VOLUME 10, NUMBER 4  AGGREGATE ISSUE 51  FALL 2004
“The voice of one crying in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord’”   Isaiah 40:3; John 1:23

Should Ethics Come First?
By Joe E. Trull, Editor

     I am upset. We live in a day when ethical issues bombard us—same-sex marriage, stem-cell research, war in Iraq, Enron-type corporate greed, lawsuits over Ten Commandments monuments, and even the Rev. Jerry Falwell telling Southwestern Seminary students in a chapel service how to vote.

     The crisis in ethics is widespread. Roman Catholics struggle with revelations of clergy sexual abuse and church cover-up, Episcopalians react to the elevation of a practicing homosexual priest, Presbyterians and Methodists are divided over the ordination of gay ministers, and the Southern Baptist Convention prohibits women serving as pastors.

     Yet, as David Gushee outlines inside, the study of Christian ethics is in decline. What disturbs me greatly is the continued minimization of Christian ethics in our churches and educational institutions.

     In the opening pages of Systematic Theology: Ethics, James McClendon Jr. asked, “Should Ethics Come First?” Unlike most theologians, McClendon argues for the “chronological priority of ethics,” noting theologians are forever leaving ethics until last, and at times leaving ethics out altogether.

     McClendon is right—ethics came first in Christian history. The first disciples of Jesus did not proclaim a new philosophy or another national religion. Rather they lived as a new community—“resident aliens” ((Phil. 3:20) whose lives were counterculture to the world. The church of the first century was identified not by its theological teachings or its mystical revelations—in the beginning Christianity was a new way of life.

     In a Graeco-Roman society of vicious immorality, where wealth was worshiped, life was cheap, and purity and chastity were vanishing, came a new moral influence. The extraordinary ethical life of Christians was a moral witness that astounded and attracted the first-century world. That is why the earliest disciples of Jesus were called “people of the Way” (Acts 9:2) even before they were called Christians.

     In the late nineteenth-century Christian leaders in England and America cried out for reform in light of the social problems growing out of the Industrial Revolution. The mushrooming inner cities were congested with the poor working class. Economic injustices became the breeding grounds for crime and moral corruption.

     The Social Gospel Movement focused on the ethics of the kingdom of God and sought to apply Jesus’ teachings to bring social harmony and eliminate gross injustices. To their credit, these SGM leaders brought about the abolition of child labor and influenced legislation that improved working conditions and the lot of the urban poor.

     However, due to the liberal theology of the SGM (optimism about human nature and the possibility of establishing the kingdom of God on earth), more individualistic Christian groups rejected both the theology and the ethics of “cultural Protestantism.”

     For most of the twentieth century, church involvement in social problems such as race relations or war was labeled “social gospel” and “liberal.” Conservative churches were wary of social ethics, for fear of being corrupted by liberal theology.

     The outstanding Baptist ethicist T. B. Maston helped change that idea. He began as a teacher of Religious Education. When he initiated a course in Christian ethics at Southwestern Seminary in 1943, at first it was relegated to the School of Religious Education—taught in another building and listed apart from theological studies. Even later when it was moved to the School of Theology, it was placed in the “Practical Division” with evangelism and pastoral ministry, rather than with theology, where it belonged.

     Nevertheless, by the 1950s and 1960s, Christian ethics had become a major course of study at Southwestern and other seminaries, partly due to critical social issues of that period. In 1960 more than 30 doctoral students at Southwestern majored in ethics—only New Testament studies had more students. Due to Maston’s influence, ethics teachers emerged: Ralph Phelps, C. W. Scudder, Marguerite Woodruff, Bill Pinson, Guy Greenfield, Ebbie Smith, Bill Tillman, Bob Adams and a host of missionaries, pastors, and denominational leaders. (At Southern Seminary Henlee Barnette had equal influence producing scores of ethicists including Paul Simmons and Glenn Stassen.)

     In 2004, has our need for teaching and practicing Christian ethics diminished? Look at the issues debated on CNN or discussed on Oprah or Dr. Phil: war, capital punishment, corporate scandals, church-state dilemmas, surrogate parenting, and politricks!

     In a day when ethical issues are numerous and complex, what is our response? Churches seem to avoid ethical questions. So concerned with “Growth” and “User Friendly Congregations,” many modern church leaders opt for neutrality—take no stand on anything that is controversial, just confess belief in patriotism, the American way, and bottom-line success.

     I agonize with church and denominational leaders who are trying to keep their ship afloat. Yet, isn’t the kingdom of God bigger than being Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, or even the inoffensive No-Name Church that is obsessed with neutrality? My how we need prophets today like Micah, Amos, and Isaiah.

And now the punch-line—my own grand obsession! If ethics came first in Christian history, if the first-century world was turned “upside-down” by the moral witness of Jesus’ disciples, if the need for Christian ethics is widespread in our morally confused culture, then why in heaven’s name are we minimizing Christian ethics in the classroom and in pulpits? Why are we retreating? Why are we so reluctant to be honest with the teachings of Jesus?

Have we been corrupted by our culture? Are we so intent on church success that we have sacrificed the “hard sayings of Jesus” in order to be numero uno?

     Consider this contrast. A few SBC seminaries are increasing their ethics department to ensure an ultra-conservative, political agenda. In response, our three largest moderate seminaries not only do not have a Professor of Christian Ethics, they also offer a CE course only as an elective—which means low enrollment. We are graduating hundreds of seminary students who have not studied Christian ethics—and please don’t tell me (as one teacher did), “We include it with theology.” I know what that means—it’s left till last, and then usually left out (as McClendon noted)!

I am grateful for Bill Tillman at Logsdon Seminary, Dan McGee and John Wood at Baylor, Paul Sadler at Wayland, Jeff Holloway at East Texas Baptist and Dave Gushee at Union University to name a few exceptions to this trend. Check your school’s catalogue. Talk to the Dean. Insist that Christian ethics teaching be a vital part of the curriculum. In a world with too much decay and darkness, we must keep the “salt and light” of Christian ethics primary, as did Jesus in his life and teachings (Matt. 5:13-16).

EthixBytes
A Collection of Quotes, Comments, Statistics, and News Items

“The science of interpreting elections has a fancy name: psephology. A shorter, simpler and more accurate title for much election analysis is: fiction.”
Columnist David S. Broder.

“GOD IS NOT A REPUBLICAN OR A DEMOCRAT—We believe that sincere Christians and other people of faith can choose to vote for President Bush or Senator Kerry for reasons deeply rooted in their faith. We believe all candidates should be examined by measuring their policies against the complete range of Christian ethics and values.”
A Sojourners full-page ad in the New York Times, August 30, 2004, supported by 3500 donors and 41,500 signers

“For conservative people of faith, voting for principle this year means voting for the re-election of George W. Bush. The alternative, in my mind, is simply unthinkable.”
Rev. Jerry Falwell in his ‘Falwell Confidential’ email July 1, which Americans United charge breaks the law by using his tax-exempt organization to endorse a candidate for re-election.

“Evangelicals should join political parties and fully express their biblical values [but] they must be careful not to equate Christian faith with partisan politics.”
National Association of Evangelicals in For the Health of a Nation: An Evangelical Call to Civic Responsibility.

