Hearts and Minds

Religious "centrists" may decide the election

by Jim Wallis of The Sojourners Community

Moderate Catholics and Evangelicals may help decide this election. They are what widely respected University of Akron researcher John Green calls "centrist" Catholic and Evangelical voters who comprise 19% of the electorate and are concentrated in some of the most important swing states.

I just finished a 15-city bus tour in those very states, trying to raise poverty as a "religious issue." After almost two weeks of grassroots dialogue with faith-based community leaders, civic officials, journalists, low-income families, and almost 40 audiences of Christian citizens in 12 days, I am convinced that the election may hang on what those "centrist" religious voters ultimately decide the most important "religious issues" are in this campaign.

Everywhere we went political conservatives said the only religious issues at stake in this election year are gay marriage and abortion. Right-wing Catholic bishops have successfully reduced broad Catholic social teaching - which also contains strong commitments against poverty, capital punishment, and unjust wars - down to just the two hot-button social issues. While those narrowed views are outside the mainstream of Catholic social teaching, the conservative bishops' views captured front-page coverage early in the campaign when they suggested that John Kerry be denied communion for his pro-choice stance. When a different and more prominent Catholic bishop's position was made clear and the Vatican itself spoke to counter such single-issue voting, the clarification was buried in the papers. The damage had been done to Kerry, seemingly with collusion between the conservative right-wing bishops and the Republican Party. These bishops don't point out that President George Bush defied church teachings by prosecuting a war of choice in Iraq, or that the Pope vigorously challenged him on his war policies when the two met at the Vatican. I heard more than one Catholic leader declare that "there is no consistent pro-life candidate running for president."

We also discovered that local newspaper ads and bumper stickers asserting that "God is Not a Republican or a Democrat" and challenging "single-issue voting" have sparked real debate at evangelical Christian colleges and churches throughout the Midwest battleground states. As John Green points out, most "centrist" evangelicals are conservative on abortion and family values but don't believe those are the only important moral issues. Compassion for the poor is a growing evangelical concern, as is good stewardship of the environment (especially among a younger generation of evangelicals), as are issues such as HIV/AIDS, and human rights violations and genocide in places such as Darfur in western Sudan.

Iraq is also an issue for many centrist evangelicals, as is America's conduct of the war on terrorism. A group of more than 200 theologians and ethicists from mostly conservative seminaries and Christian colleges has just issued a strong statement called "Confessing Christ in a World of Violence." It asserts that our very affirmation of Christ is being challenged by a "theology of war emanating from the highest circles of American government," by the "language of righteous empire" being employed by those same political leaders, and by the claim of "divine appointment" for a nation and its president in a new war on terrorism that deals much too simplistically with the moral issues of good and evil, and "dangerously confuses the roles of God, church, and nation."

All this could have consequences for the election. If the "religious issues" are successfully narrowed to just abortion and gay marriage, President Bush will carry most of the centrist Evangelicals and Catholics. But if the religious issues are defined more broadly to include poverty, the environment, human rights, the war in Iraq, and the White House's too-easy "good versus evil" theology in the war on terrorism, John Kerry will get serious consideration by those same moderate Christian voters.

Kerry has been playing catch-up on the religion question to Republicans more comfortable with the language and a president who touts his evangelical faith. It may be too little too late, but the more Kerry invokes the parable of the Good Samaritan who helpedhis needy neighbor on the road, while accusing Republicans of "passing by on the other side," the clearer the contrasts on issues such as jobs, health care, and economic fairness will be. And when Kerry quotes the New Testament epistle of James, asserting that "faith without works is dead," he indicts Bush's "compassionate conservatism" that was gutted by tax cuts for the rich while leaving little for poor and working families.

Centrist Catholics outnumber conservative Catholics by 2 to 1. And Green points out that only one third of Evangelicals are solidly in the Religious Right camp. How the moderates in each group decide to vote could clearly decide the election. So what are the religious values in this election? If there are only two, Bush will win enough religious votes to win the election. But if enough of those Evangelical and Catholic centrists decide that their religious and ethical values apply to more than just abortion and gay marriage, Kerry has a real chance to win this election.

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Walked: 3 miles (in the rain!)