Two bloggers whom I read regularly and deeply admire are Lindsay Beyerstein and Russell Arben Fox. Both write far more thoughtfully than I on matters philosophical and political. And each has a post up this week that has me thinking about the same familiar topic: Christians and progressive politics.
Russell’s post is about Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, one of the second-tier candidates for the Republican nomination. Though Russell and I disagree about many things, he and I share a commitment to living out our faith in our private and public lives; we share a commitment to doing justice in the small things, and we share a mutual horror at those elements in the broader culture that suggest that our right to pleasure trumps our responsibility to care for others. Writing about Huckabee, Russell suggests that Huckabee is one Christian conservative whose concern for the poor is at least as great as his concern with the so-called “life and family issues” that obsess most of his colleagues.
As someone who intensely dislikes the regressive tax that is state-sponsored gambling, I was delighted to read this about Huckabee:
He resolutely opposed, and forced the Republican party in the state to oppose, any move towards establishing a state lottery. The pressure to do so from various interest groups and government agencies was immense; every state surrounding Arkansas has a lottery, and the mournful cries about dollars lost to other states were (and still are) constant. But Huckabee’s line in the sand was the right one to draw: lotteries draw money away from the most at-risk populations and families, and their returns simply aren’t worth the civic costs. This may seem like a small point–and a question which would be moot for a presidential candidate anyway–but it connects to a much larger and harder stand Huckabee took.
In a comment I left below Russell’s post, I wrote:
I long to see a Christian conservatism that is genuinely compassionate, that sees a Christian agenda as being more about responding to the cry of the poor than the private misuse of the pelvis.
And not long after offering up that heartfelt bumper-sticker, I read Lindsey’s post. Lindsey (who was offered the job of chief blogger for the Edwards campaign before Amanda Marcotte) is an atheist. Like me, she’s quite sympathetic to John Edwards (I’ve endorsed him for 2008, and have begun to contribute money). But she’s frustrated that when Edwards talks about his faith (which doesn’t bother her) he doesn’t take a more aggressive stance in repudiating the Christian right’s privileging of pelvic over pocketbook morality:
It’s important to say that you believe that serving the poor is a core moral precept of Christianity. I want to hear devout Democrats take it to the next level and accuse self-professed Republicans of being apostates and hypocrites when they ignore poverty or otherwise flout uncontroversial Christian moral precepts.
Why are liberal Christian politicians always on the defensive? At the grassroots level, there’s are plenty of liberal Christians assailing phony Republican piety. Yet this sentiment never seems to percolate up to the level of the candidate.
As an atheist Democrat, I sometimes feel like an apoplectic soccer coach shouting from the sidelines at the Christian Democrats on the field who refuse to play offense.
I am not sure why progressive Christian politicians aren’t as aggressive as Lindsey and I would like. In some cases, it may be because they’ve accepted the received wisdom of American liberalism, that “faith is largely a private matter”. The left has long been all about coalition building; emphasising that one’s faith in Christ is the primary engine for one’s campaign may alienate secular liberals who remain the bulwark of the Democratic grassroots. But Lindsey, an atheist, makes it clear that she has no problem hearing about a candidate’s faith — she just wishes that those of us on the Christian left would be a bit more outspoken in our opposition to the Christian right.
My goal on this blog is less political than it is irenic. (Irenic, not ironic). I’m left-of-center, of course, but my primary “work” is on inspiring personal transformation first and political change second. In my world, the personal is the prerequisite for the political. This doesn’t mean I advocate quietist navel gazing; it means I’m in favor of maximizing our own potential to each embody a life of maximum justice. From that foundation of personal integrity, we can then step forward into the public arena. All this is partly why I am reluctant to go after the Christian right too bitterly. I don’t want to stop a larger conversation about faith and justice.
But the truth is that the Gospel says relatively little about the sanctity of marriage. It says relatively little about pre-marital sex. Unless one tortures the text, it says nothing about when life begins. But it does say a heck of a lot about poverty. It does talk about the responsibility to do justice, and the kind of justice Scripture refers to most often is the justice that needs to be done to the poorest and most vulnerable among us. Jesus speaks more about money than about any other topic other than the Kingdom of Heaven itself.
Does it matter what we do with our pelvis? Yes. While the right often wants to ignore “pocketbook” issues in favor of “pelvic” ones, the secular left sometimes tends to do the reverse. And the truth is, for a Christian, we are called to do justice in every area of our lives. How we spend our money matters, how we make love matters, what we wear matters, what we say matters, what we eat matters. We don’t get to create small compartments that are separate from God; we don’t get “time off” to indulge ourselves in private sin merely because we’ve been so good in other areas.