“Efforts aimed at transforming houses of worship into political campaign offices stink to high heaven.”
Rabbi David Saperstein, Director of The Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism in response to the Bush-Cheney campaign effort to lure churches into political activity.

“The Democrats may not like it, but we’re serious as a heart attack.”
Richard Land, President of the Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission in an August 13 Wall Street Journal story about the SBC iVoteValues.com campaign.

“The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe with blood for centuries.”
James Madison.

“The government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion.”
President John Adams, Treaty of Tripoli, 1797.

“I asked them, ‘Why are you here?’ Now they have changed the regime, they have the oil. Why were they in this street?”
Yasser Matloob al-Ani, Iraqi whose 3-year old son was killed on July 5 when American troops opened fire on the family car at a temporary checkpoint.

“Mississippi could be officially Baptist, and Utah could be officially Mormon. If his viewpoint ever became the majority on the high court, it would tear our country apart along religious lines.”    
Rev. Barry Lynn, Exec. Dir. of Americans United, commenting on U. S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ opinion on the Pledge of Allegiance case that the U. S. Constitution does not preclude states from adopting official religions.

“In 2003, nearly 5 million people contracted HIV, more than any previous year. More than half were in sub-Saharan Africa, where the culture’s male-dominated sexuality contributes heavily to the spread of the disease.”
Kenyan National AIDS Control Council.

“This year only 36 of 435 contests for the House of Representatives are regarded as competitive, a drop from about 150 in 1992. Over 90% are safe for one party or the other, due to the politics of redistricting. Smug in their safe districts, members know that their political futures depend more on loyalty to the party than on legislative accomplishment.”
The Christian Century, June 29, 2004.

“We were hot and tired and terribly, so terribly frustrated with this place and these people that we would respond to even the slightest provocation with enthusiastic and brutal violence.”
Last email from 2^nd Lt. Brian Smith explaining why his soldiers fired upon children who were flashing mirrors at them, days before he was killed by a sniper on July 2.

“Some Christians want the Ten Commandments posted in public places, but none seem to want to do the same with the Beatitudes. “Blessed are the merciful” in a courtroom? “Blessed are the peacemakers” in the Pentagon?”
Truthout, May 10, 2004.

“Nearly 36 million Americans now live in poverty, the number increasing from 12.1% in 2002 to 12.4% in 2003. Uninsured Americans grew to 15.6%, now 45 million.”
Census Bureau Report in EthicsDaily.com.

“I think that evangelicals are so concerned with the unborn—as we should be—that we have failed to pay enough attention to the born—to those children who do live and who are being left behind by a system that has gone in favor of corporate interests and big money.”
Tony Campolo, in beliefnet.com.

“The total amount owed—by consumers, businesses, governments and financial institutions—totaled $34.4 trillion at the end of 2003, according to the Federal Reserve. The economy produced 11.3 trillion of output. That makes the nation’s debt triple its gross domestic product.”
The Miami Herald.

“He said they are like dogs, and if you allow them to believe at any point that they are more than a dog, then you’ve lost control of them.”
Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, describing how she was ordered to treat inmates at Abu Ghraib by the current Iraqi prison chief Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, formerly in charge of detainees at Guantanamo Bay.

“All these atrocities continue in spite of the fact that we now have the ‘right’ people in places of power. Indeed, the occupant of the White House is a professing Christian. The U.S. attorney general is believed to be a devout Christian. ‘Conservatives’ control both Houses of Congress, and Republican presidents appointed seven of the nine Supreme Court justices.”
From the ChristianExodus.com website of a religious right group.

Can Ethics Be Saved?     David P. Gushee

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Christian Citizenship
By Ferrell Foster, Dallas, TX

Note: This article originally appeared in Texas Baptists magazine, a publication of the Baptist General Convention of Texas. Ferrell Foster is Director of News and Information, BGCT.

     Marvin Griffin first voted in a federal election in 1944. He paid the required $1.75 poll tax in Texas for the chance to cast that vote for Franklin Roosevelt.

     “I never miss voting,” says the 81-year-old pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Austin. “Too great a price has been paid. Too many people have suffered and died for the right to vote.”

A constitutional amendment in 1964 and a Supreme Court ruling in 1966 killed the poll tax because it was seen as an impediment to voting, but many people still do not vote.

     Voting is one of the cornerstones of citizenship in a democratic nation. And good citizenship is one of the cornerstones of the Christian life, especially among Baptists.

     Both terms—Christian and citizenship—are “terms of community,” says Suzii Paynter, director of citizenship and public policy for the Christian Life Commission of the Baptist General Convention of Texas.

     Jesus set forth the principle for Christian citizenship when he said, “Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s” (Mt. 22:21 NKJV).

Today, however, there is no Caesar. And, in a democracy, the people rule. But the principle of one’s responsibility to the broader community and to the government remains intact.

     “Our ideals and principles have to be played out in our own community and in Texas and in the world,” says Joe Trull, pastor of The Baptist Church of Driftwood and retired ethics professor at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. Being a responsible citizen means a person “contributes something to make the community a better place.”

     Christian citizenship expresses itself in many ways, but one attitude should prevail. “To be a Christian means you’re not thinking primarily of your self-interest,” Trull says. “You’re thinking more as Jesus taught us, you’re thinking of what you can give without any thought of return.”

     “We don’t base our Christian faith on what benefits us,” Paynter says. “Our personal interest is informed by biblical principles and Baptist traditions.”

     That perspective can be especially foreign in the world of government and politics where multitudes of people are vying for their own interests. But that arena is where Baptists have centered most of their citizenship emphasis.

“Christian citizenship is our expression of Christian values in public policy,” says Phil Strickland, CLC director. “In a democracy, we have the unique opportunity to influence those public decisions that have a huge impact on the lives of people.”

With that opportunity, however, comes responsibility. “I am responsible for what our government does, and I am not absolved of that responsibility when I ignore political decisions,” Strickland says.

Christians often read biblical injunctions and seek only to apply them in their personal life. Strickland sees a broader need.

“‘Love thy neighbor as thyself’ is not just a command to do so directly one-on-one; it is to care about what happens to our neighbors as a result of policy decisions that are made each day in local, state and national governments,” he says. “Acts of kindness are not only from one person to another person. Acts of kindness involve being aware of policies that are destructive to our neighbor.”

Christians will go to great lengths to help a friend, yet too often “ignore policies that are destructive to human life,” Strickland says.

     “In Matthew 25, when Jesus talks about separating the sheep and the goats, he asks what we have done to respond to the needs of those who are thirsty, hungry or in prison. The way we respond to those people in a democracy is partially through public policy.”

“To take a Thanksgiving basket to a hungry family is good, but to fail to notice and sense responsibility for half a world that lives on $2 a day is to abdicate our Christian calling to care for everyone God has created,” Strickland says.

Jack Hightower, a member of First Baptist Church in Austin, is one of the many Baptists who have occupied seats of influence in the government. Now retired, Hightower has served in the Texas House and Senate, U.S. Congress and Texas Supreme Court.

“It discourages me so much for people to say (voting) doesn’t matter,” Hightower says. “One vote does make a difference.” The contested 2000 election in Florida showed “it doesn’t take many people to make a huge difference.”

