(Wow. That’s a high falutin title.)
After traveling up and down the East Coast this month talking with wedding guests and small town cashiers and overworked barristas in highway rest stops, I’ve been pondering what might possibly bring healing to our nation. I’ve talked with people who believe to their toenails that this President is evil. I’ve talked with people who believe with similar intensity that the former President is evil. Billboards on the highway accuse political rivals of “destroying our values.”
What can be done to bring us together as a people? I have a couple ideas.
The first is a pledge to be consistent in terms of our morals.
Jon Stewart often showed side by side clips of politicians saying one thing in 2020 and the opposite thing in 2021. In 2010 a politician supports the filibuster because his party is in power. In 2020 he opposes the filibuster because his party is not in power. (Note: it was never about what’s right. It was about politics.)
I have a friend who is indeed “pro-life.” He is opposed to most abortions, and he is also against the death penalty. He believes in fully funding Head Start and free health care for uninsured children. His views are morally consistent – or he tries to be morally consistent.
To be “pro-life” while being against funding prenatal care for poor women is confusing.
What if we all pledged to seek moral consistency in the way we live and vote and spend our money? I wonder if this would help us understand each other. Otherwise we are simply engaging in partisan politics that have less to do with what’s best for our country than personal power.
How do our politics and our faith match up? Are they consistent across the board? I hope this is something we’ll grapple with in our faith communities in the coming months.
Image is a quote from Patheos by Dr. John O’Keefe 2016.
A Church for Starving Artists 