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Turning the other cheek

At work on Monday I listened attentively as Professor Robert Putnam of Harvard and the institute for social change at the University of Manchester spoke about his new research which shows that American Christians are "better citizens" than other Americans. They give more financial support to secular and faith-based charities. They are more active in civil society. They are more likely to volunteer, to work in their communities, to participate in the process of democracy. He had data to support this: three dimensional graphs, tables, percentages. As a daughter of a Bible Belt preacher, I know Putnam is right. After all, it makes sense: the good Samaritan was a good citizen concerned with the plight of the other, someone who doesn't walk to the opposite side of the road unwilling to be diverted from his journey.

Last week I found myself in Washington DC at a conference with a couple of thousand "Values Voters" who represent the grassroots of Christian right political activism. Leaders of the Family Research Council, the Alliance Defence Fund, and the Heritage Foundation spoke in almost one voice with Republican senators and representatives. During the conference every Republican presidential candidate presented themselves for anointing. A blessing from this crowd would mean a boost in the polls, money in the political coffers and a significant advantage in the race for the Republican nomination. To my ear, some voices were tolerable in the spirit of pluralism. Others were, as my British partner would say, "as mad as cheese".

In this culturally chaotic space, appeared a familiar face. Reverend Jim Wallis, of Sojourners and - according to the Observer - "Gordon Brown's religious guru", accepted an invitation to debate Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention on the role of religion in domestic and foreign policy.

Wallis has become a recognised leader amongst the progressive Christian centre-left who are trying to wrestle the "values debate" back from social conservatives and to convince Democratic candidates of the cultural relevance and political necessity of engaging in Christian discourse. Wallis has also gained prominence on the British political and religious landscape over the last decade through dialogue with the Labour party and by bridging a gap with evangelicals in the UK on the social justice agenda. It is his mission. His book - God's Politics: How the Right gets it Wrong and How the Left doesn't get it - clearly sets out a political agenda focused on poverty and the effects of excessive capitalism on the welfare of citizens.

Wallis faced a tough crowd. Values voters are an odd mixture of economic liberalism and moral conservatism. They are fans of capitalism, individual responsibility, small government and residual welfare. In order to shift the Christian agenda, one must at least engage in conversation. And he did try. His appeal for poverty relief solicited a response from Land that of course, these values voters were not "for poverty," the difference was only about methods of poverty relief.

But then Wallis went one step too far. He dared to propose that levels of affluence in Western democracy were causing global poverty, and even global warming. The pleasantries came to an abrupt end. The crowd went quiet at first and then, at the mention of global warming, they began to boo. Let's be clear, Jim Wallis could hardly be accused of being a dark green ecoterrorist. He had only gently connected the dots: that consumerism uses up finite resources and that energy consumption has led to climate change. But this was a crowd of believers in intelligent design, not science. The rebuttal was swift. Genesis was clear: while we might do a little "creation care," God gave Adam the earth to use it for his benefit.

Of course, I wasn't surprised. The voices of values voters are familiar to my ear. They are my people; the people I grew up with; the people, as an ex-pat, I left behind. What I wasn't expecting was the familiarity of the words spoken by Wallis. Having taught UK social policy for almost 15 years, I speak the language: from William Beveridge's post-war welfare through to Tony Blair's Labour party. And here was an American speaking in cadences associated with British social democracy and with Labour's discourse on social exclusion. Even his plea for welfare support "from the womb to the tomb" borrows directly Beveridge's idea of support from the cradle to the grave.

I thought to myself how powerful, and how needed, that message is in American political discourse: taking the fundamental issues of social justice, framed in the voice of American Christianity, and convincing voters, Republican and Democrat to be good citizens, to care beyond their comfort zones of suburban, or national, borders.

The fact that Wallis was invited to the conference indicates just how much he is a force within American Christianity. The fact that they felt the need to engage with him is testament to the way in which his voice is resonating with progressive Americans. So, I should be glad that his voice brings ideals of social justice into American popular political discourse. I should be. But I'm not.

As any observer of American politics since the late 1970s knows, there are two issues that define the socio-political agenda: abortion and homosexuality. Religious conservatives have successfully managed to utilize these two wedge issues to control the political debate, making every Republican candidate dance to their tune, and eventually with the election of George Bush, to gain political power. And it is not surprising that Wallis is chosen as a worthy opponent: he shares much of their 'pro-life, pro-family' agenda. He signalled this to the audience clearly that God's ideal would be heterosexual mothers and fathers and no abortions. Homosexuality has dominated the political agenda for too long.

As Putnam aptly noted, the key to a Democratic win will be reclaiming and expanding a common Christian agenda focusing on poverty and social exclusion. And that means shifting the debate away from abortion and homosexuality. Shifting it. Not winning it. Just consciously moving on to something else. And this is where Wallis comes into the frame. He is that voice: a liberal evangelist advising the Democrats to shift the debate. And that's the rub.

In the shifting, there is a sacrifice. It is a sacrifice some believe is strategically necessary in the short term. Maybe it is. But it is a sacrifice nonetheless. In an effort to win, in an effort to move a Democrat down the road towards the White House, the candidate must not be diverted. After the election, they may remember and return to get us. But in the meantime American gay and lesbian citizens need to sit by the side of the road and wait.