When asked why so many people are apathetic about government, Hightower responds, “They don’t think they’re really represented.”

Jane Nelson, the state senator from Grapevine, had similar feelings at one time, but she decided to do something about it.

“My faith played an enormous factor in my decision to run for office,” says the member of Trietsch United Methodist Church in Flower Mound. “I felt strongly that the values and priorities of our community were inconsistent with the votes being cast on our behalf, and that is the main reason I decided to run for office.”

Of course, not all citizen Christians need to run for office; but they do need to be informed.

“I have a far deeper respect for someone who is conscientiously trying to understand public issues and disagrees with me than I do for people who pay no attention,” Strickland says.

Trull says he is “distressed that most Christians today . . . don’t really know what’s going on. They more often than not depend on one television news program or channel to keep them informed.”

As a result, people can “become convinced of things that are not necessarily true,” Justice Hightower says.

Trull encourages people to  “get below the superficial level of information, get the facts.” Read newspapers, including the opinion columns; read widely; listen to debates; and watch different TV channels.

The CLC’s Paynter works closely with politicians and their staffs. “It’s very easy to be swayed by one person’s stirring remarks,” she says. To get beyond that emotion and passion, believers can use “filters of faith and filters of policy” in evaluating politicians and their positions on issues.

Those filters of faith are the starting point of Christian citizenship.

“To be a Christian citizen, first and foremost, you are to be aware of your role as a citizen of the kingdom of God,” says Trull. This means the believer should live in the world “by the virtues and values of your Christian faith.”

Using metaphors from the Bible, Trull says believers are to be salt and light. “Salt retards corruption, and we live in a world with a lot of corruption. We are to be the saving element. We ought to be beacons of light.”

Throughout the centuries, Christians have arrived at different conclusions about how to relate to the broader culture. Some have withdrawn completely from the culture; others have virtually merged with the culture, either giving in to worldly values or seeking to force Christian values on nonbelievers. Most, however, have followed the scriptural injunction to be in the world but not of it.

As a result, believers should be both priest and prophet, especially in the political realm, Strickland says. “We must always be priest to those who are trying to make critical decisions that have enormous impact on all of us. We should pray for them and care about them. They have a tremendous responsibility.”

“But we must also be prophets who challenge decisions that are dominated by special interests, and we must call for the ideals reflected in our understanding of Christian values,” Strickland continues. “That’s why a Christian citizen’s first allegiance is never to a political party. If it is that, we have forfeited our prophetic word. We are to hold politicians accountable regardless of their political party.”

Strickland encourages believers to “approach Christian citizenship with some humility. Political decisions are always proximate solutions,” he says. “We are always short of fully understanding or implementing God’s perfect will.”

     In the process of seeking to influence government and the broader society, Christians will face frustration, will wonder why nonbelievers don’t get it.

     “We are shaped by the story of God and God’s work in the world,” Trull says. “We become like Jesus and we live out that story, and the world is living by another story. I don’t try to force them to live by my story.”

The Greatest Divide
By Martin E. Marty

     In the Austin, Texas American-Statesman (July 25), Bill Bishop climaxed a series on “the great divide” between the two Americas this election year. Perhaps he expected to find that local congregations would be places where some give-and-take of theological and political debate could occur. Posit that the members are in some sort of agreement about creed and mission. They might use that basis to discuss war-and-peace, justice-and-mercy, wealth-and-poverty issues, as they are framed by the political parties this election season.

     Not all. Bishop could have called his article on the churches, “The Greatest Divide.” There, least of all, do people evidence openness, humility, and readiness to hear viewpoints with which they might disagree, even when these are voiced by fellow-believers. To do our own framing, let me suggest an experiment for those who attend worship (non-attenders can easily get reports from experimenters). In the polite company of fellow-believers, on church premises, whisper words such as “Bush” or “Kerry,” “Democrat” or “Republican.” Thereupon, if you are not met with spite or spit, go on to the second part of the experiment: voice support for one party or candidate and reject the other. The custodian will clean up your broken glasses or other debris left over from the smashing that will follow.

     I exaggerate a bit, but only a bit. More common than such brouhahas is the evidence of avoidance. In order to keep peace and quiet, members pass each other in the corridors or pass on to other topics than religion-and-politics.

     So much for framing. Bill Bishop and his fellow-staffers went on to find a different situation. There are few such encounters for the simple reason that more and more congregants choose congregations that match their styles and ways of life, their secular tastes and commitments. A church building will not have a sign out front: “This is a Republican congregation” or vice versa. But when the Republicans go trolling for votes by asking for membership lists, or ask pastor for formal endorsements, they know exactly which congregations in any urban or town and country setting to approach. And Democrats, should they also go pushing the edges of I.R.S. regulations by asking tax-exempt churches to go partisan and support a candidate—as some do especially in the case of African-American congregations—they know better than to walk down the aisle of “the other kind” of church and bid. “Regardless of denomination,” writes Bishop, “churches have attracted new members by appealing to cultural and political similarities.” Churches have increasingly become astute marketers.

     In one survey, we read, “Overwhelmingly, people said the people they met in church were extremely homogeneous with them politically.” That being the case, there is less need for avoidance of the topics or bopping of “the other” than my earlier paragraphs pictured. Members of religious bodies can lean back and enjoy their own kind, protected from the voice of “the other” and, perhaps, from the word of judgment or mercy that they associate with the word of God.

Note: Published with permission from Sightings, Martin Marty Center at the University of Chicago Divinity School.

TWO ESSAYS ON THE CHURCH AND POLITICS

A Fight For Souls, Votes ©
By Eileen E. Flynn, Religion Reporter
Austin-American Statesman, Austin, TX

Note: This report written from the Southern Baptist Convention was published in the July 25, 2004, Austin-American Statesman and is printed with their permission.

 Like a staccato drumbeat, the images flashed on a giant screen before a convention hall filled with 8,000 ardent Baptists.

“We are at war” exclaimed one burst of text interspersed between photos of Osama bin Laden, Tim McVeigh, Bill Clinton wagging his finger and George W. Bush praying. “Evil will be great on the earth,” the messages continued. “We are at war for the souls of men, and they are counting on us.”

The promotional video, shown at last month’s meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention, was meant to inspire support for missionary work. But its political subtext was unmistakable in this presidential election year.

There is a war raging, for souls and for votes. By convention’s end, the Southern Baptists were dispatched with a mission as much political as religious: Rally the faithful, seek converts and turn out the vote for candidates who oppose gay marriage, abortion and embryonic stem cell research.

Candidates, in other words, such as Bush.

Not since John F. Kennedy’s Catholicism came under attack during his 1960 race against Richard Nixon have religion and politics fused so tightly in an election year. America’s faithful are divided, its secular feel under siege, and theological battles have crossed into the political arena.

Major denominations are cleaving over issues such as gay marriage and the war in Iraq, and fault lines between Democrats and Republicans—churchgoers or not—are as much about policy as spirituality.

Candidates, in turn, are scouting for opportunity and advantage in the schisms.

So blurry has the line between church and politics become that last month the Internal Revenue Service felt compelled to send the major political parties a letter reminding them to heed the legal boundary between partisanship and the pulpit.

Values are often rooted in faith, and appealing to them is a political strategy that the right is particularly eager to push, said Michael Goldman, a former Democratic consultant who lectures on media and politics at Tufts University near Boston.

