Vote For My Jesus!

(The following is excerpted from Red and Blue God, Black and Blue Church (April 2006, $22.95,
Cloth) by Becky Garrison by permission of Jossey-Bass, a Wiley imprint.)

President Woodrow Wilson is said to have observed that “The silent gospel reaches further than the grandest rhetoric.” I have to wonder how this silence would fare in our 24/7, MTV-blaring, white-noise culture. Is there any hope of having a politician give more than lip service to a servant-leadership model fully lived out by the same Lord and Savior that so many politicians quote ad nauseam? What if, just once, those ensconced within the Beltway tried to conduct, say, a Senate subcommittee hearing, a Pentagon briefing, or a Rose Garden bill-signing ceremony with the kind of humility Jesus exhibited?

Alas, I have yet to see a presidential candidate that comes close to fitting this bill, though in 2004 many religious groups produced voting guides designed to help voters take their faith into the voting booth. The Christian Coalition started this phenomenon by pointing out exactly where the godly versus the ungodly stood when it came to issues like balancing the budget, term limits, military spending, abortion, and family values. Anyone who received high marks was deemed “family-friendly” and thus eligible for ” official” endorsement (IRS regulations be damned), and those with low marks were labeled liberals—the implication being that they must be defeated at all costs.

Those Bible believers who were really, really godly in the eyes of the Christian Coalition could become church liaisons, who played a vital role in restoring America’s God-given glory. After all, according to the coalition, since God ordained government, He therefore ordained our involvement in the governing process. Thanks in large part to the diligent grassroots efforts of the Christian Coalition, Focus on the Family, the Traditional Values Coalition, and other righteous Republicans, the party that abolished slavery has now become so focused on personal morality and the agenda of the Religious Right that it melds the sinners with their sins and oppose anyone who doesn’t go along with their conservative philosophies.

Despite what the Christian Coalition may want voters to believe, there isn’t an American Republican Standard Version of the Bible. During the 2004 election, organizations like National Council of Churches USA and Mobilization 2004 published pamphlets that promoted a more progressive scriptural approach to voting according to one’s conscience. Also, for Catholics excommunicated from the Catholic League, the Catholic Voting Project offered a comparison chart noting where the U.S. Catholic bishops, George Bush, and John Kerry stood on a host of political issues.

This plethora of voting guides from a wide range of liberally minded sources begs the question, What if the more progressive branch of the church really started focusing on concrete ways to implement the principles outlined in this material instead of devising ways to defeat the Religious Right? Maybe then the church’s good deeds and professed tolerance could shine through, and we’d see a truly radical ministry shaped by the love of Christ that could actually, say, eradicate childhood poverty. Remember, it was the church that led the charge to end slavery in the nineteenth century and establish civil rights for all God’s children in the twentieth century. Even NRA guru Charlton Heston, then a Democrat and civil rights activist, joined Martin Luther King Jr. in the 1963 March on Washington. He armed himself against the donkeys literally when the Democrats later lost the moral ground it had gained in the ’60s by becoming, in the words of California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, “girlie men.”

Choosing Christ?

Even though Christians talk about following the will of Christ, if He were on the ballot today, would we vote for Him? Hmmm … lemme see. Well, for starters, His message is geared toward those “undesirables” who probably aren’t even registered to vote. Also, that business of separating the sheep who are eligible to vote for Christ from the hordes of unregistered goats represents a pollster’s nightmare.

Let’s face it, the dude just can’t spin worth diddly-squat. He tells is like it is and doesn’t give a rip whom He offends. How can you have a presidential candidate who can’t even be trusted to go to a fundraising breakfast and behave in front of the those all-important special-interest groups needed to finance the cost of mounting a presidential campaign? And as much as LaHaye & Co. like to invoke the name of Jesus, there’s no way He’d snag an invite to one of those supersecret Council for National Policy meetings.(I wish I could tell you what goes on in there, but these meetings are strictly off limits to the media; only individuals with the biggest bankrolls and the best beliefs are allowed access to these contemporary temple treasures).

Now let’s examine His staff—oh, just fuggetaboutit. His campaign manager looks like one of those crazy homeless guys I see preaching at Times Square, and His female “companion” has a checkered past that would make Monica Lewinsky blush. He hangs out with tax collectors, drunkards, and a host of unsavory characters. Roger Clinton seems downright dignified by comparison. And last but not least, His “trusted” disciples, the guys He appointed to key leadership positions, make snafus almost every time they accompany their leader in public. (I can just picture all the Christian conspiracy books blasting the behavior of Jesus’ cabinet.) Get this—He can’t even get any respect in His hometown (sound familiar, Al Gore?)

No, if Jesus stepped into the RNC or DNC headquarters, both Karl Rove and Democratic head honcho Howard Dean would show Him the door fer sure. No way in hell would they even remotely consider His candidacy as leader of the Free World—but then again, Jesus made it clear that His kingdom lay elsewhere.

Posted on September 15, 2006 12:00 AM