Thomas, syndicated by Tribune, has long been a mouthpiece for conservative Christians. I was first exposed to him when he was a substitute for Pat Buchanan on the original Crossfire back in the mid-1980's on CNN. Thomas' column begins with a question rooted in the fallacious, simplistic logic favored by fundamentalists (among the most "rationalistic" faiths there are because of their insistence on syllogisms for proving their points):
If God was on the side of conservative Christians and conservative Christians are on the side of the Republican Party, shouldn't Republicans have done better in the recent election?
While not heartening, Thomas faces the implications of the question (although not, alas, the correctness of the question or its formulation):
[D]efeat offers conservative Christians a good opportunity to take stock. They should ask themselves whether their short list of moral issues and family values has any hope of being imposed on Washington . . . .
After noting the corrupting influence of politics on religion, citing the example of Don Sherwood of PA who received high marks from Focus on the Family even after it was known he had a mistress whom he had choked, Thomas asks a question that, considering the source, should cause any reader to at least pause for a moment:
Wouldn't it do more for the family to strengthen heterosexual marriage before telling others how to live their lives? Why have we seen so many politicians and some clery who talk about family values turn out to be the worst practitioners of them?(italics added)
Thomas then considers a question that has been posed often and loudly to the Christian Right for over 20 years. That it should suddenly become a matter of urgent consideration shows just how corrupted by proximity to power the Christian Right became:
Isn't [God's way] helping the poor. . . ? Isn't it feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting those in prison and caring for widows and orphans? Would such behavior, rather than partisan politics, recommend their faith more highly . . .?
This stunning - and, seemingly, stunned - discovery that the message of Jesus might entail more than holding up posters with pictures of aborted fetuses and demonizing same-sex couples, while late in coming, shows that, in fact, many conservative Christians might be awakening from their slumber.
From Thomas to David Kuo, whose article is less a reflection than a plea for conservative Christians to move away from partisan politics to one, perhaps, of issue advocacy. In the midst of this article, Kuo writes:
John W. Whitehead of the Rutherford Institute . . . .wrote this after the elections: "Modern Christianity [by which I believe he means conservative Christianity], having lost sight of Christ's teachings, has been co-opted by legalism, materialism, and politics. Simply put, it has lost its spirituality."
--
He went on: "Whereas Christianity was once synonymous with charity, compassion, and love for one's neighbor, today it is more often equated with partisan politics, anti-homosexual rhetoric and affluent mega-churches."
I wrote the other day of Kuo, and my sympathy for him. I believe his insistence that conservative Christians take a hiatus from politics is misguided, partly due to his own experience at the hands of the nihilists in the White House. I also think he is correct that liberals and progressives not be too self-congratulatory (a la Jim Wallis), as issues such as abortion, same-sex marriage, and the general question of the public expression of faith are still highly motivating issues among faithful conservatives. We on the left, especially those of us who are people of faith, have much work to do to show our more conservative brothers and sisters that we, too, share a commitment to the coming kingdom of God, to living out the faith in service to the world, and pray fervently for our nation and world to one day be free of all the horrors in which it now sits. That two such public persons should air openly their doubts about the marriage, first of opportunity, then of convenience, between the Republican Party and Christian conservatives can only bode well for all of us, and for the future of the country as a whole.