Candidates are telling voters, “What you should be voting for is the guy whose values you most care about, and that’s me,” Goldman said. “This is not a bad strategy.”

That strategy, and the eagerness of some religious factions to embrace it, has spawned America’s new holy war. The presidency is its grail.

For churches, the wages of partisanship are taxes, as the IRS reminded the Democratic and Republican parties in an unprecedented letter sent June 10 warning them not to entice tax-exempt religious organizations into raising money for campaigns or endorsing candidates.

Driven by faith

Wooing voters with blends of faith and politics is time-honored in American politics, and the line between church and state has been closely trod before.

The religious right gained influence in the 1980s with organizations such as the Christian Coalition, which generated grass-roots activism on issues championed by the Republican Party. Many of its activists moved on to positions within the GOP, said John Green, director of the Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics at the University of Akron.

Now, former Christian Coalition head Ralph Reed is the Southeast region director for the Bush campaign. And with Bush, quoted as saying God wanted him in the Oval Office, conservative evangelicals have a Republican in the White House reflecting their beliefs.

Faith, Bush says, infuses almost everything he does. A United Methodist by denomination, he fashions himself spiritually and politically as a born-again evangelical, a marked distinction from the high church reserve of his Episcopalian father.

Democrat John Kerry is a Roman Catholic, less vocal about faith, whose support of abortion rights prompted calls by some bishops to turn him away from the communion line. In this election, both candidates recognize that there is little distinction between their political and theological brethren.

An oft-quoted statistic that the faithful vote for Republicans and the secular back Democrats is misleading, said Green, whose study of voting patterns in the 2000 presidential election shows that the political chasm is more nuanced, running not between the religious and the nonreligious but between traditional and progressive church-goers.

The split holds true with Jewish voters, where Bush fares well among conservative Jews who share his views on abortion and marriage but where Green’s research shows that 75.8 percent of likely Jewish voters plan to vote for Kerry.

Eager to capitalize on the intensity of the new religious right—whose numbers might well determine the election—Bush’s campaign is aggressively recruiting conservative evangelicals, a growing cadre of conservative Catholics and the traditionally Democratic black churches where Bush’s stance opposing gay marriage resonates.

In June, the Washington-based religious liberty group Interfaith Alliance discovered that the Bush campaign had identified 1,600 “friendly congregations” in Pennsylvania to mobilize. The campaign also sought church directories to suss out potential supporters, a move that alarmed even some of Bush’s most loyal constituents.

“I’m appalled that the Bush-Cheney campaign would intrude on a local congregation in this way,” said the Rev. Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission. “I suspect that this will rub a lot of pastors’ fur the wrong way. Many pastors may consider this a totally inappropriate intrusion by a partisan campaign into the nonpartisan voter education and voter registration ministries of local churches.”

The Bush camp defended its actions, saying the effort adhered to IRS rules.

Cries of partisan Christianity also rang out when Bush was endorsed by the Rev. Jerry Falwell, a Southern Baptist preacher who formed the Moral Majority that twice helped elect President Reagan. Falwell said he made the endorsement on a Web site not affiliated with his church.

The Republican National Committee includes Catholics as a target for outreach, recruiting Catholic “team leaders” to rally people in their communities across the country and pitching Bush’s platform as “in sync” with church doctrine. During a Vatican visit last month, Bush petitioned Pope John Paul II to rally more American bishops against gay marriage, according to the National Catholic Reporter.

Though Kerry’s immersion into the religious waters has been slow, mostly quoting Scripture at black churches on the campaign trail, he is beginning to answer criticism that he is not religious enough by targeting progressive congregations.

Kerry has hired Mara Vanderslice, a liberal Christian who previously worked for primary rival Howard Dean, to lead the campaign’s religious outreach. Recently, the campaign launched a People of Faith for Kerry Web site, which exhorts voters to “support the man who shares your values.”

The Kerry camp may be taking a cue from the Bush strategy, Green said, noting “there are lot of people in the Democratic Party and the Kerry campaign who have been arguing that the Democrats need to find a way to reach out to congregations that are friendly to them.”

United by morals

Though, by law, congregations cannot engage in partisan politics, some conservative church leaders have made their political preferences clear by decreeing certain issues—gay marriage, abortion, embryonic stem cell research—as non-negotiable.

For instance, the Catholic bishops who questioned the fitness of Catholic lawmakers who support abortion rights to receive communion did not speak out against officials who part ways with the church on other key teachings, such as the death penalty or war in Iraq.

“I think it ends up being endorsing a candidate, and I think that’s the purpose of it,” said the Rev. Frank Ruff, a Kentucky priest who works as a liaison between the U.S. Catholic Bishops Conference and the Southern Baptist Convention. “And I think what happens is that some people just get so wrapped up in an issue that they lose sight of the broader Catholic teaching.”

Those non-negotiable issues, as opposed to theology, have helped create a new religious right: an emerging political convergence of evangelicals and Catholics.

The most insistent evangelicals believe Catholics are going to hell and the pope is the Antichrist. Some Catholics have tended to regard evangelicals as born-again, Bible-beating zealots. But for the moment, politics has united them.

“There’s always been an uneasy relationship between evangelicals and Catholics,” said James Penning, a political science professor at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Mich., who has written about evangelical participation in politics. “There’s an element of mistrust there. It’s a marriage of convenience.”

Abortion and other moral issues unite conservative Catholics and evangelicals, Penning said, but theological chasms remain.

But Land argues that Catholics and Baptists have forged stronger spiritual ties in recent decades, their political agreement springing from shared morals. “I’ve got more in common with Pope John Paul II than I do with Jimmy Carter,” Land said.

The new Christian right is also finding inroads in traditionally Democratic black churches by espousing the moral corruption of liberalism, particularly gay rights. Recently, the Traditional Values Coalition, a conservative Christian association of some 43,000 congregations, held a news conference with black pastors.

“They’re the ones who are going to win (the election),” said coalition president the Rev. Lou Sheldon. “If we win this issue, it’s because African Americans step up to the plate.”

Some African American pastors resent arguments that gay rights battles are a philosophical twin to the civil rights struggle.

“I was a part of the civil rights movement, and I marched, I protested,” said the Rev. William Sheals, who leads the 18,000-member Hopewell Missionary Baptist Church in Norcross, Ga. “It is not a sin to be born black. It is not a choice to be born black. I believe it’s a sin to be a homosexual because the Bible says so. And I believe it is a choice.”

Critics say religious leaders such as Land, Sheals and Sheldon are GOP mouthpieces. But they have a ready retort: They are neither Republican nor Democrat. As Sheldon says, “We are on the word of God.”

Voting for values

Churches have a long history of involvement in politics. Ministers and preachers played a large role in the civil rights movement, for example. “You can’t accuse the white evangelicals of introducing religion into politics,” said Martin Marty, University of Chicago Christian scholar. “Nobody can be elected mayor of Detroit or Chicago or Philadelphia if he didn’t show up in the black churches.”

This election year, the political fire is flaring mostly on the right, among conservative Christians who feel a sense of urgency. It’s crucial, they say, to motivate voters, especially the estimated 4 million evangelicals who did not vote in 2000.

