Souled Out to Propaganda and Hypocrisy
February 22, 2008 Posted by Amy Hall
A friend alerted me to a description of Souled Out: Reclaiming Faith and Politics after the Religious Right after the author, E. J. Dionne Jr., was featured on an hour of the Hugh Hewitt Show. From the publisher, Princeton University Press:
The religious and political winds are changing. Tens of millions of religious Americans are reclaiming faith from those who would abuse it for narrow, partisan, and ideological purposes. And more and more secular Americans are discovering common ground with believers on the great issues of social justice, peace, and the environment. In Souled Out, award-winning journalist and commentator E. J. Dionne explains why the era of the Religious Right–and the crude exploitation of faith for political advantage–is over.
Now, this is amazing. If you vote on the right because you believe in those positions–and, in fact, believe they better reflect Christian values and goals–you are “selling out,” and “abusing faith,” and (from the next paragraph) you are a “prop for the powers that be” who is being “crudely exploited for political advantage.” But all this would be over if you would only learn to vote on the left! If you favor positions on the left for exactly the same reasons, then you're just doing the right thing. I think I know why people like Dionne are unable to see the unbelievable hypocrisy of this, and I'll explain in a moment. But first, another excerpt:
Based on years of research and writing, Souled Out shows that the end of the Religious Right doesn't signal the decline of evangelical Christianity but rather its disentanglement from a political machine that sold it out to a narrow electoral agenda of such causes as opposition to gay marriage and abortion. With insightful portraits of leading contemporary religious figures from Rick Warren and Richard Cizik to John Paul II and Benedict XVI, Dionne shows that our great religions have always preached a broad message of hope for more just human arrangements and refused to be mere props for the powers that be.
The idea that all politically conservative Christians care about is abortion and same-sex marriage is an embarrassingly misguided one, and yet very widespread (I believe this goes back to the left's unwillingness to understand people on the right or take them at their word). Dionne is honestly unaware that people could possibly think that the issues of justice (including economic) and social good are all better addressed by conservative positions than liberal ones. Have they ever even heard of the Acton Institute? No, for Dionne and many of the religious left, the only possibility is that conservative leaders have deviously trapped gullible religious people in a “narrow electoral agenda.”
One has to make a deep, unexamined assumption to end up with this inexcusable blindness. The assumption is: liberal policies are obviously moral and conservative policies are obviously immoral. Therefore, they conclude, if any religious person thought about anything other than abortion and same-sex marriage, then naturally, he would be on the left instead of the right. Therefore, widening his scope of issues would keep him from voting for conservative candidates and thereby becoming a “prop” of the right. (How it could be that taking on and promoting uniquely leftist policies would not simply cause these newly leftist Christians to become “props” of leaders on the left is never actually explained.)
It's amazing–and a little scary–how rarely people on the religious left examine themselves and their rhetoric and how little they understand conservatives. This doesn't bode well for robust and productive debate anytime in the near future.
Related posts:
- Resisting Propaganda
- What Would Obama Do?
- Book Announcement: God and Governing
- Scott Clark On Natural Law And Gay Marriage
- Tonight: Brokaw Investigates Evangelicals
- Fighting the Evil Conservatives
Posted in Amy's Posts, Culture, Main Page, Politics
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February 22nd, 2008 at 8:51 am
Amy it's not totally out of left-field that those on the left think that the only thing that the right cares about are abortion and gay-marriage. In fact, (religious) conservatives tout those as two of the most important moral issues. When someone says, “I will never vote for someone who is pro-choice” he or she is elevating the issue of abortion. For example, this person is not saying, “I will never vote for someone who wants to nationalize healthcare or develop a progressive tax system.”
The religious left may misunderstand the conservative movement, but your post also highlights how much conservatives misunderstand the religious left (or the left in general).
February 22nd, 2008 at 10:54 am
EE, just because those are key issues for people right now doesn't mean they're the only issues those people think conservatives are right about. That's all I'm trying to say.
