By Rudy Barnes, Jr.
Trey Gowdy and Elijah Cummings were unlikely friends--Trey a white Republican and Elijah a black Democrat. Both were reconciled while serving in a politically polarized Congress by sharing the core values of altruism and mutual respect for their differences. Their friendship exemplifies the ideal needed to reconcile America’s polarized races, religions and politics.
Increased racial, religious and political diversity in America has eroded white supremacy, causing fear among white voters; and Trump and white evangelical leaders have exploited that fear with polarized us versus them politics. With no communion among Christians to reconcile their differences, Christianity has been complicit in the polarization of America’s politics.
Reconciliation doesn’t require agreement on all our religious and political differences, only finding common ground on core values and respecting the differences of our increasingly diverse neighbors. Exclusivist religious beliefs and racially polarized partisan politics prevent the political reconciliation needed to preserve a functioning democracy in America.
Trump and his Republican Party vilify Muslims and immigrants and divide churches with their racially polarized partisan politics. Before the 1960s most whites in the South were Democrats. By the 1980s evangelicals like Jerry Falwell had converted most of them into Republicans, and by then most blacks had switched from being Republicans to Democrats.
The Christian religion and partisan politics are now conjoined. Republicans assert that Trump is doing God’s will, and have ignored the moral teachings of Jesus to conform their morality to partisan objectives. Most Democrats are not religious but agree with Thomas Jefferson that the moral teachings of Jesus are “the most sublime moral code devised by man.”
Why haven’t traditional white Christians challenged the corrupt morality of Trump and his evangelical supporters? They don’t want to mix their religion and politics. What would Jesus do? He would criticize political leaders as he did religious leaders for their hypocrisy. (see Matthew 23) But in most churches today pastors don’t openly criticize religious or civic leaders.
Jews, Christians and Muslims make up over half of the world’s population, and they have been put into closer proximity to each other than ever before by globalization. Conflicting religious beliefs have fostered interfaith divisions and religious polarization. Increasing interfaith hatred and violence have made religious reconciliation necessary for peaceful coexistence.
The great prophets of Judaism, Jesus and Muhammad all accept God’s universal truth in the greatest commandment. It is to love God and to love our neighbors as we love ourselves, including our neighbors of other races and religions. It was taken from the Hebrew Bible, taught by Jesus and offered by Muslim scholars to Jews and Christians as a common word of faith.
The greatest commandment is a theological mandate for altruism and reconciliation. In politics, altruism is about providing for the common good; and a healthy democracy must balance the wants and needs of individuals and special interest groups with providing for the common good. America’s divisive identity politics have prevented such a balance.
Christianity in America is in decline. (see Notes below) Christians are divided by race and partisan loyalties, but they are still a majority that can salvage Christianity and democracy from disgrace in 2020. Like Trey Gowdy and Elijah Cummings, Christians should seek reconciliation and communion based on the altruistic and universal values taught by Jesus.
Notes:
On the remarkable and reconciling friendship between Trey Gowdy and Elijah Cummins, see https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/10/18/elijah-cummings-i-were-political-opponents-we-were-also-good-friends/?wpisrc=nl_most&wpmm=1.
On the decline of Christianity in America, which is down from 70% to 65% over the last few years, see https://www.pewforum.org/2019/10/17/in-u-s-decline-of-christianity-continues-at-rapid-pace/?utm_source=Pew+Research+Center&utm_campaign=d8dae17adc-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_10_17_01_06&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_3e953b9b70-d8dae17adc-399971105.
Christine Emba cited two studies that indicated that “Millennials [aged 28-38] are leaving religion--especially Christianity--and they’re not going back.” Emba, who is a Millennial, says “we still want relationships and transcendence,..despite how ambivalent we may feel about ancient liturgies...or pastors whose politics have taken a sharp turn MAGA-wards.” Emba is worried that Millenials aren’t “building the relationships and communal support as the religious traditions they are leaving behind.” She concludes, “If we’re closing the church doors behind us, we’ll have to find somewhere else to tend to our spirits--and our hearts.” See
Michael Gerson believes that “rather than white evangelical Protestants (WEPs) shaping President Trump’s agenda in Christian ways, they have been reshaped into the image of Trump himself.” And most white Christians in Mainline churches share the politics of WEPs. According to a recent poll, “nearly two-thirds of WEPs deny that Trump has damaged the dignity of his office. Well over half of this group is willing to deny a blindingly obvious, entirely irrefutable, manifestly clear reality because it is perceived as being critical of their leader. Forty-seven percent of WEPs say that Trump’s behavior makes no difference to their support. Thirty-one percent say there is almost nothing that Trump could do to forfeit their approval. This is preemptive permission for any violation of the moral law or the constitutional order. An extraordinary 99 percent of Republican WEPs oppose the impeachment and removal of the president.” Gerson sees a younger generation of evangelicals who don’t support Trump, but concludes, “It is a source of cynicism and social disruption when an older generation betrays civilizing values in full sight of its children.” See https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/evangelicals-have-been-reshaped-into-the-image-of-trump-himself/2019/10/28/f37f5154-f9c0-11e9-ac8c-8eced29ca6ef_story.html?wpisrc=nl_most&wpmm=1.