God calls all Christians to practice radical, selfless love in all of their relationships. But he doesn’t just call individuals; he calls nations and cultures. And over and over again, in both testaments of Scripture, God makes it clear that justice for the poor and the oppressed is the defining characteristic of His Kingdom and His plan. While sexual morality matters, God rarely calls upon kings and rulers, upon entire nations and tribes, to live in chaste singleness and monogamous marriage. He does call upon kings and rulers, nations and tribes, to care for the poor, the stranger (the immigrant), the outcast. He does call for the forgiveness of debt more often than he rails against pre-marital sex.
What this tells me as a progressive Christian is two things: in my private life, I am called to radical submission to God’s will. In my public life, in my political life, I am called to build His Kingdom. And His Kingdom is defined by righteousness and justice, and that righteousness and justice is more about the purse than the pelvis. When conservative heterosexual married middle-class Christians claim that the protection of marriage is the greatest moral imperative of our time, they are deliberately and willfully misrepresenting Scripture. They focus primarily on the sins of others (gays and lesbians, the pre-maritally sexually active) because, in the end, it’s much easier to examine the specks in the eyes of the Other than to work at extracting the log in one’s own. The biggest “cultural log” in our collective eye isn’t the sexual misbehavior of our neighbor, it’s our own attachment to economic comfort and our own unwillingness to share all that we have.
I am supporting John Edwards because of all the major candidates, his stance on poverty and justice most closely matches what I believe to be the biblical call to do justice and love mercy. And I am supporting him because I believe that in the end, when we are held to account by our maker, we will be judged less by what we did in our bedrooms and more by how we cared for the poor, the alienated, the frightened and the oppressed.
I’m not sure that the purse is more important than the pelvis in being a good Christian.
Sometimes issues of the pelvis BECOME issues of the purse.
That is, it becomes more important to maintain sexual restraint in the name of the poor.
The problem with “pelvis†is it’s to reductionist. It simply more important than “mere plumbing†– we are incarnate.
For a better understanding of how profound such issues are, especially in driving poverty…please read.
http://www.dol.gov/oasam/programs/history/webid-meynihan.htm
Ah, good old Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Read him in college.
Many in the religious right have seized upon heterosexual marriage as a panacea for all sorts of problems. I like marriage myself, and what I’ve learned about marriage is that good and happy marriages do help folks through the vicissitudes of life; bad marriages make things worse. I am not interested in encouraging those who are unfit to marry to marry; marriage is hard work, and it is not work to which everyone is called.
What is the link that the right proposes between legalizing gay marriage and an increase in poverty? What evidence is at their disposal to make such a claim? I don’t want unsubstantiated jeremiads about “weakening marriage” — I’d like to see evidence.
Yes, our personal behavior matters. But the problem with the right is that too often they see all sin as individual rather than corporate; they fail to see how sin can be embodied as much in institutions (like capital markets) as in the human heart.
I did not bring up same-sex “marriage”, However sin can be “corporate” as you say…as in adopting a definition of “marriage” for an entire society that speaks neither to people as they are or Christ.
“Ah, good old Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Read him in college.”
When did read him did you discuss how his understanding of the driving force behind poverty was family breakdown. How the culture left (to this day)has ignored, marginalized, and stigmatized this understanding because it conflicts with feminist 7 sexual liberationist ideologies?
“Many in the religious right have seized upon heterosexual marriage as a panacea for all sorts of problems.’
Its not a panacea– its a foundational social institution.
Fitz, our view of marriage is so fundamentally different that we’re arguing across a theological and epistemic gulf so vast that a thread isn’t going to close it.
I believe in marriage, heart and soul. I believe our private choices do have public ramifications. And the choice to build a life with one whome we love, regardless of that person’s sex, has life-affirming and culture-affirming implcations for all.
I came across your blog by way of feministing – very thoughtful post, and articulates what gets me so red-faced and tongue-tied at times. Thank you.
“Fitz, our view of marriage is so fundamentally different that we’re arguing across a theological and epistemic gulf so vast that a thread isn’t going to close it.”,
Undoubtedly- My questioning lies in howone comes off regarding this as anywhere remotely a Christian conception.
In this Lenten season, and with the awful divide in your Church, you would think this would be an excellent time for reflection.
After all, we can certainly agree that those who wish to change the very definition of something as sacred as marriage are certainly the protagonists.
Fitz, as you know perfectly well, marriage has changed its definition many times over. The marriages we contract today bear precious little resemblance to those in Jesus’ day. Marriage is a constantly evolving institution — look at how much change happens between the world of Abraham and Sarai and that of the first-century church! (Handmaids, for example, being permissable sex partners for husbands.)
But you know, this Lent I am praying for the broader church. I am praying for healing, praying for justice, praying for discenrment. I am praying for those on the other side. I am hopeful that you are doing the same, Fitz.
Thanks, Babypop, for kind words.