If placing certain issues above others means you have a “narrow” view, then the people on the left who are so concerned about global warning and the environment would fall under the same category. And certainly, I've heard many people on the left say that leaving Iraq was the most important issue, and they would not vote for anyone who wasn't for leaving. But for some reason, they only put conservatives into the “narrow” category and can't see they're doing the same thing. My point is not to say that liberals are narrow, my point is to say that I would like to see a little fairness in labeling and for people on the left to look at themselves before they accuse people on the right of doing things they're doing.
your post also highlights how much conservatives misunderstand the religious left
In what way, specifically, have I mischaracterized the religious left? (The description I quoted is representative of what I often see from the religious left.)
I'm sure it's possible that I have. However, I'm basing what I've said about the left on numerous conversations with people on the left, articles, and interviews. For example, right after I wrote this, I heard another man of the left say quite matter-of-factly in a radio interview about his book, “Well, since the Republicans are mostly about racism and bigotry, they have many more problems with hypocrisy.” I've had a friend say (after I painstakingly explained the reasons for different positions) that I had good reasons, but other conservatives only supported certain ideas out of bigotry. I recently challenged someone on another blog who said all the reasons against same-sex marriage were about tradition. But when I asked him to describe the arguments given against same-sex marriage, he couldn't do it. He didn't know them. He didn't understand conservatives any more than any of these other people. All his arguments against conservative positions boiled down to “they're mean and/or stupid.” Those are the things that make me lose hope.
February 22nd, 2008 at 1:58 pm
Amy, both conservatives and liberals boil down positions to soundbites. Ann Coulter called McCain a liberal because he stood for campaign finance reform. Conservatives have characterized liberals (and anyone voting for liberals) as baby-killers (because of the abortion topic) and ready to surrender in the war on terror.
Your post does highlight what has become common in our political culture–the addiction to soundbites and boiling down and/or dumbing down positions.
You're right the left does have a broad stroke characterization of the right, but I disagree that is much more prevalent among the left than among the right. Both the left and the right have figured out ways to manipulate arguments and demonize the other side.
Unfortunately, this is true both in politics and within religion.
Finally, though I have not read Souled Out (and it seems, neither have you), what I'm seeing is that there are those who reject the marriage of Republicans (and/or conservatives) with following Jesus. Souled Out at it's worst is probably a reaction to this marriage.
February 22nd, 2008 at 2:32 pm
Your post does highlight what has become common in our political culture–the addiction to soundbites and boiling down and/or dumbing down positions.
I think you've missed the point, here. My post is not so much about dumbing down the opposing position as it is about the left scolding the right for doing exactly what they're doing when it comes to religion and politics. The right, on the whole, doesn't do this (tell the religious left they should never try to convince people that the Democrats are closer to God's values)…at least, I haven't seen it.
Here's another example: Sojourners had that campaign “God is not a Republican or a Democrat.” On the same page that proclaimed this, they proceeded to explain, using the Bible, why the positions on the left more closely matched God's positions, as He gives them in the Bible. In other words, “God is not a Republican or a Democrat” was only a slogan. In reality, they were saying God is a Democrat and Christians ought to vote for Democrats. They just didn't do it openly. I would have had no problem with the campaign if they had merely said, “God is not a Republican” and just openly argued for their position.
Don't get me wrong–it's fine to think that liberal positions more closely match Christian values, and it's fine to argue vigorously for that, but for heaven's sake, don't call the other side names for doing the exact same thing. It's underhanded.
Here's what it comes down to: The religious left doesn't object to Christians voting Republican because they think Christians should never think a political party more closely matches God's values–they don't really think this makes a person a political pawn (after all, those on the left vote Democrat because they think that matches Christian values). Instead, they object to Christians voting Republican because they think they're wrong and that Republican ideas don't match Christian values. All I'm asking is for them to be open about the second instead of pretending they're objecting to the first and then doing the same thing.
February 22nd, 2008 at 2:41 pm
Souled Out at it's worst is probably a reaction to this marriage.
Then they should focus on why that particular marriage is wrong, not tha
t a marriage is wrong in itself, if in the very next sentence they are going to argue for a marriage between Christians and Democrats.
Or to put it another way, if they're going to call one marriage abusive simply because it's a marriage, they have to be willing to accept the same title for themselves.
Hopefully that makes my point a little clearer.