Evangelicals and the Bush Administration: Part Two

By Amy Sullivan & Joseph Loconte - New Republic, Opinion
Wednesday, October 25, 2006 - Web Link
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October 25, 2006

Dear Joe,

I always welcome the opportunity to discuss issues of religion and politics with you. That's largely because your arguments are usually more thoughtful and considered than those I encounter from most of your colleagues on the right. Based on your opening thoughts here, though, I think I prefer our debates when you're drinking red wine instead of drinking the Kool-Aid.

In addition to some good-natured sparring, most of our conversations have involved an undercurrent of pity from your side. I've sensed your bewilderment that I insist on defending a political movement that does not always grapple with moral and spiritual concerns as I would like. I find our positions reversed this time. The phrase "grasping at straws" comes to mind.

My friend, it is telling that the first half of your argument rests on the very shaky premise that George W. Bush has righted a moral order that had been knocked askew by vicious secular Democrats. First of all, there was never any threat to the important political doctrine preventing a "religious test" for public office. This accusation surfaced long before the Alito and Roberts nominations; conservatives previously charged that opposition to judicial nominees such as Janice Rogers Brown, Bill Pryor, and Priscilla Owen was religious discrimination. But few people knew the religious affiliations of Brown and Pryor until Republican politicians brought them up (their Justice Department-distributed biographies listed no religious affiliation), and Owen publicly identified herself as a member of the Episcopal Church, hardly a persecuted sect.

What conservatives really meant was that questions about a judicial nominee's position on abortion amount to discrimination based on religious beliefs. That is nonsense. In a pluralistic democracy, it is not sufficient for a public official to base a position purely on religious teachings; he must bring other arguments to bear that are accessible to those who do not share their tradition. And, in fact, Alito and Roberts do not cite Catholic teaching in their judicial opinions. To claim that opposition to a judicial nominee is, ipso facto, religious discrimination is patently false. And it is deeply offensive to those men and women who have truly been persecuted for their faith throughout history, and who continue to suffer in areas around the globe.

You say that Bush's message has been that "faith communities bring a message of hope and healing that's hard to find in secular government programs, yet desperately needed," as if the president is courageously giving voice to unpopular truths. The problem is that no one disputes this. Certainly not Al Gore, who had this to say in a 1999 speech about faith-based organizations: "People who work in faith- and values-based organizations are driven by their spiritual commitment. They have done what government can never do, [based on] compassionate care." That sentiment was echoed two years later by Senator Hillary Clinton: "[I]f we're talking about works that go to the most difficult problems in our society, such works are very hard to sustain without a fundamental faith in our God."

Do you want to know what I think? I think Bush relies on fake problems like nonexistent religious discrimination in order to paint himself as the defender of all things religious--and, more importantly, to scare religious voters into believing it is their Christian duty to keep Democrats out of office. I'm well aware of the left's shortcomings when it comes to taking seriously many of the concerns of religious Americans. But Bush hasn't made the case that he's the better choice. Instead, he has borne false witness against the left, in the hopes that scare tactics will keep voters from looking too closely at his actual accomplishments on their behalf.

You say you can't remember another president speaking so openly about the power of spiritual transformation. Let me jog your memory. We have to go all the way back to ... Bush's immediate predecessor. In 1993, Bill Clinton made quite a stir when he came back from vacation recommending Stephen Carter's The Culture of Disbelief to everyone he met. Clinton gathered religious leaders--liberal and conservative--at the White House, and he talked to them about how the power of spiritual transformation was missing from policy prescriptions:

But it's hard for me to take a totally secular approach to the fact that there are cities in this country where the average murderer is now under the age of 16. Now, there may not be a religious answer to the policy question of whether it's a good thing that all these kids can get their hands on semiautomatic weapons. But there certainly is something that is far more than secular about what is happening to a country where we are losing millions of our young people and where they shoot each other with abandon.

This was in addition to the Clinton administration's guidelines to help public schools teach about religion, his appointment of the first ambassador for religious freedom, and his embrace of "charitable choice," the original faith-based initiative provision.

I know this conflicts with the narrative conservatives have put together about how liberals made the country unsafe for religion during the 1990s. And it's inconvenient when Bush needs to rely on his role as David standing up against the Goliath of Hollywood and Democratic party elites. But, with a new generation of Democratic candidates and politicians who are more willing to talk openly with voters about the moral principles that inform their politics, conservatives don't just have to worry about revising history. Religious Americans are starting to realize that Democrats aren't the spawn of the Anti-Christ. If the scare tactics lose their power, Republicans will have to actually start producing policy results.

The one exception to Bush's substance-less religious agenda is his attention to humanitarian issues, for which he deserves ungrudging credit. There is always more that can be done, and we don't yet know whether all of the funds that were originally promised will be delivered. It is clear, however, that this president has devoted more resources to combating human trafficking and hiv/aids in Africa than any previous administration. Figures like Michael Gerson and Sam Brownback have played critical roles in focusing policy on these areas, and that's unquestionably a positive development that will leave the world a better place.

But let's not just cherry-pick the more progressive issues that evangelicals are starting to embrace. If you want to place Bush's attention to Africa in the category of promises delivered to evangelicals, what do you say about the environment? What about torture? An impressive collection of religious leaders--including major evangelicals like Rick Warren and Ted Haggard--issued an unambiguous statement opposing torture earlier this year. You like to argue that liberals are trapped in moral relativism and don't believe in right and wrong, Joe. That doesn't seem to be the case with torture--it's Bush who has argued that the morality of torture depends on the circumstance.

Finally, I'll tackle the substantive ways in which Bush has disappointed evangelicals in my next missive, but I want to end by addressing your closing thoughts. Bush has not ignored the conservative fixation on school prayer and Ten Commandments because he "realize[s] intuitively that this is not the stuff of cultural renewal." He simply can't afford the political baggage of becoming the national Roy Moore. His cautiousness on abortion and stem-cell research isn't proof that conservative Christians can compromise--it's a gamble that he can afford to disappoint conservative Christians who can't compromise. And I would believe that his faith-based initiative was intended to summon the better angels of the evangelical nature if all those faith-based conferences around the country hadn't primarily appealed to the dollar signs in pastors' eyes.

Best,
Amy