Even though I am a Christian and a liberal, it would make me all squidgy to hear right-wingers denounced as “apostates and hypocrites.” I think they’re wrong, they think I’m wrong, fair enough. But I have been whacked too often with the “apostate!” stick to see it as a fair-game tactic. You don’t get to do that; you don’t get to call someone not-a-real-Christian because you have different views of morality. I feel like I’m still fighting to be taken seriously as a moral person and a faithful person who sees greater economic equality, gay rights, and feminism as being in line with my values; I’m not going to turn around and play the “not-a-real-christian” card with anyone else.
Hugo, from most of what I’ve read on your blog, I suspect that you’d largely agree with that, so I’m not trying to lecture you or anything; but that, I suspect, is why progressives don’t feel comfortable being really aggressive on some of these issues.
“look at how much change happens between the world of Abraham and Sarai and that of the first-century church! (Handmaids, for example, being permissable sex partners for husbands.)”
Thats hardly a change in definition..more a cultural practice than a Christian understanding of fidelity.
I suggest this article for a more complete understanding of whats taking place.
http://www.hoover.org/publications/policyreview/2932146.html
And I’ll point you here, Fitz: http://www.amazon.com/Marriage-History-How-Love-Conquered/dp/014303667X
And now that we’ve got dueling citations, let’s drop the discussion of marriage. This is not a thread about marriage, but rather about the prioritizing of poverty over sexual misbehavior; particularly, it’s about Christian left-wing politics.
Yes I have read it.
(do read Harris)
On the topic of the prioritizing of poverty over sexual misbehavior… I think its largley media created.
I long to read the headline: “Christians Help Poor”
I long to read the headline: “Christians Help Poorâ€
Me too. And while you might assume that headline doesn’t appear because of “liberal secular media bias” (the ultimate boogeyman of the right), I’m saying that headline isn’t there because not enough Christians have actively embraced the poor and made them a priority rather than an afterthought.
And I long for the day when Focus on the Family says that combating poverty is the greatest single way to help families stay intact, rather than arguing the reverse! (There’s a bit of a chicken and egg thing going on here, and we’re gonna end up round and round in circles.)
While the right often wants to ignore “pocketbook†issues in favor of “pelvic†ones, the secular left sometimes tends to do the reverse.
Which secular left is that? I would have thought that feminism and the gay rights movement were part of the “secular left,” but those movements are centrally concerned with “pelvic” issues. Be careful you’re not buying into the right’s view of what it means to address “pelvic” issues (even if you do buy into some of their views about the correct way to address those issues). If anything, the left needs to spend more time thinking about “pocketbook” issues — it’s a pretty sad commentary on the state of the Democrat Party to see progressives swooning over a centrist like Edwards because he actually mentions poverty.
The reason it doesn’t get in the newspaper when Christians help the poor is because it’s ubiquitous. I don’t think the media are necessarily being biased on this one (though I’m not one to rule it out); I just think it’s not as big a “grab” as the more contentious issues brought up with regard to churches.
Hugo…just curious.
How is Edwards’ policies on poverty and justice any different than Obama’s?
I don’t mean to hijack this thread into an Obama vs. Edwards one, but I don’t really see the difference between the two.
I long to read the headline: “Christians Help Poorâ€
You don’t because “Dog bites man” isn’t news.
I gotta defend Focus on the Family here. Brio offers several mission trips to Peru and other poor areas. I thought about going on one back when I was a FotF fan. So yes, while James Dobson is no Mother Theresa, his organization doesn’t completely ignore the poor.
…and just to clarify, the purpose of their trips to Peru just isn’t about converting people. It’s about feeding and caring for them, too.
Sure, Mermade — but at FotF, addressing poverty takes a back seat to family and life issues. Look at their social issues page: http://www.family.org/socialissues/ Poverty is apparently not a social issue.
I don’t mean to imply conservative Christians don’t get concerned about the poor. Most do, deeply, and many live out that caring in their lives. But when they go to the voting booth, they are often more inclined to vote for those who share their views on sexual issues than on economic ones. I’m arguing that that’s problematic.
Well said, Hugo. I agree.
The common conservative counter I always heard to that is: “What’s so Christian about offloading my charity work to the government? Sure, I could vote for candidates more committed to helping the poor than to policing our relationships, but I don’t think the government can ever be as effective as [The Salvation Army/St. Vincent De Paul's/etc.], and besides, I don’t get Christian charity points for the government bumping me into a higher tax bracket.”
But I think the real problem is the insidious temptation to judge even when we’ve been told not to, compounded by this country’s Puritan heritage. A Christian conservative can sniff that someone without health insurance should have done better in school, worked at better jobs, led a more moral life, etc., and never see any hypocrisy in that attitude. So while it might make me feel good to see a Democratic contender play more offense, I’m skeptical that it’s going to do any good. Tough-love Jesus seems to have replaced the actual one for many Christian conservatives.
As I just came very close to blanket-bashing conservatives above, however, I should mention I still think they are very good about pitching in and helping each other out, at least in the blogging community; when they say they believe in charity by individuals, they mean it. The only liberal analogues I can think of at the moment are when people pitched in to send Lauren to BlogHer, and when Chris Clarke urged people to donate to Wampum as a thank-you for all the work they put into the Koufaxes.