A key Southern Baptist Convention leader has launched a national voter registration drive called I Vote Values. “Southern Baptists are as motivated and as activated . . . than I’ve ever seen them,” Land said. “I can tell you why: same-sex marriage. I’ve never seen an issue which has energized Southern Baptists more, even the abortion issue.”

At the Indianapolis meeting, Bush addressed messengers via satellite. The Indiana Convention Center shook with thunderous applause when the president promised to push for a constitutional ban on gay marriage and so-called partial-birth abortion.

Moments before Bush’s speech, the Rev. Paige Patterson, president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, delivered a prayer characterizing Bush as more of a religious leader, like the biblical King Solomon, than a secular one.

“Through (Bush) and through those who preach your word, may our nation turn back to God. May we see the sweeping revival that we so desire,” Patterson prayed. The Baptists passed a resolution calling for political participation, both by voting and running for office, and using biblical principles to guide both pursuits.

Standing before a giant screen that showed the words “One Nation Under God” superimposed on the U.S. Capitol, the Rev. Steve Gaines, an Alabama pastor, bemoaned the country’s loss of Christian values. “Our spiritual walls in America have crumbled because as a whole we have turned our backs on the Lord Jesus Christ,” Gaines told messengers.

The left is scrambling to respond. Liberal religious organizations are fending off moral issue attacks from the right by identifying moral concerns of their own.

Faithful America, a Web site for “progressive people of faith” run by the National Council of Churches, recently ran an ad in the Arab news outlet Al-Jazeera in which American clergy decried U.S. military abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib.

The American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker organization, is one of many liberal groups organizing people to vote while pushing anti-war and pro-gay rights positions.

The election promises to be close, based on virtually all recent polls. The closer it is, fears the Rev. Welton Gaddy, the greater the risk that individual churches and whole denominations might be weakened by polarization. “Religion and religious institutions at their best are advocates for reconciliation,” said Gaddy, president of the Interfaith Alliance. “If religious organizations are as politicized as the rest of the institutions of society, then religion is a loser and the nation is a loser.”

The Power of Public Theology
By Dwight A. Moody, Dean of the Chapel
Georgetown University, KY

With similar emotion and energy, we pledge our allegiance to the nation and confess our faith in the one true God. Whether these two loyalties collaborate or collide is a matter of utmost importance and never more so than when a nation is at war.

It is therefore a good time to remember the Barmen Confession of 1934.

It was promulgated, not by gathered synod or official delegates, much less by patriarch or pope. On the contrary, the good work was done by ordinary ministers assembled on the banks of the Wupper River in northwest Germany where it converges with Belgium and the Netherlands.

“Theological Clarification of the Present State of the German Evangelical Churches” is the official title. Remember that in Europe “evangelical” is used differently than in these United States. It is simply a synonym for “Protestant.”

Clarification was needed because the Christian community was falling in line—lock, stock and barrel, so to speak—with the new nationalist regime of Adolph Hitler.

From our vantage point of seventy years and untold suffering it is hard to understand why Christian people would fall for the racist oratory of Hitler.

Their silence in the face of the demagoguery of “Nation, Race and Fuhrer” is today considered a sad chapter in the history of twentieth-century civilization. Few resisted Hitler and fewer still risked life or limb to halt his Third Reich.

Some did and thereby became legends in our time.

Corrie Ten Boom hid Jews beneath the wooden floor of her father’s house. Today in Jerusalem there is a tree with her name planted along “The Avenue of the Righteous Gentiles.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer plotted to assassinate Hitler. He was arrested and sent to Flossenburg concentration camp where he was hanged eight days before the camp was liberated. This past year a movie about his life played to rave reviews around the country.

Martin Niemoeller left behind what may be the single most compelling witness of the world war era: “First they came for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up, because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak up for me.”

Karl Barth launched a journal with the title “Theological Existence Today.” In its pages he criticized the German Christians who advocated a synthesis of German National Socialism and the Christian Gospel.

While others took afternoon naps during the conclave at Barmen, he wrote the text of the most important Christian document of the decade.

“Jesus Christ is the one word of God which we have to hear and which we have to trust and obey in life and death.” Thus begins the first of six short articles of faith.

It was two things at once: a clarion call to the Christian community to repent of their fascination with a nationalist regime; and also a clear statement to the wider human community of the social and political relevance of theology.

Today we call it public theology.

It is to be distinguished from the irrational ranting of street preachers and the emotional appeals of televangelists. Public theology is the hard, heady stuff of a first rate intellect infused with a passion for the things of God and a conviction that such mental and imaginative work can not be confined to the church.

“God for a Secular Society: The Public Relevance of Theology” is the nicely-titled book by a spiritual descendent of Barth, Jurgen Moltmann.

He is one of many who take their platform, face the population at large, and present a version of gospel truth that interacts powerfully with the issues and events of our time.

Like the late James McClendon, Moltmann issues a call for such theological work to be done not only in the public square but also in the public university.

None surpass the eloquent work of Pope John Paul in this regard. He has taken his fearless pulpit to every corner of the globe, ignoring the clever admonition of Emily Dickinson to “tell the truth but tell it slant.”

Sometimes in life and death, on any continent, in any century, the truth must be told straight, and never more so than in times of war, when loyalty to God and loyalty to country are most severely tested.

© 2004 Dwight A. Moody

Three Degrees of Separation

In 1893 a preacher came to town and stirred up folks against liquor. In his wake they prohibited church people from drinking, of course, and also from selling any form of alcohol.

They went further, refusing membership to those who rent property to a saloon, who deposit money in a bank that loaned money to the liquor business, who sell insurance to any person in the liquor industry and, finally, “who live in part or in whole on money collected from any person directly or indirectly connected with the whiskey business.

Even that was not enough: they chastised “any Mayor or Common Council or other Officers that grant license to any person engaged in the manufacturing, buying or selling of intoxicating liquors.”

In the end, their policy of tracking those complicit in the forbidden practice led them to excommunicate “any person who buys or sells cattle, hogs, or other stock to be fed in part or in whole on distilled slop.”

It was a policy of separation unto the third degree.

That split the church, of course, because liquor was the leading product of the town and among church members were landowners, insurance brokers, and the town mayor.

It was a wonder anyone was worthy of communion!

I know all this because exactly one hundred years later I was pastor of the congregation that has descended from these tee-totaling, sin-denouncing, straight-living Baptists.

I think about this when I read of recent efforts to separate the people of God from the vices of the world.

In the current case, the sin is not alcohol but abortion. The authorities are not evangelists but bishops.

The penalty, however, is the same-excommunication from the life of the congregation.

It began as a warning to a very public figure, one who aspires to the presidency of the country.

Exclusion stares him in the face because he is separated from the sin by only two degrees: securing the abortion is the sin; providing the abortion is one degree of separation; and funding those who provide the abortion is two degrees of separation.

Now the policy is being taken to the third degree: voting for people who provide the funds to pay those to do abortions constitutes the third degree of separation.

This means those who touch the “wrong” key in the voting booth are thereby complicit in the sin, and thus fall under commendation.

There is a serious public issue here: should church officials seek to influence—through opening or closing access to religious rituals—the voting patterns of both elected officials and the electing population?

