The most unsettling moment of the Republican National Convention for me came not during Zell Miller’
The most unsettling moment of the Republican National
Convention for me came not during Zell Miller’s keynote
address or Dick Cheney’s appearance or even George W.
Bush’s acceptance speech, but when the other "W."
- Michael W. Smith - took the stage to address the crowd.
Sitting in Madison Square Garden in the midst of thousands of
cheering Republican delegates - a disturbing number of whom had
chosen to accessorize with giant elephants on their heads - I
felt distinctly like a member of the away team, sitting on my
hands while those around me whooped at attacks on
"Paris" or "The New York Times" or
"Massachusetts." When I heard the arena announcer
introduce Michael W. Smith, I thought I could at least blend in
for a few minutes. After all, I spent much of high school
listening to the contemporary Christian singer’s music,
attending his concerts, and playing his songs at church; as
recently as just a few months ago, my neighbors gathered around
my piano as we channeled our teenage selves and belted out a
rendition of "Friends."
But Smith wasn’t there simply to entertain the crowd.
Throughout four days of what one friend described as an
"extended mega-church service" - complete with praise
songs, worship leaders, testimonials, and even a pulpit adorned
with the outline of a cross - a steady stream of Christian
performers had appeared, each one prompting queries of "who
the heck is that?" from the hard-bitten journalists around
me. Before "Smitty" lent his raspy voice and keyboard
skills to the proceedings, however, he testified to the spiritual
side of his friend, the president. The two of them had spoken in
the Oval Office just a few months after Sept. 11, 2001, he told
us. And during that conversation, he got a glimpse of the
president’s true heart when Bush turned to him and said,
"Someone should write a song about this." That was all
the inspiration Smith needed to write "There She
Stands," the ballad he performed during the last evening of
the convention.
This assertion of Bush’s piety is not exactly
substantive. Several hagiographic portrayals of Bush - including
the books A Man of Faith: The Spiritual Journey of
George W. Bush and The Faith of George W. Bush (as
well as a documentary of the same name)—rely on similarly
weak examples, citing Bush’s exercise regimen and habit of
eating carrots, for instance, as proof of his spiritual
commitment to maintaining his body as a temple for God. But what
is most troubling is that these testimonials reinforce the idea
that voters should choose a candidate primarily based on personal
religiosity.
IRONICALLY, A DEMOCRAT is responsible for this trend in modern
American politics. When Jimmy Carter launched his campaign for
the White House in 1976, Americans were disgusted by the
corruption of the Nixon administration and hungry for moral
leadership. The Baptist Sunday school teacher from Georgia had
the right character at the right time and played up his piety as
part of a larger effort to reassure the country. Republican
politicians eagerly adopted Carter’s approach; during a
campaign stop in 1980, Ronald Reagan (not himself a church-going
man) promised the 15,000-member evangelical Roundtable group that
he would govern according to "old-time religion."
For more than two decades now, however, Democrats have either
remained silent on the topic of religion or have fallen into the
same trap, pointing to their religiosity in an often last-ditch
effort to convince voters that they have character, too (think Al
Gore’s avowal that he asks himself "What would Jesus
do?" or Howard Dean’s conversion on the road to Des
Moines last winter). And so we are left with a political process
in which candidates get away with campaigning on their own
personal religiosity without ever being pressed to explain why it
is relevant to their qualifications for office.
Certainly, voters want to know that their leaders have some
sort of moral grounding - in at least one survey, more than 70
percent of Americans told pollsters that they want their
president to be a "man of faith." And they have good
reasons for this. A president must make momentous, life-and-death
decisions while in office, and people want that individual to
have something bucking him up other than his pollster - something
he or she can turn to for guidance and strength. It reassures us
to know that our leaders feel the pull of a greater interest. But
knowing how often a politician prays or reads the Bible or goes
to church isn’t necessarily a good indicator of what kind of
person he is (although by the last measure, it has become clear
over the past year that John Kerry attends church much more
regularly than George W. Bush). The Bible is replete with
warnings to beware of those who wear their religion on their
sleeve: "And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites,
for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the
street corners to be seen by men," says Jesus (Matthew 6:5).
Instead, voters need to know whether a politician’s
actions match the religious values they profess - whether, in
other words, they walk the walk in addition to talking the talk.
And it is on this point that the two presidential campaigns have
provided distinct models this year.
ALTHOUGH BUSH has, over the course of his time in the White
House, proven himself adept at evocative, under-the-radar uses of
religious language and imagery, his second presidential campaign
has been anything but subtle. During a fall campaign stop in
Michigan, Bush was introduced by a young man who led the crowd in
prayer, declaring that they were "gathered to lift high the
name of Jesus Christ" and praising God for the election of
Bush. ("We know you appointed him to the position.")