I do sometimes wonder whether there are fewer grassroots help-a-blogger out efforts on the left because of an attitude that the government should be doing that work, not private citizens; but then again, I may be overlooking many more instances than just the two I mentioned above. I don’t want to be unfair (or get flamed!) if that’s the case.
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I second Emily H’s point that we don’t need more Christians accusing other Christians of being apostates because they disagree about politics. Presumably at least some people are conservatives because they think conservative policies are better for everyone all things considered than liberal policies, including the poor. If they’re wrong about that the goal should be to show them why they’re wrong, not impugn the sincerity of their faith.
And please be clear that I’m not impugning the sincerity of anyone’s faith. My conservative friends never impugn my faith, or I therirs; we often both suggest that the other has perhaps misunderstood a key connection between faith and praxis. That’s the sort of robust give-and-take that we need more of, not less, especially when it is marked by a deep-seated conviction that one’s opponents are basically good people trying to do the right thing. We can fight as friends.
Hugo Schwyzer
“And I long for the day when Focus on the Family says that combating poverty is the greatest single way to help families stay intact, rather than arguing the reverse! (There’s a bit of a chicken and egg thing going on here, and we’re gonna end up round and round in circles.) “
If I can divest you of anything, I can hope to divest you of this notion. From Bangladesh to Mexico City intact families exist on a bowl of rice a day. While I have no problem addressing material need (especially in the pursuit of knitting families back together) it is oversold… As one cogent example of the depth of change visited by the sexual revolution
The absent father in the black family is due to several things, Fitz. A racist criminal justice system that incarcerates a staggering number of black men; an epidemic of drug abuse and gang violence; a huge dose of collective male irresponsibiity. None of that is feminism’s fault. If you and I want to agree that more men should be involved in their kids’ lives, you’ll find me a staunch ally.
I was hoping for more than this…
“If you and I want to agree that more men should be involved in their kids’ lives, you’ll find me a staunch ally.”
I want to agree to no such thing. The allies I need are the ones that can (& do) say: Children need their Fathers. Fathers need their children. Mothers need their children’s Fathers to be good Husbands. Husbands need their children’s Mothers to be good Wives.
Fitz, that’s simply too limited an understanding of what a family is. If we’re talking about a heterosexual married couple with children, then I’d be happy to agree to all of those statements. But there are other ways of creating family, of creating love. God calls us all to live in families, but you and I define family differently — as do the various historians and theologians we could cite until the cows come home.
Peace, brother. May God bless you and the work you do. I mean that absolutely sincerely; we are all struggling to discern His will and build His kingdom here on earth, a peaceable kingdom of love.
“And please be clear that I’m not impugning the sincerity of anyone’s faith. My conservative friends never impugn my faith,â€
I am not impugning the sincerity of anyone’s faith, I doubt the veracity of the implication that that is a Christian faith.
“That’s the sort of robust give-and-take that we need more of, not less.â€
And a lot less hiding behind semantic subversions and calls for brotherly love by those crucifying Him.
Fitz, if you’re suggesting I’m crucifying my Lord, then I suggest you take it elsewhere. Irenic give-and-take has its limits, and you’re stepped outside those boundaries.
Personally, I’m waiting for the headline, “Christians Shut Up About How Much They’re ‘Helping’ And Start Actually Listening To The Poor”. I work for a Christian ‘helping’ agency in an oppressed community, and Christians doing week-long privilege-laden arrogant ego-gratifying “service/mission trips” are all too “ubiquitous” here. There’s a huge chasm between “helping” by dumping off a truckload of used clothing (how insulting is that?) and really learning to listen and address your own privilege and the structural injustice that creates and sustains poverty. Jesus drove the moneychangers out of the temple and called rich people to literally give away everything they had, he didn’t tell the rich young man to go hand out used tunics for a week on the poor side of town.
Oh, and lest this comment drift off-topic (too late?), you’re right on about Jesus’ relative levels of concern for the purse and the pelvis. And Stentor is also right on – Christian personal (or pelvic) morality shouldn’t become the exclusive domain of the right wing. When it comes to personal relationships, Jesus had way more to say about the centrality of love than he had to say about when and with whom it’s morally permissible to have sex. In fact, Jesus didn’t have many kind words at all for upstanding religious leaders who spent all their time worrying about the legalistic details of personal morality (“brood of vipers” ring a bell?). He was more likely to be found raucously partying it up with the people that all the upstanding religionists agreed were scandalously immoral.
The real stumper, Carl, is that the minute we think we have Him figured out, we’re wrong. So, what right and left do is read the “real” Jesus into their passions and predilections. One can be sure, however, that rampant self-righteousness is not “of Him.” I do find it very hard to see Jesus with a beer bong or it’s first century equivalent.