How does such a practice affirm or deny the separation of church and state?

But my immediate concern is more religious than political.

If all who are connected to meanness, injustice, and outright wickedness by indirect and/or unintended ways are thereby banished from the sanctuary of God who, pray tell, will remain to worship the Lord?

All of us are no more than three degrees separated from any (and perhaps, every) sin—including pride, prejudice, and sexual assault.

The pension fund manager of another religious group said as much. Pious investors charged that their monies had purchased stock in the parent company of a cruise line which, in turn, was assisting a travel agent in booking a vacation package for a lesbian group.

Was the retirement fund, then, supporting homosexuality? Not directly and intentionally—unless you trace three degrees of separation.

She replied to the accusation (and here I paraphrase): “I suppose funds invested in any retirement fund would have this long distance connection to things we denounce” (which included such as liquor, tobacco, gambling, pornography or abortion).

And this “long distance connection” is precisely my point!

If we begin making the connection between every sin and any saint, we will soon disqualify every believer, including the Baptists and the Bishops. And then who will remain to stand and sing the old gospel song that reminds us of the humility and hope that constitutes the core of the Christian soul: “Not my brother, not my sister, but it's me, O Lord, standing in the need of prayer.”

© 2004 Dwight A. Moody

Separation of Church and State
By John M. Swomley, Professor Emeritus of Christian Social Ethics
St. Paul School of Theology, St. Louis, MO

     After the War of Independence from Great Britain in 1776, the Constitution created by the new United States was specifically a secular document which stated that “No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.” It also prohibited mandatory oaths.

     The First Amendment provided that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” In 1948, the Supreme Court in McCollum v. Board of Education, U.S. 333, applied the Establishment Clause to invalidate a state law.

     Perhaps the most forceful explanation of the First Amendment is in the unanimous decision of the Supreme Court in 1947 in Everson v. Board of Education: “The Establishment of Religion Clause of the First Amendment means at least this:

Neither a state nor the Federal government can set up a church. Neither can pass laws which aid one religion over another. Neither can favor or influence a person to go to or remain away from church against his will or force him to profess a belief or disbelief in any religion. No person can be punished for entertaining or professing religious beliefs or disbeliefs, for church attendance or non-attendance.

     No tax in any amount, large or small, can be levied to support any religious activities or institution, whatever they may be called, or whatever form they adopt to teach or practice religion. Neither a state nor the Federal government can openly or secretly participate in the affairs of any religious organization or group, and vice versa.

     In the words of Thomas Jefferson, the clause against establishment of religion by law is intended to erect a “wall of separation between church and state.” All of the state constitutions support the church-state principle.

     President George W. Bush, however does not believe the Constitution or other legislation applies to him. Although he has not publicly declared himself above the law, he has operated, despite the law, to provide Federal money to churches that cooperate with him.

     According to the June 13 St Petersburg Times, “There are now ten separate federal agencies with offices devoted to directing tax money to faith-based groups. In a report issued in March, 2004, the White House Office of Faith-based and Community Initiatives boasted that in five of those agencies alone, $1.7 billion was awarded to religiously affiliated groups in fiscal year 2003.”

     Republicans in Congress are supporting a bill that would allow religious denominations to support candidates. The “Safe Harbor for Churches” provision would reduce tax penalties for a set number of political endorsements from the pulpit and eliminate them if the endorsement was “unintentional” (Ibid.)”

     Bush’s re-election campaign is organizing “friendly congregations” to serve as recruiters and advocates for Bush and particularly to marshal voter registration drives.

     “The Bush Administration issued at least $1.1 billion in grants last year. More than a thousand religious leaders, out for federal money, attended a recent White House conference organized by the White House on Faith-based Initiatives that Bush has created. . . . The President on the one hand, is holding out the promise of billions of tax dollars to eager clerics and congregations, but on the other hand enlisting them in his re-election campaign,” stated a copyright report of the Daily Camera of Boulder, Colorado.

     President Bush, working through the Republican National Committee, has asked Catholics to give parish directories to him for use in voting campaigns and has also asked Southern Baptists and members of some other denominations for similar directories of their church memberships. It is stated that this is for non-partisan voter registration drives, but any normally intelligent person would realize it is for partisan Bush re-election purposes. Both Catholic and Southern Baptist leaders have condemned this, but no one knows how many churches have complied.

     In June the Bush campaign emailed Pennsylvania churchgoers to get 1600 “Friendly Congregations” where people can register to vote and pick up political information as the election nears.

     Bush, who claims to be a Christian and member of a Methodist church, refused to meet with Methodist bishops prior to the invasion of Iraq, knowing lthat the bishops would try to persuade him not to go to war. He prefers to use the churches to promote his personal and partisan principles or aims. Bush has addressed the Southern Baptist Convention Annual Conference for three consecutive years.

TWO RESPONSES TO SAME-SEX MARRIAGE

Note: In response to last month’s articles on “Same-Sex Marriage,” two of our readers/writers have contributed the articles below to increase our dialogue on this subject. As noted at the bottom of page two, all articles express the views of the authors and not necessarily the views of CET or the editor.

A Pro-Marriage Amendment to the Constitution
By R. Hal Ritter, Jr., Ph.D.
Licensed Professional Counselor, Waco, TX

     In the last hundred or so years, the United States has been strangled by sexual issues. In the first half of the twentieth century, decent folks were taught to speak in sexual euphemisms. As a post-war child growing up in the 1950s, I inherited this propensity from my southern culture.

     I remember the first time I used the word “pregnant.” I was quickly told not to use that word, but to say the girl was “p-g.” If someone filed for divorce because of an adulterous spouse, we said that the person had “biblical reasons” for divorcing. It was a very self-righteous and self-justifying to be “biblically” correct about one’s divorce.

     In the 1960s, our country went the other way with the “sexual revolution” and “free love,” which meant that people now talked openly about what had, in fact, been going on for millennia.

     In the 1970s, a Frenchman named Michel Foucault wrote a book titled, “The History of Sexuality.” Foucault is a rhetorician, and in this work he describes the Victorian influence in culture, and how language promoted the attempted elimination of all sexual discourse from society.

     One Victorian example that comes to mind is the high collar, long sleeve, full length dresses that women wore. Looking more like something dictated by the Taliban, women covered themselves as completely as possible. And they also wore hats to cover their heads.

     I recall my mother telling me how, as a girl growing up in rural Georgia, she went swimming in a dress. Girls did not wear shorts or swimsuits.

     As a teenager in Colorado, I remember attending church youth camp where the boys and girls had separate times for swimming. It was a rule that youth were to have “no mixed bathing.”

     So now we have an era in the twenty-first century that continues to be dominated by sexual issues as a culture. It is not Victorian euphemism, but neither is it free love and sex. However, the public discourse is interesting; sexual themes continue to dominate. The list is quite complex.

     For example, the current sexual interest is in a constitutional amendment to define marriage as heterosexual—a euphemism for banning gay marriage. Then there is the interest in having the Supreme Court reverse the Roe v. Wade decision, which grants a woman the right to an abortion.

     And there is the issue of sex education in schools, where students can be taught all about AIDS and STDs and pregnancy, but never taught protection and prevention—other than abstinence.

     If we give our fine young people birth control information, they will use it, immediately. If we withhold the information, they will never need it.

