Linking one's religious beliefs to one's political values seems almost to be a requirement for candidates these days. Of course, the trend emerged with the much-taunted link between Evangelical Christians and conservative Republicans during the last Presidential campaign. Now moderate Democrats are beginning to appeal to religious values as well.
As a religious person, as a priest, I find this troubling. While I believe that my values are grounded in my religious beliefs, I don't assume that one must share my religious beliefs to share my values, or vice versa, for that matter. Nor do I believe that I, as a religious leader, ought to be imposing my political values on those who look to me for spiritual guidance. I am not shy about teaching, about talking about what I see as the link between the two FOR ME but that's as far as it goes.
A friend writes about this in a compelling op-ed piece. She says, in part:
One common characteristic of the Democratic appropriation of religion in political discourse is a reluctance to impose one's own specific religious beliefs on the public good, even in the presence of the assertion that commitment to religious and ethical beliefs serves the public good.
She goes on to address the appropriation of the concept of "family values" by conservatives, especially conservative Christians. She says:
We can all agree that marriage between a man and a woman is integral to family values and that it has social and religious sanctions. And there are also social and religious sanctions for other models embodying family values. Our lived experience and our religious traditions tell us that there isn't in fact a single model of a family and its values that our politicians or we can idolize. Look around at our own examples: single-parent families, families of grandparents raising grandchildren, blended families, adopted children, single people, same-sex couples with or without children, and nuclear families. Look at all the different households described in the Bible from the patriarchs to Jesus' own: Abraham's included his wives Sarah and Hagar with their children Isaac and Ishmael together with Abraham's concubine Keturah and her six children. God promises that through Abraham's descendants all the other nations of the earth would be blessed. In Jesus' time households continued to be diverse: the sisters Mary and Martha and their brother Lazarus constituted a household, Paul was a single man and Jesus was the child of a single parent.
She goes on to say:
Different models of households in religious traditions provide a warrant for the diverse patterns of our own families. The recognition of a broad spectrum of household arrangements mandates that we affirm and celebrate in our civic and religious lives patterns of family life that differ from ours. Diverse families share similar values: blended or traditional, same-sex or single-parent households all know, for example, that forgiveness is the glue necessary to bind families together. This is not to deny that living out forgiveness is hard work. Nor is it to exclude the possibility that some forms of families may be "tares in amongst the wheat" to be left until the final harvest. But to err on the side of generosity and magnanimity by including and celebrating different models of families and their values is both to affirm our own experience and to identify a more complex and more honest religious tradition, wherein God models consummate generosity and magnanimity. When we link this reality to the recognition that judgment is God's and not our own, we will have honest public debates on family values.
All too frequently lately I've felt like I need to apologize for Christians--it feels to me that the harsh judgmentalism and intolerance of right-wing Christians casts a bad light on all of us who consider ourselves Christian. I want to say, "We're not all like that!" I am especially appreciative of this work that points out the weaknesses in the "family values" arguments made by the Christian right.
1 comment:
Hear, hear!!
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