What Hugo has done well (historically?) is keep his self-righteouness in check — a real discipline. He calls it irenic — I call it humility. Regardless, he’s better at it than me.
In my opinion, the fundamental flaw in his post is assuming the “right” care less about issues of poverty and more about issues of the pelvis. That’s not a true statement. Social conservatives believe that the policies most often associate with the “right” are better, in the long run, for the poor.
Stephen
And the truth is, for a Christian, we are called to do justice in every area of our lives. How we spend our money matters, how we make love matters, what we wear matters, what we say matters, what we eat matters. We don’t get to create small compartments that are separate from God; we don’t get “time off†to indulge ourselves in private sin merely because we’ve been so good in other areas.
Ah, well stated, Hugo, well stated…
But..
“don’t mean to imply conservative Christians don’t get concerned about the poor. Most do, deeply, and many live out that caring in their lives. But when they go to the voting booth, they are often more inclined to vote for those who share their views on sexual issues than on economic ones. I’m arguing that that’s problematic..”
Quite a generalization, especially when (1) voting for a candidate is usually (and realistically) a binary choice for a person who has positions on a variety of issues, and (2)separating out whether there is in fact “correct” economic policy solutions to economic issues. Really, how many candidates say “I’m against fixing poverty (or education or health care opportunities)?” Democrats don’t like getting tagged with “soft on crime or homeland defense” labels — they argue in some cases for different approaches to the same issue. Conservatives in some cases believe they are more committed to helping the poor by reducing or restructuring the role of government. You may disagree of course with that view; however, how can you decide whether someone who sincerely takes that belief on an economic issue is voting on the social issue view of a candidate?
Maybe Rudy is a good experiment to test your statement. If Guilani wins the Republican nomination, is that a case of economic views winning over social views (since conventional wisdom is the Christian conservatives are the Republican base)? After all, as NYC mayor — government exists above all to keep people safe in their homes and in the streets, he (Guilani) said, not to redistribute income, run a welfare state, or perform social engineering. The private economy, not government, creates opportunity, he argued; government should just deliver basic services well and then get out of the private sector’s way. That’s conservative economic thought; but, Rudy’s social positions are clearly not mainstream “conservative.”
If you broaden your statement from merely voting on candidates to voting on single issue ballot questions, then you can find all sorts of “problematic inconsistencies” in voting if comparing individual issues to individual. Look at the elections ballot measures on same sex marriage and African-American support:
From Pew: Americans oppose gay marriage 56% to 35%, but those with a high level of religious commitment oppose it by a substantially wider margin of 75% to 18%. Opposition among white evangelicals is even higher, at 79%. A majority of Catholics (53%) and black Protestants (74%)…also oppose gay marriage.
However, sizable majorities of white mainline Protestants (66%), Catholics (63%) and seculars (78%) favor allowing homosexual couples to enter into civil unions granting many of the legal rights of marriage. As with gay marriage, white evangelicals (66%), black Protestants (62%) and frequent church attenders (60%) stand out for their opposition to civil unions.
>> But the problem with the right is that too often they see all sin as individual rather than corporate; they fail to see how sin can be embodied as much in institutions (like capital markets) as in the human heart.
Easy to blame the face-less organization or tax the “rich corporations.” To take Carl’s example, Jesus drove out the money-changers and dove sellers, not lectured about the sins of money-changing institutions or markets. Institutions don’t embody sin, the people that organize, structure, and manage institutions make decisions that allow “sin” (sinful behavoir) to occur.
Col Steve, as always you are immensely provocative. I realize that my second quote, which came from a less-than well thought out comment I made below the original post, was a bit unfair. I was caricaturing, something I ought not to do — suggesting that social conservatives were essentially single-issue voters (or dual issue voters: marriage and abortion). And I forget that even some of those single-issue voters interpret their focus on one or two issues as the best way to express a broader commitment to what they see as justice. If the unborn are protected, and marriage is affirmed and strengthened, then — so they may imagine — we will be on our way to a more just society where the needs of the poor can also be addressed.
I think that they’re wrong. I don’t see encouraging functional marriages as a substitute for broader welfare programs. I want to see marriage remain a choice, one made less out of economic despair than out of love unfettered by need. Thus I’m leery of having marriage used as a social policy tool.
And rest assured, I don’t think sin is only corporate; it isn’t solely individual either. Anti-abortionists regularly suggest that “Planned Parenthood is evil”. It’s very different from arguing that only those who work for Planned Parenthood are wicked — they are making a point about corporate, institutional sin, as embodied by NARAL or other pro-choice groups. Similarly, I regard the death penalty as inherently sinful — the very machinery of death is an embodiment of evil.
Surely most of us would say that while individual Nazis were evil, the Nazi Party was also corporately evil?
“But when they go to the voting booth, they are often more inclined to vote for those who share their views on sexual issues than on economic ones.”
As others have said, I think candidates from both parties want to help the poor; they merely disagree on the methodology to be used.