     Many people object to sex education in the schools. They say sex education belongs in the home and in the churches and synagogues and temples and mosques. However, I do not know how many religious organizations are currently teaching a sex education curriculum to their teenagers. And in my work with teens, I do not find many who have “had the conversation” with mom or dad.

     And there is the issue of pornography in the media and on the internet. We are outraged by Janet Jackson’s costume malfunction at the Super Bowl. Congress needs to act now to limit such things on television.

     So what do all of these sexual issues say about us as a people? I am concerned that we become so focused on sex and sexual issues, that we ignore some other vital concerns in our country such as poverty and civil rights and health care and corporate governance and education.

     Somehow, we seem to feel that the moral climate of the country is sliding downward, and that a constitutional amendment will fix the problem.

     Family values have been so redefined and compromised, that we need a constitutional amendment to get us back on track. In the leftover euphemistic language of the Victorians, we need to “define marriage.” Like alcohol prohibition, we think if we pass an amendment, people will do the right thing and stop what they are doing.

     Family values in the United States have not changed because there are homosexual people who want to get married. Family values have changed because heterosexual people now take such a casual attitude toward marriage—and divorce.

     With half of first marriages ending in divorce, and two thirds of second marriages ending in divorce, and numerous children being reared by single parents, what’s the point of getting married? Some say they will “give it try,” but if it “doesn’t work out,” they’ll just quit.

     Our concepts of marriage and family have been seriously infected by our instant gratification, microwave mindset. For many people, if they get married at all, it seems to be little more than an advanced level of “going steady” and “breaking up.” It is a junior high school approach to marriage commitment. It’s like getting a job. If you do not like it, you can quit and do something else.

     So, if we really want to take a biblical stand for righteousness and define what marriage is for all people in the United States, then I propose that we have an amendment which says that marriage is between a man and a woman, till death do us part. No exceptions, unless one has proven, documented, “biblical reasons!”

     Incompatible? Then you work hard and figure it out.

     Conflict? Then you learn some basic skills about being a human being and living with others.

     Intimacy? You learn how to manage closeness—and anger.

     For us to continue to hammer on one limited part of the biblical text for a marriage amendment, and not use the full textual discourse, is a disservice to marriage and an affront to scripture.

     If we are going to do it, then let’s do it right! No exceptions—except, of course, for “biblical reasons.”

Baptist Ethics and the Marriage Amendment
By Tarris D. Rosell, DMin, PhD
Associate Professor of Pastoral Theology and Ethics
Central Baptist Theological Seminary, Kansas City, KS

Just across State Line Avenue here in Kansas City, on the Missouri side of a metropolitan area still divided along other historical lines, history has been made once again. Tuesday, August 2^nd, was Election Day for party primaries and miscellaneous regional matters. In Missouri, this traditionally low-turnout election also included on the ballot a yes-no question regarding the state’s constitutional definition of “marriage”. The nearly 71% “yes” vote will result in the constitution’s amending to define “marriage” as follows: “To be valid and recognized in this state a marriage shall exist only between a man and a woman.”

In Kansas, not known as a bastion of liberalism, a similar proposal failed to get on the ballot this year for lack of a two-thirds majority in the state’s legislative House. Christian conservatives vowed to make this a campaign issue and bring it back for passage next legislative session.[i]

Although Missouri was not the first state to vote for constitutional change in this regard—Alaska, Hawaii, Nebraska, and Nevada voters had done so previously—its action has been hailed by marriage amendment promoters as history-making for its first occurrence following recent Massachusetts judicial decisions legalizing same-gender marriage there. In a general election season, the overwhelming majority vote in Missouri also garnered attention for another reason, both of elated conservatives and others less so. Counting down the days until November’s first Tuesday decisions, there were either hopes or fears that the “bellwether” state’s August decision would be a precursor of things to come.

I work both sides of State Line; and as an ethicist, I often find myself working both/all sides of controversial issues, looking for clear resolutions to thorny dilemmas and finding very often only more complexity and questions instead. The matter of amending “marriage” is a case in point.

From a perspective of classical Baptist ethics, I wonder if there may be something fundamentally suspect and maybe wrong-headed about any movement to define marriage via politics. As Christians residing within the free-church tradition, we Baptists adamantly defend the principle and practice of church-state separation. We are not apolitical, but are politically engaged as individual citizens with emphasis on the government’s role as protector of religious freedom and individual civil rights.

Yet Baptists seem to be flocking to polls in Missouri and elsewhere to vote for a measure that would induce government to restrict individual civil rights and to define for the church what we still call “holy matrimony.”

Ironically, it took an Episcopalian and a Presbyterian to point out to me the logical and practical inconsistency of some Baptists when it comes to church marriage and our relationship with the state.

I sat next to the Episcopal brother, seventy-eight year old retired Bishop Otis Charles, at a public forum on same-gender marriage. He and his male domestic partner were in town following ecclesial censure in the wake of undesirable publicity accompanying their April 2004 wedding.[ii] In private conversation, we compared traditions regarding marriage rites. The Right Reverend Charles noted that he never claims to officiate marriage vows “by the authority vested in me by the State of” Whatever. Even within the historically state church Anglican tradition, in his ritual role the former bishop makes sure he does not cross boundaries of church and state. In contrast, this free-church tradition officiant of “holy matrimony” sheepishly acknowledged that I nearly always do.

Presbyterian layman and newspaper columnist Bill Tammeus attended that forum also. His published reflections suggested a wonderfully Baptist way of looking at marriage amendment initiatives. In sum, Tammeus argued that the state’s only interest in marriage should be to ensure its legal availability to all who are willing seriously to enter into such a commitment. The government’s role is to protect individual civil rights, inclusive of “civil marriage,” or what we might just term “civil unions.” The church, on the other hand, retains the freedom to define “sacred marriage” (holy matrimony) under God any way the church deems fitting, inclusive of gender specificity. Tammeus’ resolution of the marriage debates would be to leave sacred marriage/matrimony to the church and civil marriage/unions to the state.[iii] Sounds baptistic, does it not?

To take this further and argue definitively against limiting civil marriage by gender, Tammeus would need to show that the state really has no interest in doing so. That might be attempted by noting the benefits—socially, emotionally, financially, educationally, spiritually—that accrue to children of parents whose union is legally sanctioned. Given that an estimated 200,000 children in the U.S. are raised in same-gender parental families, Presbyterian Tammeus’ proposal might look to be not only baptistic but rather pro-family and pro-children. One could ask of pro-amendment advocates what is “pro-family” about denying those same-gender family kids the benefits that come from having two parents legally bound together rather than two who merely live together and one of whom does not have legal rights and responsibilities under the law?

It might be noted also that, gender aside, monogamy surely is a valid concern of the state. Non-monogamous serial sexual relationships arguably contribute to any number of societal ills, particularly epidemic sexually transmitted disease. To the extent that civil unions encourage monogamy it is to the good of society at large. In a free society influenced by free church principles, the church may choose to restrict holy matrimony in accordance with various biblical interpretations and along gender lines. It is hard to see how the state derives societal benefits by doing likewise via constitutional sanctions.

