Posted on 07/18/2006 6:06:15 AM PDT by Chi-townChief
Imagine going to the dentist with an aching tooth, and going through the pain of having it diagnosed and pulled -- only to discover the dentist pulled the wrong tooth. Not only have you suffered for nothing, you've still got to operate on the real problem.
Democrats seem about to put themselves through this agony. Pundits and politicians tell Democrats that they have a "values" problem -- that people of faith vote against them in large numbers because the Democratic party is seen as secular, or as anti-Christian, or as straying from mainstream values.
Poppycock. Democrats didn't lose Florida in 2000 and the 2000 election because of the lack of a high faith profile. Al Gore won the popular vote nationally and the popular vote of the majority who cast ballots in Florida on Election Day. He lost Florida because the fix was in, because the Voting Rights Act was not enforced -- and because Republicans turned the recount into an alley fight while Gore played by rules. Then a transparently partisan majority in the Supreme Court violated its own principles and shamed itself by ordering an end to a fair count, worried Bush might lose. This wasn't about faith; it was about will.
Similarly, Democrats didn't lose Ohio in 2004 and the 2004 election because of the lack of a high faith profile. They lost because the fix was in, and because once again, Republicans had a partisan zealot -- Ken Blackwell -- as secretary of state. Once again he abused the powers of his office in choosing voting machines and election schemes. Once again, a majority of people set out to vote for Bush's opponent.
Having identified the wrong tooth, Democrats are now hearing the wrong prescription. They're urged to embrace the symbols of faith, to go to church, to speak from the Gospel, to advertise their faith.
But faith is not a political posture. True faith isn't exhibited by symbolic acts, but by substance. Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things unseen. It isn't a symbol of things to scheme for. Values are not expressed by the paraphernalia of faith. Values are expressed by action. An abolitionist fighting to end slavery expresses faith. A slave owner attending a church that excludes slaves from attendance reflects bad faith.
The Bible says that you know a tree by the fruit it bears, not by the bark it wears. We know the values of a politician not by the public prayers he or she attends, but by the priorities supported in his or her budget vote. A vote for a budget that cuts basic needs from poor children while cutting more tax breaks for the affluent expresses the values -- and the bad faith -- of those who vote for it. A nation's budget is a moral document.
This mission statement from the Gospel -- Luke 4:18 -- is at the heart of our faith-with-substance imperative: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor: he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised."
The Bible is clear about this. Faith is substance, not posturing. I was hungry and you fed me. Naked and you clothed me. Imprisoned and you comforted me. The Bible calls us to act, not simply to pray in public. A person is mugged on the Jericho Road. A man of religion, displaying all the signs of piety, sees the victim and crosses to the other side of the road. A man from the victim's own ethnic origins spies him and crosses to the other side of the road. A stranger in the land, with a different religion, a different way of worshipping God, with no green card, stops, puts the victim on his donkey and provides him with the resources to get care.
The parable of the Good Samaritan comes to us through the ages because it calls us to express our faith in action. We are judged by how we treat the least of these, not how pious we are in the first pew.
Democrats should focus not on the public display of their faith, but on the will to fight for what they believe in. If they don't learn to stand up and fight for what they believe in -- for the Voting Rights Act, for equal opportunity, for full employment and a living wage, for lifting the poor up and not locking them out, for making certain that every vote is counted -- then they just might be left without a prayer.
mailto:jjackson@rainbowpush.org
This is just more revisionism. Like denying the holocaust.
JJ has ALWAYS been delusional...
Liberals have NO CREDIBILITY on serious issues. They are all about being cute with little soundbite mentality.
Shut up jesse....just shut up--you lying hypocritical racist pig.
To quote Mark Twain..."They have the words, but not the music."
There's a special place in Hell for such liars.
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