You can make a strong case for Jesus’ act as a creative and passionate public witness against a temple system that ripped off poor people for the benefit of a small elite in the name of God. More like a protest or demonstration – very much structural, likely more effective than “lecturing”.
Seeing everything as reducible to the level of individual attitudes vs. seeing systems of privilege/oppression operating at a structural and historical level is a key fundamental difference, I think. Lack of common language around that is a real barrier to productive conversation.
For a more common example of “corporate sin” than the Nazis, take the case of the institution I work for, a Christian development agency which has its headquarters in an almost-entirely-white small town. Very few people of color want to move to that area (for good reason) – therefore the organization is run almost entirely by white people, even though much of the organization’s work takes place in communities of color. We (white people) all carry the ingrained blindness of white privilege (our lived experience as white people is not sufficient for us to understand the dynamics affecting the communities we try to work in) and yet we’re almost exclusively in charge of the money and the organization. This is structural racism within the organization, and it has real deleterious effects for communities of color. Yet this effect doesn’t require individual white people to be “bad people” or bigoted (though I do think white people have the responsibility to begin to see things like this and take action – i.e. move the headquarters, or be open to an executive director working remotely). To me, this is just one example of “structural sin” within an institution that is able to perpetuate itself without depending on the malevolence or bigotry of any individual person (just the well-meaning privilege-blindness of many people).
If by “the right” you mean “I’m a conservative and I don’t think that”, well enough. But if “the right” is defined by the major public political/religious institutions (Focus on the Family and similar organizations, televangelists innumerable), then relative priority levels can be evaluated through promotional mailings, websites, legislative action alerts, TV shows, etc. From what I see it’s not even close.
Actually listening to poor people, trying to get past the blinders of privilege a little bit, doesn’t usually seem to be a part of the equation.
No, Carl – what turns off “the right” (or at the very least, this libertarian) is the collectivist, Stormtrooper fascist zeal which the left takes.
It is one thing to sit on a blog, a news show, or what have you and preach what should be done. It is another thing entirely to enact your charity into law, and then take from me at gunpoint. Jesus would do the former. I hardly think, though, that he’d send his goons to shake me down, “Gonz, baby, da Godson is awful mad right now – you’re late on your – um – “Insurance” payment…”
And make no mistake – you enact a law, you appoint the IRS your collection agency, and they send marshals, sheriffs, or whatever title you give your thuggish legbreakers over to turn me out of house and home and steal what I have worked for – your distance from them does not sterilize you, nor leave your hands clean.
You want to talk doing, I will be more than willing to slap my record of getting my fingernails dirty on the table and compare what has been done for “the poor.” As well as my monetary contributions – and I am forty-six years old and have never – once – submitted any of the checks I have written as a tax deduction (Read Matthew).
And the whole notion that what I have achieved to be able to do this is merely the result of some nebulous “privilege” would be laughable if it wasn’t so insulting. I’ve been through abject failures, bankruptcies, failed businesses, homelessness, drug addiction, night shifts, multiple jobs, scut work, and all manner of obstacles overcome by putting my nose to the grindstone to get where I am today. I have earned every dime I have ever made by the sweat of my brow. The life I have built is mine, and what I have earned is mine as well. And the disposal of it is my right.
The notion that I – or people like me – don’t care is obscene. I just don’t see enacting a police state among any of the things on the list of “WWJD.”
I am forty-six years old and have never – once – submitted any of the checks I have written as a tax deduction (Read Matthew).
Score a point for Gonz in the virtue Olympics. Since I started itemizing a decade ago, I’ve always itemized my tithe.
Hugo, I’m a strong conservative and strong anti-materialist. I think you underestimate the degree to which people mistrust the state doing charity at the end of the fist, and see politicians like Edwards as empty fakes. Gonzman’s right about the likelihood of Jesus tossing people in the slammer for not coughing up enough money. Take the potential use of forced-charity off the table and Focus on the Family would talk much more about the Christian obligation to bless the poor. (It’s the same with abortion: given that many people want to criminalize abortion, NOW doesn’t have the luxury of condemning any abortions because many people are unable to make the distinction between the moral and legal realms. Take the potential of criminal abortion away and NOW et al could talk about abortion as a moral issue.)
You and I both know that Edwards doesn’t give six licks about the poor. During the 2004 campaign he had multiple multi-million dollar homes. (There’s your answer about why Edwards doesn’t talk about Christ and money.) 99% of of people agree that once they have a few million-dollar homes, they’ll help the poor, too.
I see your proclaiming Edwards as Poverty Champion as symptomatic of the real problem — people with Edward’s lifestyle should be *shunned* by those of us who care about the poor. Edwards chooses to consume what he has rather than share it with his less-fortunate neighbors and children. It seems to me that until Edwards cares more about the poor than he does his personal home theater, which means caring enough about the poor to sell his personal home theater to benefit and show solidarity with the poor, that we should be as reluctant to associate with Edwards as with Mel Gibson or Michael Richards (these are imperfect examples, since their talk is apparently worse than their walk, unlike Edwards, but no better examples come to mind. The basic idea is still there, though.)