Ross Douthat acknowledges the decline of Christianity according to recent polls, but gives three reasons to question the overstated collapse of Christianity: First, Douthat thinks that “Lukewarm Christianity may be declining much more dramatically than intense religiosity.” Second, Douthat thinks ”the waning of Christianity may be still as much a baby-boomer story as a millennial one.” (see Christine Emba, above) And third, Douthat says, “There’s a strong case that any crisis facing Christian institutions is a more Catholic crisis than a Protestant one. While “in terms of raw numbers of adherents the biggest post-1960s collapse clearly belongs to Mainline Protestantism, with evangelical Christianity and Catholicism looking similarly stable. But divide American Christianity along Catholic-Protestant lines, rather than into a Mainline-Evangelical-Catholic troika, and you can tell a different story — where evangelicalism gained at the Mainline churches’ expense, keeping the broader Protestant position constant, while Catholicism was saved from a Mainline-style decline only by Hispanic immigration. The collapse of Catholic mass attendance after the Second Vatican Council was more dramatic than any general Protestant development. And after a long period of immigrant-supported stabilization, in the current “aftershock” it’s mostly Catholic mass attendance that’s been falling, even as Protestant church attendance bobs up. So if you were inclined to extrapolate forward from American Christianity’s current situation, you might predict that the future of de-Christianization...will be shaped above all by what sort of Catholicism emerges from the church’s current controversies: from the agony of the sex-abuse scandal, from the revival of the liberal-Catholic program under Pope Francis and the embattlement of conservative Catholicism, from the theological and generational polarizations in the church.” Douthat concludes that “evangelical Protestantism looks like a stronger alternative to secularism than the church of Joe Biden, Pope Francis and myself.”
Added to Douthat’s concerns about the declining public image of Catholicism in America was the denial of communion to Joe Biden at the Mass he attended on October 27 while campaigning in S.C. See https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2019/10/29/joe-biden-denied-communion-mass-during-campaign-stop-south-carolina?utm_source=Newsletters&utm_campaign=360edbe004-DAILY_CAMPAIGN_2019_10_29&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_0fe8ed70be-360edbe004-58692321.
On the polarization and fragmentation of politics that threatens democracy in the U.S.and Europe, see ttps://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/were-polarized-and-fragmented-at-the-same-time-trump-likes-that/2019/10/30/c2918bb4-fb48-11e9-8190-6be4deb56e01_story.html?wpisrc=nl_headlines&wpmm=1.
Related commentary on the greatest commandment and love over law:
(1/11/15): The Greatest Commandment: A Common Word of Faith
(1/18/15): Love over Law: A Principle at the Heart of Legitimacy
(1/23/16): Who Is My Neighbor?
(1/30/16): The Politics of Loving Our Neighbors as Ourselves
(3/31/18): Altruism: The Missing Ingredient in American Christianity and Democracy
(10/13/18): Musings on a Common Word of Faith and Politics for Christians and Muslims
(2/23/19): Musings on Loving Your Enemy, Including the Enemy Within
(7/20/19): Musings on Diversity in Democracy: Who Are Our Neighbors?
(7/27/19): Musings of a Maverick Methodist on Love Over Law and Social Justice
(8/31/19): Musings of a Maverick Methodist on the Politics of Christian Zionism
(9/21/19): An Afterword on Religion, Legitimacy and Politics from 2014-2019
(10/5/19): Musings on the Moral Relevance of Jesus to Democracy
(10/12/19): Musings on Impeachment and Elections as Measures of Political Legitimacy
On religion, morality and politics:
(12/29/14): Religion, Violence and Military Legitimacy
(2/8/15): Promoting Religion Through Evangelism: Bringing Light or Darkness?
