So if you were at church on the 18th, you heard me endorse several things. One was Jesus Camp, which has already been discussed here, the second was Sojourners magazine, the third was the book I want to talk about now. The following is an expansion of what I said in my sermon:
At the end of '06 I heard about David Kuo's book. It is called Tempting Faith: An Inside Story of Political Seduction. You should definitely read this book. Seriously. This is probably the first book I have been excited by since being in seminary. (granted, I've read some really good stuff in seminary, but I had to read it). Kuo was a leading force in the White House's faith-based initiatives office. The book actually serves as an autobiography. He talks a great deal about his childhood and his parents' political affiliations. He goes on to discuss how he both became a Christian and became interested in politics. One of the interesting details is how he was once a liberal, so liberal that he worked in the office of Ted Kennedy. One of the things that pushed him into the conservative arena was the guilt of impregnating his then girlfriend who then had an abortion. It was his church taking a hard line on that one issue that made him adopt one party's platform as being the "Christian agenda".
In my sermon, I mentioned five things that I saw in the book as being dangers of Christian political engagement. I also had some quptes from the book that I wanted to share, but since my Jesus Camp clip was a little long, I will share them here.
The first danger is the seduction of political power. Kuo explains that people are often susceptible to being overwhelmed by the sheer sense of power that comes from being in the White House. "Christian Conservatives seeed especially vulnerable to that power and everyone working with them knew that. There were just so many ways to make them happy...Little trinkets like cufflinks or pens or pads of paper were passed out like business cards. The White House used them all, knowing the Christian leaders could give them to their congregations or donors or friends to show just how influential they were. Making politically active Christians personally happy meant having to worry far less about the Christian political agenda" (173).
The second was mistaking a politcal agenda for a Christian one. "The biggest surprise for me...was learning that our Christian faith presupposed a common political agenda. There was never any question that everyone in our group was conservative and Republican. Being pro-life was given...Likewaise, I learned that a real Christian opposed gay rights... I learned that Christians were pro-capitalism and that meant taxes were bad and always needed to be cut." (31)
The third danger was that of political manipulation of Christians which, more than seduction, I think is what the book is about. This was very well illustrated when it came time to distribute the money that the administration had promised for faith-based programs. In response to the administration diverting funds from the Compassion Capital funds to the war in Iraq, Kuo says "I had been around politics long enough not to be shocked. The announcements were smart politics because absoultely no one called them on anything...As a Christian, however, what appalled me was that this was occurring under the aegis of both the President's faith and his heartfelt plea to 'restore honor and dignity' to the White HOuse. This strategy wasn't about honor or dignity, it was raw politics of the sort that old-time political bosses would applaud. Even sadder, the Christian community that elected George W. Bush didn't see any of this. They couldn't; they trusted their Christian brother too much" (228).
The danger that struck me hardest was that of relying too heavily on politics to solve the world's problems. I used the example from the book in my sermon of the post-9/11 White House trying to organize telethons and prayer vigils only to find out that ordinary citizens were way ahead of them. Kuo capsulates this point nicely: For too long I have held this secret hope that just the right guy doing just the right thing would make America better...But those hopes were misplaced and unreasonable and set the bar too high. Our political leaders , after all, are just that - Political. No matter what their faith, or lack thereof, they are plain old people doing a plain old job. They can't save America.
The final danger facing Christians acting in politics is highlighted early in the book. It is the danger of putting politics before God. The book is ultimately the story of a person who put politics before God and got burned by politicians. One of my favorite moments in the book is when Kuo is leaving the office of faith based initiatives and one of his supervisors asks him if there is anything that could be improved. His response is "I don't know if you are aware of this, but your staff frequently refers to the faith-based initiative as the 'f-ing faith-based initiative.' That doesn't help" (243).
I was completely engrossed in this book, but I do have to say that Kuo reached a conclusion that I can't wholly support. He suggests that we, as Christians, need to "fast" from political engagement from a season in favor of practicing compassion. With all respect to Mr. Kuo who I believe has written a fascinating book, I don't think we can afford to do that. Perhaps for someone who was so deep into policy, a fast might seem ideal, but for the rest of us, I don't think we can allow our voices to go unheard when it comes to the issues of justice and compassion that the government can do something about. I think we need to be wise in our political engagement. I also think we need to show that the "Christian" voice is not a monolith. Christians are in dialogue just like everyone else on all kinds of issues. We can't have our values reduced to a couple of "moral" issues.
That aside, I highly recommend the book. Sorry about all the soap box material.
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