I don’t think we should be threatening Edwards with the fist to share his wealth the way I think the Bible commands him, anymore than we should physically threaten Gibson or Richards to speak of their neighbors the way the Bible commands them, but we should treat all three of them equally. We must use social pressure to condemn the consumption of our wealth.
Hugo -
I suspect people focus on organizations (NARAL in your example) not because such organizations “embody the sin,” but rather the difficulty (both practically and personally) of assigning blame/fault to the individuals in the organizations. To modify your statement, it’s easier to examine the organization as a whole than work at extracting the responsibilities of those within the organization, especially if we believe those people are otherwise “good” individuals.
I appreciate organizations are complex and have dynamic interactions within a larger system. However, when we view an organization’s actions or policies as a collective result of individuals acting in various roles within the formal and informal aspects of the organizational power structure, we want to give a pass to the individual members. If the rule-sets, cultures, decision-making structure (whatever term you prefer) generate actionable consensus among members of the organization that it is consistent with the organization’s goals and needs, then somehow we’ve created structural sin above and beyond the individuals involved?
Carl – In your example, you cite “well-meaning privilege-blindness of many people.” I would argue leaders and decision-makers of organizations, as responsible stewards of the organizations’ allocation of scarce resources, are accountable for the assessment, planning, and implementation of the institution’s actions.
Clearly, you recognize the “deleterious effects” from your institution’s inability to assess accurately (understand) the needs of its consumers, to plan appropriately effective courses of action, and then to implement (with performance and feedback measures) those plans. Does your leadership not listen to you? Has your leadership not put in place methods to voice your concerns or measure the impact of the activities the institution spends resources to do? If they have chosen to ignore you or not put in place measures, then (assuming you’re right), well-meaning notwithstanding, they are still to blame in this case. So why fault the institution?
Taxes are membership dues. They aren’t extortion and they aren’t theft. The only ‘fist’ involved is the one that says ‘You can’t live in the clubhouse, taking advantage of the perks and privileges of membership, without paying dues’. If you’re so amazingly offended by that, I hear that there are many countries in this world with much lower tax rates.
What’s that? You don’t want to live there? Most of them are shitholes?
Huh. You don’t say? Surely you’re not suggesting that you should be able to live in the U.S., with all the benefits that entails, without paying your fair share?
Who decides what a ‘fair share’ is? Well… my understanding is that we’re working on a ‘democracy’ project, where people ‘vote’ for ‘representatives’…..
‘collectivist’ is not a dirty word. Some things are best done as a community. Sewers. Food inspection. Militaries. Insurance programs. You’d even agree with some of those. You’re not principled, you’re just angry that you lost the argument; that your opinion on what things in the U.S. should be done collectively is not very popular.
That’s because your opinion on how things should work leads inevitably to the elderly and children starving in the streets and freezing to death in winter.
About which Jesus might have something to say.
NBarnes, I don’t know if you were responding to me (I did use “fist”), but arguing that people can leave the US tells us little about the morality of using the fist. The police power is coercive, and in many cases it is morally WRONG to use the police power, even when a democratic majority agrees to take people’s money or send the dogs when they fail to pay “their share.” A democratic majority could decide to imprison people who burn the flag, or whip those who miss church. The fact that people could leave the US if they don’t want to be whipped for church-skipping tells us nothing about the morality of using the police power to enforce church attendance. I feel about forcing people to care for their neighbor the way you probably feel about forcing people to attend church. May be a good objective, but the ends don’t justify these means.
I feel about forcing people to care for their neighbor the way you probably feel about forcing people to attend church. May be a good objective, but the ends don’t justify these means.
Taxes as a means are too severe for ‘the elderly and children not starving in the streets, not freezing in winter, and not dying of easily preventable disease’ as an end?
I’m gonna have to say that I feel the burden of proof is on you on this one, man.
Again, your root problem seems to be that your view on this is a minority one. I, for one, would much rather live in a society where we all contribute to social insurance and have the security of knowing that that insurance will be there for us. I am (would be, to the extent that I don’t have this) happier and have a better life knowing that getting cancer will not result in me being left to the wolves, that if I lose my job because our collective economy shifts away from the labor I was trained for, I will be helped to learn a new job, that if I am injured I will be helped to regain my health.
Would you prefer to be left to the wolves if you stumble?
“I, for one, would much rather live in a society where . . . that insurance will be there for us.”
That’s all fine and good, but this doesn’t justify your threatening me with prison time because I don’t want this particular insurance policy. I have no problem with you wanting that assurance that “insurance will be there,” or with you banding together with like-minded fellows to pool risks and assess premiums. I have a big problem with your forcing me to buy an insurance policy I don’t want.