(2/15/15): Is Religion Good or Evil?
(4/12/15): Faith as a Source of Morality and Law: The Heart of Legitimacy
(6/28/15): Confronting the Evil Among Us
(7/12/15): Reconciliation in Race and Religion: The Need for Compatibility, not Conformity http://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2015/07/reconciliation-in-race-and-religion.html
(8/9/15): Balancing Individual Rights with Collective Responsibilities
(8/23/15): Legitimacy as a Context and Paradigm to Resolve Religious Conflict
(8/30/15): What Is Truth? http://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2015/08/what-is-truth.html
(11/15/15): American Exceptionalism: The Power of Persuasion or Coercion?
(1/16/16): Religion, Politics and Public Expectations
(3/26/16): Religion, Democracy, Diversity and Demagoguery
4/30/16): The Relevance of Religion to Politics
(5/7/16): Religion and a Politics of Reconciliation
(5/28/16): Nihilism as a Threat to Politics, Religion and Morality
(7/2/16): The Need for a Politics of Reconciliation in the Wake of Globalization
(8/5/16): How Religion Can Bridge Our Political and Cultural Divide http://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2016/08/how-religion-can-bridge-our-political.html
(9/24/16): The Evolution of Religion and Politics from Oppression to Freedom
(11/5/16): Religion, Liberty and Justice at Home and Abroad
(12/31/16): E Pluribus Unum, Religion and a Politics of Reconciliation
(1/7/17): Religion and Reason as Sources of Political Legitimacy, and Why They Matter
(1/21/17): Religion and Reason Redux: Religion Is Ridiculous
(3/4/17): Ignorance and Reason in Religion and Politics
(3/18/17): Moral Ambiguity in Religion and Politics
(4/22/17): The Relevance of Jesus and the Irrelevance of the Church in Today’s World
(6/17/17): Religious Exclusivity: Does It Matter? http://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2017/06/religious-exclusivity-does-it-matter.html.
(7/1/17): Religion, Moral Authority and Conflicting Concepts of Legitimacy
(7/15/17): Religion and Progressive Politics
(7/29/17): Speaking God’s Truth to Man’s Power
(8/5/17): Does Religion Seek to Reconcile and Redeem or to Divide and Conquer?
(8/12/17): The Universalist Teachings of Jesus as a Remedy for Religious Exclusivism
(8/19/17): Hate, History and the Need for a Politics of Reconciliation
(10/7/17): A 21st Century Reformation to Restore Reason to American Civil Religion http://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2017/10/a-21st-century-reformation-to-restore.html.
(10/21/17): The Symbiotic Relationship between Freedom and Religion
(11/18/17): Radical Religion and the Demise of Democracy
(12/2/17): How Religious Standards of Legitimacy Shape Politics, for Good or Bad
(12/16/17): Can Democracy Survive the Trump Era?
(12/23/17): If Democracy Survives the Trump Era, Can the Church Survive Democracy? http://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2017/12/if-democracy-survives-trump-era-can.html.
(1/6/18): Musings of a Maverick Methodist on Diversity in Democracy
(1/13/18): Nationalist Politics and Exclusivist Religion: Obstacles to Reconciliation and Peace
(1/27/18): Musings on Conflicting Concepts of Christian Morality in Politics
(2/24/18): Musings of a Maverick Methodist on Religion, Freedom and Legitimacy
(3/17/18): Jefferson’s Jesus and Moral Standards in Religion and Politics
(3/31/18): Altruism: The Missing Ingredient in American Christianity and Democracy
(4/7/18): Musings of a Maverick Methodist on the Need for a Moral Reformation
(4/28/18): Musings of a Maverick Methodist on the Virtues and Vices of Christian Morality
(5/12/18): Musings of a Maverick Methodist on Christianity and Making America Great Again
(5/19/18): Musings on Morality and Law as Symbiotic but Conflicting Standards of Legitimacy
(7/21/18): Musings on America’s Moral and Political Mess and Who Should Clean It Up
(8/4/18): Musings of a Maverick Methodist on Religious Problems and Solutions in Politics
(8/11/18): Musings of a Maverick Methodist on Changing Morality in Religion and Politics
(8/25/18): Musings of a Maverick Methodist on Moral Priorities in Religion and Politics
(9/1/18): Musings on the American Civil Religion and Christianity at a Crossroads
(9/29/18): Musings of a Maverick Methodist on the Resurrection of Christian Universalism
(10/6/18): Musings on Moral Universalism in Religion and Politics http://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2018/10/musings-on-moral-universalism-in.html.