If it is claimed that marriage, whether “civil” or “sacred”, is essentially for the purpose of procreation and the continuity of a civil society, a Tammeus approach might offer rejoinder. In fact, marriage is valued as a societal institution for other reasons every bit as important as that of procreation. The partnered years during which child-bearing is biologically feasible are few relative to the potential duration of a covenanted life-long relationship. Even the child-rearing years, for those couples who do procreate, are potentially just a fraction of the total years spent together as spouses. Clearly, the value to society of marriage exceeds that of the procreative potential.

It is also important as a societal institution for companionship and mutual caregiving. So the Preacher-poet states in Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 (NRSV), without gender specificity:

Two are better than one,
because they have a good reward for their toil.
For if they fall, one will lift up the other;
but woe to one who is alone and falls and does not have another to help.
Again, if two lie together, they keep warm;
but how can one keep warm alone?
And though one might prevail against another,
two will withstand one.

Because of these sorts of value in the relationship of two faithful partners, we utilize this scripture routinely in marriage ceremonies. Beyond sexuality and procreation, what matters in a committed relationship mostly is caring for and being there for one another–both in friendship and surely in those special friendships sanctioned societally or ecclesially as a marital union.

It is not surprising then that social-scientific studies indicate, on average, married folk live longer than single folk; and probably this is due in large measure to having a live-in, long-term caregiver. What value to society is there in denying or even discouraging such relationships on a gender basis?

Neither my Episcopalian nor Presbyterian interlocutor drew out all of these implications of a free-church approach to the marriage amendment for which Missourians recently asked. Some issues and questions are occurring to this Baptist ethicist only in retrospect. And I continue to ponder apparent inconsistencies in what we church-folk, in some states, have done.

How the Painted Bunting Was Created
By Hal Haralson, Austin, TX

I met Marcus and Lucy Rogers during Creative Week at Laity Lodge this summer. I smiled. God has not lost His touch when it comes to creating beauty! He pulled out all the stops when He made these two.

Marcus, an attorney from San Antonio, was the artist/instructor for bird carving class. He is dark, lean, and muscular, and about 45 years of age. He works out in the gym three times each week. He is “First Assistant” to God—Bird Division. If you have seen one of Marcus’ birds you wonder whether Marcus did it or God did it.

Lucy is a tall, willowy, strawberry blonde . . . astonishingly beautiful. She radiates beauty and love. She is a perfect “10.”

Adam and Eve could not have graced the Garden of Eden with more beauty than these two.

But this is about the painted bunting. . .

My favorite place to walk is on County Road 302, two miles west of Kingsland, Texas. This sandy road runs four and one-half miles north from State Highway 1431 and dead ends at a 100-year-old ranch house.

Judy and I walked its hard-packed sandy surface for an hour as the sun rose yesterday. A fawn came within 10 yards of us before it turned and ran. I walk an hour every day, usually alone. Yesterday I was feeling really good . . . decided to go all the way to the ranch house. The round trip took two hours and ten minutes to cover eight and one-half miles. Not bad for a 69-year-old!

CR 302 has hills that are covered with oak and mountain juniper (cedar) to the south and open fields to the north. Piles of brush give birds additional cover.

We saw mockingbirds, cardinals, a crane, bobwhites, and two painted buntings. Their songs comprised a symphony . . . “Morning has broken, like the first morning . . . Blackbird has spoken, like the first bird . . .”

I focused my Leopold 10 x 50 hunting binoculars on one painted bunting. He was only 25 yards away. It seemed as if I could almost touch him when I found him with the binoculars.

He was no larger than a sparrow . . . but it was as if God had taken all of the colors of the spectrum and had flung them on one small bird . . . red, orange, blue, green, yellow . . . unreal! If you have never seen one in the wild, you should buy a bird book!

The species is very secretive. Few people ever get far enough out into the woods to see them.

How was the painted bunting created? Perhaps it was like this:

God had been painting birds all day.

Brilliant colors . . .

Red . . . the cardinal

Green . . . the green jay (in South Texas: green to chartreuse, with a head of black and blue)

Blue . . . the jay

Yellow . . . the golden-cheeked warbler

Orange . . . the brilliant scarlet tanager

Day is ending. Brushes must be cleaned; a separate brush was used for each color.

God says to Marcus, “Hand me a sparrow.” It’s the smallest, most common of birds. No color.

Red—Blue—Green—Yellow—Orange. Brush by brush, color by color, God transfers the remaining paint from each brush onto the feathers of the humble creature in His hands. The sparrow is transformed into a splendid painted bunting.

We are all “sparrows” until we give our lives to God, the Master Painter, and let Him do THE COLORS.

Dedicated to Marcus and Lucy Rogers.

Book Reviews

Hobson’s Choice
Nathan Brown, Edmond, Greystone Press, 2002.

Reviewed by Marvin Harris
Professor Emeritus of English, East Texas Baptist University

     Nathan Brown has said, “I want my poetry to matter, at least to me. I want to be a part of activating change within a culture that is decaying into a terrifying apathy” (Introduction). In Hobson’s Choice he has done just that as he writes creatively, insightfully, and with refreshing simplicity about religion, social issues and events, fatherhood, childhood memories, and ordinary everyday experiences. Even those who tend to shy away from poetry will find this volume a book to recommend to friends as a “must read.”

     Besides piquing one’s interest, the title defines Brown’s angst regarding a compelling urge to be a poet philosopher. Thomas Hobson was a seventeenth century English liveryman who required those who wished to lease a horse to take the one nearest the door, regardless of the horse’s condition; hence, Hobson’s “choice” was no choice at all. Brown concedes that whatever else he may do in life, he experiences a Hobson’s choice to pen his poems, to be a poet prophet. The choice is not his to make. He writes in the Introduction, “I’m sick to death of the postmodern . . . fallout that engulfs my generation. It’s a seemingly terminal condition in which nothing can be allowed to be ‘all that interesting.’ . . . I want my poetry to matter, at least to me. I want to be a part of activating change within a culture that is decaying into a terrifying apathy” (14).

     But he struggles with literary authority. A product of an untroubled upbringing in a stable middle-class white family, he is apprehensive about his right to write. He says in “Hobson’s Choice,” the poem that echoes the volume’s title and lists his advantages (“blessings”), “ I have / lost no child / fought no war / committed no crime/ no license / to write.” A too-harsh self-critic, he admits to himself “…gotta write a poem” even if it may not be world shattering; so “ …move on …/ …500 poems / ‘n a few good lines.” In “Rhetoric” Brown freezes in a moment of dread that he may not achieve his soul-wrenching purpose: “I hope in some way / somehow, someday / before the rolls are read / to think of a new thing / and someday say something / for nothing’s already been said.”

     The sixty-eight poems in the five sections headed “Carp,” “Chit,” “Din,” “Moot,” and “Rumi” exhibit a wide range of topics and emotional levels. Some are playful, as the enjoyably succinct “Las Vegas: Pair o’ dice/ Lost.” And everyone can relate to the frustrating problem of lost socks in the washing machine. The humorous twist at the end of “Lucky Sock” brings a chuckle: “’I just don’t believe it!’ I heard him say / ‘I JUST threw your matching sock away!’”

Several poems treat fondly of innocent childhood or nostalgic memories of calmer, pleasant days before the 9/11 societal change. He is moved from apathy toward traditi