Nor do I think my or your obligation to care for our neighbor is met by shoveling them into a bureaucracy. Bureaucracies built upon coercion and force impose on our ability to know and care for our neighbors.
Only by _socially_ punishing people like John Edwards who build a 28,000 sq ft mansion (28,000!!) will be begin to build the just society we seek. It should be as socially penalizing to live in a 28,000 foot house as it is to routinely call racial epithets and strike young children. Especially when they campaign against “The Two Americas.”
Gonz – the whole business about taxes which takes up most of your post doesn’t have much to do with anything I wrote above, so I’m not sure why it’s directed at me. For reference, I’m no big fan of taxes myself, mostly because a solid half of US taxes go to support warmaking. My wife and I don’t itemize or deduct anything because we keep our income below the taxable level. As long as we do live in a nation-state that collects taxes, though, I’m going to continue to advocate that we use that $407 billion that’s apparently burning a hole in GWB’s pocket for medical insurance for a quarter of a billion kids instead of pointlessly killing 60,000-odd innocent Iraqi civilans with it. But that’s neither here nor there…
Plus, most of the twenty or so uber-wealthy families in this country who really benefit from insane policies like repealing the estate tax got their money in one way or another with a great deal of assistance from the state’s “thuggish legbreakers”, so I’m not gonna cry too hard if the shoe would go on the other foot for once.
Privilege is neither laughable, nor insulting, nor nebulous – it’s just a lot harder to see when you’re benefiting from it than when you’re on the other side. Having privilege doesn’t mean you haven’t had a tough life or worked hard. It just means that however hard I’ve worked to get where I am, if I were a woman I’d have had to work harder (about 1.3 times as hard, to make rough use of income disparity statistics), and if I’d been born here on Pine Ridge Indian reservation where I live, I’d have had to work quite a lot harder still.
Col Steve – this might be drifting OT a bit, but seeing structural issues is not about “blaming the institution” or relieving individuals of responsibility. I think the interplay between “humans as groups/organizations” and “humans as individuals” is too complex to reduce to one or the other alone.
Institutions have a culture (or “spirit”, if you will) that’s embedded in their history, written policies and procedures, unwritten rules and assumptions, physical realities (like the location of my organization’s headquarters), etc. Certainly individuals, particularly leaders, have a responsibility to see that structure in operation and work to change it when needed. But the influence also goes the other way: pre-existing institutional structure/culture shapes how leaders see and perform their role. Often if you plug a very different person into the same role in an organization, you get very similar results. If we can name the fact that there are structural realities that are a part of the organization as a whole, we can see and change them much more effectively, and not expect to fix all the problems just by plugging in a new person.
The field of group relations has done really interesting work on how humans take on roles as part of groups (and behave in ways that are very surprising if your analysis is limited to the individual level). Walter Wink’s trilogy on the Powers covers some similar terrain from a theological angle.
Matt Evens: It’s awful the way Jesus asks you to give a damn if your neighbors live or die.
Carl-
I’m very familiar with an organization with a strong, embedded culture.
From the Army’s primary leadership manual -
“Over time, an institution’s culture becomes so embedded in its members that they may not even notice how it affects their attitudes. The institutional culture becomes second nature and influences the way people think, the way they act in relation to each other and outside agencies, and the way they approach the mission.”
However, in the same manual,
(leaders) develop systems that will provide the organization and the Army with its next generation of leaders. They also improve conditions by sustaining an ethical and supportive climate, building strong cohesive teams and organizations, and improving the processes that work within the organization.
Strategic leaders seek to shape the culture..One way the Army’s institutional culture affirms the importance of individuals is through its commitment to leader development: in essence, this commitment declares that people are the Army’s future.
I can agree that the interplay is “too complex to reduce to one or the other alone.” However, I significantly err to one side and have concerns when people use terms like institutional sin. I don’t deny things like structural realities exist; however, good leaders as stewards of organizations recognize that ultimately people control and determine the decision-making processes and culture within institutions.
It just means that however hard I’ve worked to get where I am, if I were a woman I’d have had to work harder (about 1.3 times as hard, to make rough use of income disparity statistics) — You leave out the important two words “on average”. Gonz is making an individual argument while you’re making the comparison to the collective population of working women. I’m not disputing your statistic, but Gonz is not talking about the collective population of working men, only himself.
Col Steve – excellent lines from the Army manual. I’m not finding anything to disagree with here.
It sure sounded like Gonz was denying the existence of privilege, which isn’t really an “individual argument” even if your only evidence is yourself. If he was simply claiming that he personally has never benefitted from privilege, well, he’s still wrong. We’re all complex bundles of all sorts of different identities, but if you just take one slice of identity (say gender), every man benefits from male privilege. That isn’t to say that any given man might not have a tough row to hoe for many other reasons. But that doesn’t change either the structural reality of privilege, or the fact that it has impacted that individual.