(10/27/18): Musings of a Maverick Methodist on a Migrant Tidal Wave
(11/24/18): Musings of a Maverick Methodist on Christianity and the Legitimacy of Democracy http://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2018/11/musings-of-maverick-methodist-on.html.
(1/5/19): Musings of a Maverick Methodist on Building Political Walls or Bridges
(2/16/19): Musings of a Maverick Methodist on America the Blessed and Beautiful--or is it?
(3/30/19): Musings on What the Mueller Report Doesn’t Say About Trump’s Wrongdoing
(4/12/19): Musings on Religion, Nationalism and Libertarian Democracy
(4/20/19): Musings on the Resurrection of Altruistic Morality in Dying Democracies
(4/27/19): Musings on the Legitimacy of Crony Capitalism and Progressive Capitalism
(5/4/19): Musings on the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
(5/11/19): Musings on the Relevance of Jefferson’s Jesus in the 21st Century
(5/18/19): Outsiders Versus Insiders in Religion, Legitimacy and Politics
(5/25/19): Musings of a Maverick Methodist on the Divinity and Moral Teachings of Jesus
(6/8/19): The Moral Failure of the Church to Promote Altruism in Politics
(6/22/19): The Universal Family of God: Where Inclusivity Trumps Exclusivity
(6/29/19): Musings on a Politics of Reconciliation: An Impossible Dream?
(7/6/19): Musings on Democrats, Busing and Racism: It’s Deja Vu All Over Again
(7/13/19): Musings on Sovereignty and Conflicting Loyalties to God and Country
(7/20/19): Musings on Diversity in Democracy: Who Are Our Neighbors?
(7/27/19): Musings of a Maverick Methodist on Love Over Law and Social Justice
(8/3/19): Musings on the Dismal Future of the Church and Democracy in America
(8/10/19): Musings on Christian Nationalism: A Plague on the Church and Democracy
(8/17/19): Musings of a Maverick Methodist on Shame in Religion and Politics
(9/7/19): Musings on the Self-Destruction of Christianity and American Democracy
(9/14/19): Musings of a Maverick Methodist on Chaos as a Prelude to a New Creation
(9/21/19): An Afterword on Religion, Legitimacy and Politics from 2014-2019
(10/5/19): Musings on the Moral Relevance of Jesus to Democracy
(10/12/19): Musings on Impeachment and Elections as Measures of Political Legitimacy
On religion, race and politics:
(7/5/15): Reconciliation as a Remedy for Racism and Religious Exclusivism
(7/12/15): Reconciliation in Race and Religion: The Need for Compatibility, not Conformity http://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2015/07/reconciliation-in-race-and-religion.html
(7/19/15): Religion, Heritage and the Confederate Flag
(3/12/16): Religion, Race and the Deterioration of Democracy in America
(3/26/16): Religion, Democracy, Diversity and Demagoguery
(7/9/16): Back to the Future: Race, Religion, Rights and a Politics of Reconciliation
(7/16/16): The Elusive Ideal of Political Reconciliation
(10/22/16): The Need for a Politics of Reconciliation in a Polarized Democracy
(11/19/16): Religion and a Politics of Reconciliation Based on Shared Values
http://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2016/11/religion-and-politics-of-reconciliation_19.html
(11/26/16): Irreconcilable Differences and the Demise of Democracy
(2/18/17): Gerrymandering, Race and Polarized Partisan Politics
(8/19/17): Hate, History and the Need for a Politics of Reconciliation
(11/11/17): A Politics of Reconciliation that Should Begin in the Church
(12/9/17): Religion, Race and Identity Politics http://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2017/12/religion-race-and-identity-politics.html.
(1/6/18): Musings of a Maverick Methodist on Diversity in Democracy
(10/20/18): Lamentations of an Old White Male Maverick Methodist in a Tribal Culture
(12/29/18): Musings of a Maverick Methodist on Justice in Religion and Politics
(3/9/19): Musings on the Degradation of Democracy in a Post-Christian America
(7/6/19): Musings on Democrats, Busing and Racism: It’s Deja Vu All Over Again
(7/13/19): Musings on Sovereignty and Conflicting Loyalties to God and Country
(7/20/19): Musings on Diversity in Democracy: Who Are Our Neighbors?
(9/21/19): An Afterword on Religion, Legitimacy and Politics from 2014-2019
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