Some of Bush’s supporters have argued that he is superior to
Kerry precisely because of his born-again experience. In attacks
that carry undertones of anti-Catholicism, both Zell Miller and
conservative adviser Marvin Olasky have claimed that Kerry lacks
the "spiritual support" Bush has because, as a
Catholic, he has never rededicated his life to God.
And while not approaching the chutzpah of Pat Robertson - who
told viewers in January that he was "hearing from the
Lord" that "George Bush is going to win in a walk"
- many Republicans have sought to confer divine favor on the
president. Speaker after speaker at the Republican Convention
"thanked God" for the fact that Bush was president.
"He is one of those men God and fate somehow lead to the
fore in times of challenge," said New York Gov. George
Pataki, while his colleague Rudy Giuliani related how on the
emotional day of Sept. 11, he grabbed the arm of then-NYC Police
Commissioner Bernard Kerik and said simply, "Thank God
George Bush is our president."
The implication of all of this, of course, is that Bush has
the endorsement of God and is, by extension, infallible. While
once conservatives argued that opposition to Bush’s policies
was tantamount to treason, under this logic opposition to the
president becomes heresy. If you’re not with us, you’re
not just against us, you’re against God.
AGAINST THIS political background, Kerry and the Democrats had
three choices: Remain silent and let Republicans monopolize
religious rhetoric, play the same game and emphasize Kerry’s
religious background, or try a different approach. To their
credit, the Democrats realized that although they may prefer to
keep religion out of politics altogether, the strategy of
ignoring religion fails to work if it is a major piece of your
opponent’s campaign. They got an unexpected boost from the
springtime controversy over whether Kerry could take communion -
while it raised questions in some quarters about whether Kerry
was a "good" Catholic, weekly coverage of the Wafer
Watch showed voters that Kerry attends church frequently. His
religiosity inadvertently established by the press corps, Kerry
was free to pursue a third way of talking about religion. Whether
or not his campaign is successful, his efforts may have changed
political discourse for the better.
Kerry and his campaign have used religion to critique
Bush’s record and policies in a manner that is unprecedented
in recent American politics. A candidate who runs on religion,
they suggest, must be prepared to be judged by religious
standards. "What good is it, my brothers," Kerry asks
audiences, quoting James 2:14, "if a man claims to have
faith, but has no deeds?" It’s a short leap from that
jab to an evaluation of how Bush’s rhetoric matches up
against his accomplishments on issues from the environment to
faith-based initiatives to anti-poverty efforts. In a September
address to the National Baptist Convention, Kerry used the
parable of the Good Samaritan to highlight Bush’s
abandonment of social policy programs, casting Bush as the Levite
who avoided helping the man who lay by the side of the road. For
four years, charged Kerry, Bush has "seen people in need,
but he’s crossed over to the other side of the street."
No one could have anticipated that Kerry would end up playing
the role of prophet to Bush’s Pharisee, but the senator has
spent much of the year calling out the president for his explicit
appropriation of religion. One of the biggest crowd-pleasing
lines in Kerry’s acceptance speech was the retelling of a
story about Abraham Lincoln in which some ministers asked him to
pray with them that God was on their side. "As Abraham
Lincoln told us," Kerry said, "I want to pray humbly
that we are on God’s side." The "pray humbly"
part was an addition by Kerry that underscored the frustration
many voters feel with Bush’s solid confidence that he is
doing God’s will. It’s a sentiment that can be found
even around the president’s own office. "I think you
have to wonder when people are so sure they know what God
wants them to do," a White House aide recently told me.
"I just want to ask them, ‘Really? God told you that?
That’s amazing.’ Because God seems like a pretty busy
guy to me."
Politicians should be careful about claiming divine
endorsement in electoral contests, and American voters should
follow this closely. Because in this country we shouldn’t
elect presidents (or any other official, for that matter) based
on how many Christian rock stars they can line up on a stage, or
whether televangelists call the election for them based on
"talks" with God, or if they claim their unofficial
running mate is Jesus Christ. Any politician who appeals to
voters in that way is more than likely trying to deflect
attention from their actual record, from what they have done. But
talking the God-talk is no replacement for walking the walk.
Amy Sullivan is an editor of The Washington Monthly
and a doctoral candidate in sociology at Princeton University.
Read other articles by:
Sullivan, Amy
|
Subscribe to Sojourners today at a special introductory price and save $10 off the basic rate! Click here for details.
WE WANT TO HEAR from you! Click here to share your views. Or write to "Letters," Sojourners, 3333 14th St. NW, Suite 200, Washington DC 20010; fax (202) 328-8757. Please include your name, address, and daytime phone number. Letters may be edited for space and clarity.
|
|
 |
Read other articles by:
Sullivan, Amy
|
