Earlier this week, radio personality and psychologist James Dobson described a meeting of leaders of the Religious Right in which he participated. According to Dobson, the Salt Lake City gathering passed a resolution, the gist of which was:

If neither of the two major political parties nominates an individual [for President] who pledges himself or herself to the sanctity of human life, we will join others in voting for a minor-party candidate.

According to Dobson, “Those agreeing with the proposition were invited to stand. The result was almost unanimous.”

Frankly, I hope that the members of this group follow through on their threat. Not necessarily because it would result in the election of a Democrat, which it incidentally might.

No, my interest in seeing the Religious Right shorn of its influence and power is entirely spiritual, not political.

For nearly three decades now, beginning with the formation of the Moral Majority by Jerry Fallwell in 1979, Religious Right politicos have presumed to speak, if not for all Christians, then for all who label themselves evangelicals. (Although a Lutheran, I classify myself as an evangelical because as the root word, evangel, implies, I believe in the Good News that all who turn from sin and believe in Jesus Christ will live with God forever.)

One result of the political presumptuousness of Fallwell, Dobson, Pat Robertson, and others has been to make atheism fashionable in the United States. Their un-Christian legalism has made it easy for shallow religious provocateurs to fashion a false “straw man” Christianity which, with no intellectual effort and scant evidence, they can knock down to “prove” that God doesn’t exist and that the claims of Christ are wrong. An uninquisitive media haplessly abets the misimpressions of Christian faith created by Dobson et al by treating their presumptions as true.

But the fact is that the forty to fifty people who tentatively voted for a third party presidential candidacy in Salt Lake City don’t represent most Christians.

Most Christians, for example, are broadly speaking, pro-life. But they’re not prepared to criminalize abortion or deny that there may be circumstances under which abortion may be a tragic option. Those circumstances include rape, incest, or when the mother’s life is endangered.

Most Christians believe that the practice of homosexuality is a sin. But they abhor stripping homosexuals of their political rights. In my own case, I would never be part of a Christian rite legitimizing a homosexual relationship, although I feel that neither my faith or my marriage would be threatened should states legalize some sort of legal covenant relationship between consenting adults. (By the way, I believe that the Bible condemns nobody who is oriented to homosexuality. To be oriented to what the Bible calls sins is nothing other than to be tempted. It’s also nothing other than being human. I’m often tempted by gluttony. That doesn’t disqualify me from the Kingdom of God, thankfully!)

There is varied opinion among Christians about capital punishment, with many questioning if one can really be classified as pro-life while simultaneously favoring execution of crimimals. Most Christians I know seem to regard capital punishment as a necessary sanction of last resort, something to be used sparingly for only the most heinous crimes.

Many Christians feel it’s hypocritical for us to lobby our government to save the lives of the unborn and then, pull what Ronald Reagan called “the safety net” out from under them once they are born. (See some of the articles linked here.)

Christians, well-meaning and committed to the sanctity of life, are divided on stem cell research, something about which I admittedly know little.

The bottom line is, as I’ve said many times before, there is no set of Christian principles for politics other than Jesus’ command that we love God and we love our neighbor.

No Christian with whom I’m in daily personal contact has anything to do with the Religious Right and will vote as guided by their consciences. Most Christians believe that it’s the function of the Church, of Christian leaders, and of individual Christians not to force their political ideas on others and label them as Christian. Our task and Jesus’ command of Christians is that we obey the Great Commission and the Great Commandment.

This isn’t to say that the Religious Right is devoid of influence. Dobson and crew may be able to convince a fraction of the electorate to vote for a third-party candidate in 2008. It would be a quixotic effort which, I hope, would demonstrate to the mainstream media and American mass culture that the Religious Right isn’t synonomous with Christianity.

A drubbing might be a wake-up call to those involved in the Religious Right not to give up on politics as an individual pursuit, but to renounce the hubris of believing that they and God see eye-to-eye on political issues, to adopt more humility about their politics.

More importantly, it might convince some Christian leaders to focus not on securing votes, but on fulfilling Christ’s command that we “make disciples.” In the end, committed disciples, people who follow Christ, will live their lives differently, creating cultural differences that will render legal mandates unnecessary.

Such an approach requires more faith and more patience than that favored by the Religious Right. But I believe that it is the way to which we’re called as Christians.

[This was cross-posted at Better Living: Thoughts from Mark Daniels.]

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 6th, 2007 at 12:51 pm and is filed under Abortion, Republican Party, Capital Punishment, Marriage, 2008 Presidential Candidates, Christian (Red) Right, Family Values, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.