Exposed: The myth of the black conservative

One thing the candidacy of Barack Obama has done when it comes to race relations is to begin to put to rest the myth of the black conservative.

That became clear when J.C. Watts Jr., the former quarterback at the University of Oklahoma and in the Canadian Football League who later represented Tulsa in Congress and who was considered a rising star in the Republican Party before leaving official Washington in 2003 and even a possible vice-presidential candidate, told the Associated Press that he was toying with supporting Obama because the GOP was not really reaching out to African-Americans.

If Watts didn't know it before, he knows it now: The Republicans -- or perhaps more accurately, the conservatives who have dominated the party since the early 1980s -- from the start never had any intention of doing so. When he was elevated to the No. 4 position in congressional leadership it was only for the sake of putting a black face on their policies, with the real target white "moderates" possibly put off by the overt racism of Southern conservatives, most of who were former Democrats, that had opposed the civil-rights movement.

The modus operandi was simple -- put feelers out to any African-American who seemed at all amenable to modern conservatism, make an outsize offer to join their "club" and pay him or her handsomely (leading to the somewhat accurate charge of "sellout"). But once they got on board, the conservatives often reverted to their race-baiting ways.

One example was at the American Enterprise Institute, which had hired Glenn Loury and Robert Woodson as fellows on that basis. They decided to leave when AEI fellow Dinesh D'Souza published the controversial book "The End of Racism," which they considered racist in its own right, in 1996.

More importantly, conservatives never talk to, let alone work with, African-American leadership to determine the issues people face and how to address them -- and why would they? Their ultimate goal was always domination and capitulation, not cooperation, and in their view the idea that the conservative approach is "wrong" is, somehow, unthinkable. But that's what the black community has always told the political right, which is why 90 percent usually vote Democratic, with that percentage going up this time around. Too bad conservatives haven't gotten the message.

Recently a number of conservatives have suggested that blacks were being racist for their solid support of Obama. They ignore two issues: 1) Until Hillary Clinton began playing the "race card" during the primary season, the black community actually was split because much of its leadership initially supported her; and 2) The black community historically has never supported conservative candidates of any hue or ethnicity. In other words, it's not race that's the defining issue here -- it's ideology.

That reality puts black conservatives in a difficult spot, to put it mildly. Blacks don't take them seriously and the conservative establishment doesn't respect them even with all the money it pays them. Maybe someday black conservatives will learn that they're simply being played -- and some may already have done so.

Separation from the world -- in an unexpected sense

Recently the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh, one of the most conservative theologically around the nation, seceded from the American Episcopal Church and allied with another part of the Anglican Communion based in the more traditionalist "Global South." By numerous accounts, the break occurred because the American church has abandoned basic biblical doctrines, most notably when it consecrated an overtly homosexual bishop.

I sympathize with that view, even though I'm not Anglican -- I'm Presbyterian by nurture (though today I attend a church in a more conservative denomination), and that branch of Christendom has also struggled with similar issues among its clergy. Anyway, focusing on homosexuality can miss the point.

When the Bible speaks against homosexual conduct, only a half-dozen times, it does so only in the context that it's something in which God's people do not participate. Ancient Israel was certainly a minority in the known world of that day; He called it out from among the nations to demonstrate who He was, and it is for that reason that biblical law existed. The same goes for the greater church today -- while we Christians aren't obligated to follow much of the Old Testament law, the overall concept of "holiness," which refers to an attitude of being set apart for His purposes, still applies. For that reason alone, it's entirely appropriate to bar active homosexuals not only from church leadership but also from membership. (Some have asked why Jesus never spoke about homosexuality. He didn't have to -- the Jewish people in first-century Palestine weren't practicing it, at least openly.)

However, since Christianity, which started out as an insurgent movement within Judaism and was originally persecuted from all sides, has become the predominant religion in the Western world, there was always the danger of having the strong demands of the Gospel watered down for the sake of popularity. Some would say that started with the emperor Constantine's adoption of Christianity for what were often considered political purposes, and not even the Protestant Reformation -- which was as much about power politics as recapturing the historic Christian faith -- escaped compromise with the world's way of thinking.

So what does this have to do with gays in the church? Well, if it weren't such a huge part of Western establishment culture, with many of them even growing up in some congregation, they would have no incentive to think about coming in. The real problem, therefore, is that joining a church is a fairly easy process in most cases, with little (if any) examination of personal doctrine and conduct -- just say the right words and you'll be approved. As a result, such things as divorce, sexual relations outside of marriage, greed, slander, gluttony, racism and other sins noted in the Scripture are rampant even in "conservative" churches -- but they simply don't raise outrage the way homosexuality does.

An excellent book I picked up several years ago was Ron Sider's "The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience: Why Are Christians Living Just Like the Rest of the World?". I don't know if Sider intended to throw the phrase "the Rest of" in the title, but we shouldn't be like the world at all because our LORD calls us to be distinct. Sider wrote correctly, "We would almost certainly strengthen the church if we made if harder to join." Perhaps pastors should preach sermons that drive away everyone except those who really mean business with God -- yeah, some churches might close in the process, but God can certainly use a "remnant."

Though some have questioned the motives of the diocese -- I personally know some people who were highly critical of the bishop's maneuverings -- in leaving, I understand the overall idea. It's not about highlighting certain sins as particularly heinous; rather, it's about maintaining basic standards so that the church can carry out the mission of not only telling but showing the Good News of Jesus Christ. That said, however, Christians should never use truth as a battering ram to maintain cultural authority, so let's not pick on any group of people who aren't professing Christians just because they're not acting like Christians.