a beautiful recounting of his faith. And the numerous cover stories on Obama constantly discuss his Christian ideals. Hillary Clinton, who talked of her faith long before she became a Presidential candidate although no one wants to discuss that, has consistently addressed issues of faith in the past two years. There are Christians who are strong Democratic leaders and yet we hear nothing about how the Democratic vision is a Christian one. About how the Democrats truly embrace faith rather than trick faith-based leaders into embracing them. This could be the beginning of a real dialogue on the appropriate place for faith in politics and about how the guiding principles of Christianity require real change in our tax and welfare systems to benefit those with the least rather than those with the most. This is the time to talk about Jesus's love for the adulterous woman who was ready to be stoned and what that means when we talk about homosexuality and abortion. This is the chance to say that yes, we would like to reduce the number of abortions sought but that we would like to do so by increasing sex education, increasing health care access for all women, increasing the minimum wage, increasing high school and college access and jobs education programs for young mothers, and increasing early childhood education initiatives so that young women and men know how to prevent pregnancy and the young women who do find themselves pregnant feel they can still make it. We can talk about taxes. About how they're a necessary evil and about all the good that comes from them. Not just the roads, but the jobs programs and the early childhood interventions and the safer streets and universal health care. We should talk about what a foreign policy that is infused with Christianity would really look like. It would be tough on genocide in the Sudan and on the likes of the Taliban but that our toughness would be met with international cooperation so that our troops are never standing alone unless it is absolutely necessary. That war, while occassionally a necessary evil, should be utilized only after ever possible diplomatic exercise has been exhausted. We did not do this in Iraq, but we can learn from that.

And yet, I've heard nothing of this book outside of NPR and The New Republic. Why?

Because to the Democratic leaders, it doesn't make sense. And to Christians who aren't Democrats it doesn't make sense. It flies in the face of everything everyone has been saying for the past six years, so we should just ignore it (and we're doing a really good job at that).

Oh. And because I don't count.

Go ahead. Form the circle around me. Sing a little Farmer in the Dell. I'll be the Cheese.