On the Use and Abuse of Evangelicals

Over at Faith In Public Life.org is this story from Jane Lampman at The Christian Science Monitor, essentially a review of David Kuo's book, Tempting Faith. What struck me most about the profile of Kuo, at least as framed by Lampman, was the utter naivete and enthusiasm to which Kuo confesses. There is something so tranparent about his confession that George W. Bush "was the embodiment of the Christian political statesman I had dreamed of finding." Now, Kuo was no political naif, some Christian version of Frank Capra's Mr. Smith, newly arrived in Washington. He had worked on Sen. Edward Kennedy's staff before moving to the right to become a speech writer for the Christian Coalition.

All that time in and around politicians, however, had not blunted a faith that longed for a political transformation in America.

Kuo is a devoted Christian, who believed, as do many, that putting evangelicals in office was the answer to fulfilling God's purpose for America. Instead he concludes that focusing on a political agenda tends to distort the Christian message and perhaps even make a god of politics.
"I longed for the day the right political leaders would arrive, govern morally, eloquently profess their Christian faith, and return America to greatness," he writes. "Now I know better. I have seen what happens when well-meaning Christians are seduced into thinking deliverance can come from the Oval Office, a Supreme Court chamber, or the floor of the United States Congress. . . ."(italics added)

The sad truth is, and I have said it before and I shall say it again, perhaps ad infinitum, politics is about power, and the Christian faith is about the abandonment of power in service to others. As long as people from any and/or all branches of the Christian faith cling to some misguided belief that their faith, their purity, and their intentions are more pure and honest than those who have fallen before them, we shall end up with the sad spectacle of David Kuo, confessing to America that he was duped. There is little one can say about the utter honesty, the simplistic, almost touching confession Kuo makes concerning George W. Bush, summed up: "I loved him," except perhaps to mourn for the lost innocence, the almost-inevitable crash that was to follow such pure and total sacrifice. There are few things more painful than a broken heart.

Kuo is now telling Christian conservatives to abandon politics, even if only temporariliy. I hope they do not. I do not agree with them on most issues, yet they should be a voice in our society. Losing one's illusory, simplisitic idealism in the face of the most venal, shallow, and corrupt administration in American history is no excuse to urge one's fellow travelers to abandon politics. Conservative Christians are a part of America and need to be heard. I hope, in fact, that a more chastened, but no less fervently Christian David Kuo would lead them.