Colbert bites Sojo: Common Good > Culture War
A new weekly post highlighting the shifts between the rhetoric of “Common Good” and the “Culture War” in the media, the blogosphere, and the larger religio-political milieu.
In our LIVE discussion on the Sojo/CNN Presidential Forum, Eric Sapp writes:
“The media is the way it is because it has bought into the very well-coordinated and heavily tested rhetoric of the religious right and Republican spin machine which (up until recently) the progressive community and Democrats have largely allowed to exist in a vacuum.”
A great example of that lies behind the irony of this Colbert Report clip:
One of the problems that continues the old “culture war” meme lies in the MSM need to have an “angle” on the news. And like the classic example of the man biting the dog, looking for the exception means reinforcing the rule. Colbert gets at this by explicitly repeating — as a burlesque right-wing pundit — the same meme that often slips into lazy reporting on the discussion over religious moral values informing American policy. Democrats find faith! Liberal bites host!
On the other hand, some object to progressives alluding to their faith when talking about “creation care” or “helping the least of these.” And the uncomfortable ask: is that faith-based rhetoric good? For some it just sounds too close to “creationism” or the “gospel of wealth.” Here these conscientious objectors miss a fundamental rhetorical distinction between the old culture wars frame and the history of religion and politics in America.
Contributing to Liberalism for a New Century, Amy Sullivan writes: “From behind his pulpit in Columbus, Ohio, The Reverend Washington Gladden wove together politics and religion. Week after week, he inveighed against pervasive immorality. Christians, he argued, had a responsibility to act to change the world. Gladden’s words were welcomed by American’s concerned and frightened by the changes around them. By giving voice to previously unnamed social and political fears — and by providing a religious solution to them — Gladden gave Christians permission to flex their muscle in the public sphere.”
Amy goes on to note the “moral values” and “culture wars” that centered in Ohio in 2004. But then she adds that Gladden was preaching in the nineteenth century, for social justice.
It may be reductive, but sometimes it seems that religious conservatives want their politicians talk religion while religious liberals prefer their ministers talking politics. After the Sojo forum some on the left — including me — criticized the obvious faith code language suddenly deployed by a couple of the candidates. The danger of turning religion into political strategy is clear, but I think that we need to hone our critique. It is an old culture war, well-funded frame to get people debating over the authenticity of someone’s faith. Pinning a candidates faith to an issue or a philosopher or a phrase sucks attention from the greater causes such as extreme poverty, affordable health care, and ending the Iraq occupation. Those are common good issues, and where the real principles stand out. Note to politicos, let’s leave the religious talk to the Gladdens of the 21st century and spend more time on the action. As any faithful person knows it’s more about the walk than the talk.
The “liberals get religion angle” will eventually become old news, evidenced already by the easy laughs Colbert draws on the topic. After all, the best politicians, reporters, and bloggers are changing the angle from “getting faith” to “doing the common good.” And that’s (real) good news.
The clegy are the blind leading the blind. Clerics have the lowest IQ and the lowest educatinal level of any professional group in this country. Why people listen to them is beyond me.
Hmm, well I suppose if you ignore the entire network of seminaries across the country and the thousands of years of religious intellectual traditions, you’re onto something.