Social Action: Politics: Not the Dirty Word It Used to Be

In Malibu, California, a Mercedes-Benz hood ornament is easier to spot than its look-alike counterpart, the peace pendant. Oceanview homes here typically list for a million-plus. But the affluent surroundings did nothing to prevent the 300 people who attended the conference “Christian Perspectives: Issues Facing the New Administration” from discussing such issues as transnational corporate oppression and homelessness in America.

The conference, held January 26–28 at Pepperdine University in Malibu, was further proof that the old adage against mixing politics and religion has become a thing of the past among Christians.

Despite disagreement on specific political issues, an informal survey confirmed participants’ support of Charles Colson’s admonition in his book Kingdoms in Conflict: “Christians have an obligation to bring transcendent moral values into public debate.” Said U.S. Rep. Paul B. Henry (R-Mich.) in his opening address to the conference, “Moral reasoning underlies every decision rendered on public-policy issues. Ethics is an inescapable part of the political agenda.”

But Henry cautioned that better laws do not necessarily make better men. And in his keynote address, Sen. Mark 0. Hatfield (R-Oreg.) echoed this sentiment, as he unabashedly addressed the pitfalls of political involvement.

The Oregon senator said, “America is not a Christian nation. We are a pluralistic nation.” He added that the role of religion in politics must be played by individuals rather than through government or church structures. He warned that “one can create a god out of a cause,” and pointed to the local parish—not politics—as the way to instill new spiritual sinews into the nation’s fiber.

Among the issues discussed at the conference was poverty. Catholic scholar Michael Novak argued that the important question is not what causes poverty but “How do you create wealth?” According to Novak’s thesis, economic freedom precedes economic justice. Novak emphasized the dual importance of “education and an awakened creativity.”

Latin American missiologist Samuel Escobar, however, observed that “the imagination of the masses has not been able to grasp ‘democratic capitalism,’ ” as espoused by Novak. Asserting that “North-South” vectors have replaced traditional “East-West” disparities, Escobar averred that the “rules of the marketplace,” and not economic freedom, have primarily shaped “life and values for the nonwhite, nonrich, non-European world.”

One issue that was not discussed was the $155 billion national debt. However, Escobar, a native of Peru, did call for a reduction in debt tallies owed the United States by Third World nations.

Domestic issues discussed at the conference outnumbered foreign issues by a four-to-one margin, with family-related topics high on the list. Activist-theologian Ron Sider, speaking on behalf of the organization JustLife, applauded the Halloway-Bush proposal for child care, a proposal that would grant government voucher aid directly to parents.

Psychologist Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen, the sole woman presenter, went a step further by proposing federally funded family allowances. She also championed a return to home-based employment—for both men and women—and egalitarian parenting. “Computer technology, job-sharing, and flextime employment … [make] family interaction more feasible now than at any time since the Industrial Revolution,” asserted Van Leeuwen. Though a Canadian citizen, she invoked the help of Uncle Sam: “It’s time to stop equating good government with the least government.”

The salient theme of the conference was “think small,” including doing so with regard to grassroots political action. Social-justice activist John Perkins identified his “life goal” as indigenous community development—block by block. Novak allowed that capitalism works “from the bottom up.” And Escobar noted that Americans could learn a lot about liberating the “global poor” by beginning with poverty pockets in U.S. inner cities.

By Marjorie Lee Chandler, in Malibu, California.

NORTH AMERICAN SCENE

ETHICS

A Bad Report on Meese

A recently released Justice Department study has concluded that if former Attorney General Edwin Meese were still in that office he would be subject to presidential discipline for violating government ethics codes. The study was done by the department’s Office of Professional Responsibility.

According to a New York Times report, three of the five ethical violations cited in the study involved Meese’s failure to avoid “the appearance of impropriety.”

Meese The other violations were related to his negligence in filing timely tax returns and to his holding personal investments in areas affected by the decisions he made as a public official.

Meese’s attorneys characterized the report as a “travesty of justice.” While in office, Meese was widely considered a friend of conservative Christians, many of whom have applauded his efforts at fighting pornography.

UNITED METHODISTS

Wanted: Black Missionaries

The United Methodist Church’s General Board of Global Missions (GBGM) has begun an effort to increase the church’s recruitment of blacks as missionaries.

This new emphasis was one result of a recent consultation aimed at developing new models for the participation of blacks in the church’s mission work. The essential focus of the new plan is to encourage black youths to consider missionary careers. The denomination’s GBGM is planning similar consultations with Native Americans, Asians, and Hispanics.

EPISCOPAL CHURCH

Spong Sprung

An Episcopal Church committee has dismissed the latest set of charges brought against controversial Bishop John Spong. The committee ruled the allegations were not made in accordance with proper church procedure.

The charges, known as a “presentment,” contended that Spong violated church law in a column he wrote for his diocesan newspaper. The column reads in part: “I covet for all people the joy of being sustained in the fulness of a relationship that unites two persons in mind, body and spirit, even when that relationship has not been blessed with a service called holy matrimony.” Spong’s opponents maintain this statement violates consecration vows, which call for the denial of “all ungodliness and worldly lust.”

This was the second presentment against Spong to be dismissed in the last two years, and for the same reason. The committee that ruled on the latest presentment deemed it doctrinal in nature, thus requiring the signatures of at least ten bishops, which it did not have.

However, Jerome Politzer, president of the Prayer Book Society, a lay organization within the church, claims the complaint was not about doctrine. He charged the reviewing panel with “shielding Bishop Spong.”

Spong appears to be entering the fray again by appointing a committee charged with assessing the role and authority of Scripture in modern times. Spong has made no secret of his contention that the Bible contains errors and contradictions. In announcing the committee, he called for the Bible to be “rescued” from those who insist on a literal interpretation.

SOUTHERN BAPTISTS

A War over Washington

A seven-member committee of Southern Baptists appointed to study alternatives to the current relationship between the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) and the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs (BJCPA) has recommended the formation of a new SBC agency, the Religious Liberty Commission.

For nearly 50 years, the BJCPA, a coalition of nine Baptist denominations, has been the SBC’s Washington voice and its representative on First Amendment issues. The SBC provides 90 percent of the BJCPA’s funding, but does not have majority representation on the BJCPA board. Some factions within the SBC have for years been at odds with the BJCPA over positions the Washington organization has taken.

According to the committee’s recommendation, Southern Baptists would alter, not terminate, their relationship with the BJCPA. However, this most likely would entail a major decrease in SBC funding. James Dunn, executive director of the BJCPA, said the committee’s recommendation came as a “shocking disappointment.” Dunn said the BJCPA has been consistently affirmed at annual conventions of the SBC. He blamed the committee’s implied negative assessment of his organization’s work on “a small group of dedicated political activists” who are “using every tactic available” to destroy the BJCPA’s effectiveness.

PEOPLE AND EVENTS

Briefly Noted

Reached: An important milestone in talks between the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the Episcopal Church, U.S.A. The two churches appointed a team to draft a document that will outline the final steps necessary for full communion.

Decided: After extensive debate at the University of Dayton, the nation’s largest Catholic university, that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) will continue to be allowed to recruit on campus. The school’s academic senate voiced concern about frequent ethical violations on the part of the CIA, but concluded the agency is not “systemically flawed.”

Affirmed: By New York’s John Cardinal O’Connor, the antiabortion tactics of Operation Rescue. O’Connor said the tactics do not differ radically from the civil rights demonstrations of the 1960s.

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