When I reflect on the delicious symmetry of the United States' first African-American president being inaugurated just after the official federal holiday commemorating the life of a slain civil rights icon, I am struck at the great differences between the America of 1965 and the American of 2013.
In 1965, Lyndon Johnson had just been inaugurated as President, within six months of the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In 2013, Barack Obama will be inaugurated as President, within six months of the second of two major mass shootings.
In 1965, Martin Luther King was two years removed from delivering his "I Have a Dream Speech" - a message rife with Biblical and gospel illusions, which sought to encourage Americans to improve life in the US by expanding freedom for all men and women. In 2013, Barack Obama is three years removed from passage of his signature legislation, the Affordable Care Act, which seeks to improve life in the US by expanding access to medical care for all men and women.
Despite this parallel, of sorts, one thing is strikingly missing. Where Dr. King drew from a deep well of Christian imagery, of the moral righteousness of his cause, President Obama's appeals are more couched in terms of "fairness" and class politics than they are rooted in an open reference the Biblical mandate to care for the poor and widow among us. The President lacks much support from a group of people who hold a similar (if not exactly eye-to-eye) view of Scripture as do a great number of African-Americans (who are among his staunchest supporters).
Despite Romans 13's unflinching commandment to be in submission to the authorities instituted over us, many conservative Republican Christians (at least according to my Facebook feed) are having a hard time with increasing taxes, impending restrictions on guns, President Obama's re-election despite a concerted Repbulican effort to unseat him, failure of Republicans in the "fiscal cliff" talks, and other sacred cows of right-wing political ideology.
Is it time for a more thoughtful separation of church from state in our minds? Do we have too ready a political plan, and not a more deeply nuanced perspective rooted in the assurance that God is in control and has placed each person on the earth for a purpose. Are conservative Christians too aligned with party to consider with supporting causes that are destined to divide Republicans asunder and possibly result in the emergence of a new American party system? Politics are manifestly not the answer to all that ails America, but isn't the current stridency in political discourse leading us to drag the name of Christ's bride through the mud in the name of scoring some political points? I am increasingly convinced of the need for a new political party that will not stoop to the level of political enemies, but will run an honest, selfless campaign to enact legislation (perhaps in coalition with Republicans, perhaps with Democrats as each party pushes to include more of the extreme edges of their supporters).
I wholeheartedly ask that those who are interested would begin searching for new leaders; for those who can see past the rancor and for the need to accomplish real, lasting, definitively good legislation that is devoid of chicanery or privilege for those who lobby successfully. We are in dire need of leadership that can fill this time where our current "state" is disunity and disrepair.
Thursday, September 22, 2011
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