the US election
Bush is back. And many Christians are rejoicing. The president’s thinking is driven both by a theology of personal morality, and the conviction that he and his country can act globally and unilaterally, on God’s behalf, for good.
Yet any Christian who worries – as many do - about the past and future consequences of this combination is now faced with a choice.
Either they surrender to the sense of disempowerment that swept both coasts of America and much of the world on Wednesday. Or, more positively, they seize the opportunity to ensure that practical theology is not monopolised by the Religious Right for the next four years.
Bush’s reign is no longer a passing phase but an era, and it falls to progressive Christians to affirm what is good, while scrutinising vigorously any act perpetrated in the name of their God, and to expose it – creatively and radically – if it does not seem to match up.
They must stand with scientists, as the Kyoto agreement on climate change slips under a rising tide of neglect. They must stand with peacemakers, who fear the fall-out of the imploded nuclear non-proliferation treaty. They must stand with ordinary Iranians, whose country may well be next on the hit list.
During the election campaign, 200 US theologians (many of them evangelical) warned that ‘a theology of war emanating from the highest circles of government is also seeping into our churches’. We must stand shoulder to shoulder with these theologians, too, to ensure that as Christians, we collude with no doctrine, dressed in Christian terms, which is at odds with the spirit of the Sermon on the Mount.
Anti-Americanism is not a Christian response. Neither is claiming that God is on the side of one party or another, as Jim Wallis of the Sojourners Network is at pains to remind us. Instead, Christians the world over must seek to provide a radical presence for good, to demonstrate hope in the gospel of Christ at a time when many people sense fear.
It’s a high, but achievable calling. Bush has polarised opinion in the US, among Christians, and across the world. Yet as Wallis wrote this week, ‘the religious community could help a divided nation find common ground by moving to a higher ground. We should hold ourselves and both political parties accountable to the challenge of the biblical prophet Micah - to “do justice, love kindness and walk humbly with your God”.’
Bush might be back. But it’s not end of the world, is it?
Brian Draper
additional resources
Read Jim Wallis's full article 'Progressive faith did not lose this election' at www.sojo.net.
'"Moral values" tops voters' concern' - but what does it mean? Read more at Christianity Today.
The current edition of Third Way magazine has some excellent comment from Paul Vallely and Charles Strohmer on the Bush phenomenon (written prior to the election).
'Whether we are saddened or elated by the prospect of another four years, now is not the time for depression or gloating...' Read more about what the Christian Burderhof Community have to say about the election result at www.bruderhof.com.
'It would be a stretch to say the efforts of Christians alone elected Mr Bush and pushed America into some kind of unenlightened moral absolutism.' Read the optimistic view, 'Life did not end on Tueday', at www.timesonline.co.uk.
'17 reasons not to slit your wrists' at www.michaelmoore.com.
Read George Soros on the election at www.georgesoros.com.
"Their beliefs are bonkers, but they are at the heart of power'. Read George Monbiot on the influence of the Religious Right at www.guardian.co.uk.
'America is a nation with a mission, and that mission comes from our most basic beliefs.' Read George Bush's most recent State of the Union Address.
'Bush ready to wreck ozone layer treaty' - read concerns about the Montreal Protocol at www.commondreams.org.
Read what the Guardian had to say in 2001 about the imminent dismantling of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
Three Nobel laureates discuss the undermining of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty by the Nuclear Posture Review of 2003, at www.clw.org.
