The back story on the 'sequester'

As I write we're looking at a major shutdown of parts of the Federal government due to last week's "sequester." I'm sure you, and a lot of people, are a little tired of "Washington" not being able to get its act together and come up with some solutions to the perpetual stalemate between President Obama and Republicans in Congress. "Surely they can come up with something," you insist.

But you need to understand one thing, contrary to conventional wisdom: This fight is not, and never was, about "spending," despite what the Republicans will tell you. It's about politics -- more accurately, just what and whom that money is being spent on. There's a reason why the late Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill, a former Speaker of the House, said, "All politics is local."

That is to say, "What's in it for me?"

I'm serious about this -- after all, that's the way our political system was built so that we feel that we have a stake in the way things are run. Remember that we don't have just one nation -- we have 435 different regions of the country, all with different, and often contrasting, agendas. Plus, we have a culture of telling the government what it should and shouldn't do. Bottom line, the chaos we're seeing now is precisely because of that diffusion of power.

This is why the tea-party movement, which when it got started in 2010 promoted itself as an independent grass-roots force (which couldn't be further from the truth), couldn't but fail. "Cut spending," it demanded.

But it never mentioned exactly what should be cut and by how much. After all -- and this is rarely addressed -- one person's "waste" may be another's livelihood. If you think I'm just blowing smoke, try closing a military base and see just how many folks get up all bent out of shape. (It happens all the time here in Pittsburgh whenever people talk about closing a major base near our airport. Why? It provides jobs.)

The "fiscal conservatives" should have learned that lesson in 1995, when the government ran out of money and shut down, not once but twice. Recall that President Clinton during that budget battle wouldn't knuckle under to GOP leadership's demands, offering a budget that resulted in a surplus but preserved the social programs that it wanted gone. In the end it got most of what it wanted, but Clinton won the PR war and another term in the process (and also got him impeached because he had the gall to be reelected).

Similarly, Obama may have tried to set a trap for congressional Republicans, whom he had to have known aren't inclined to work with him or anyone else; in saying in the fall that this impasse surely wouldn't -- couldn't -- happen, he was either being extremely naive or cunning. It's too soon to tell if this political chicanery, if that's what it is, will work given that few people haven't already taken sides. But as I indicated before, folks will focus on what benefits them personally before anything else. Advantage the president.

A bad history lesson

The title pretty much said it all -- "A Speech Worthy of Booker T. Washington."

That was the name of a piece by Jonah Goldberg that was published last week in National Review Online concerning a speech that a Dr. Ben Carson, who is African-American, delivered at a recent National Prayer Breakfast. Goldberg likened the contrast to Carson and President Obama, who of course attended, to Washington, who worked and lived in the South; and W.E.B. Du Bois, who lived North.

"Washington believed that blacks should emphasize education and self-advancement and worry about integration later," Goldberg wrote, while "Du Bois favored a civil-rights-first strategy combined with reliance on technocrats, including what he called the 'talented tenth,' or the best African-Americans."

But if Goldberg were to consult any non-conservative African-Americans, especially in the South, he might understand why Du Bois eventually won out.

Because, at first, they actually did take Washington's advice. Even in the midst of Jim Crow, or perhaps because of it, the black community in the South, especially in urban areas, did indeed build its own infrastructure, with businesses and educational institutions and especially churches that defined the black experience in those days. Most Southern cities actually had their share of black millionaires.

Yet Goldberg and other conservatives consistently fail to note that African-Americans in those days weren't permitted to vote or otherwise participate in public life and that their lives might even be in danger if they found themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time. Let's not forget why we saw the "Great Migration" from the South to Northern cities about 100 years ago. (It's why I live in Pittsburgh and not Virginia or North Carolina, where my ancestors came from.)

This is why Washington barely registers a footnote in contemporary black history -- he was seen as an "accommodationist" or "sellout," someone who maintained his own authority but failed to bring others to the table.

And, indirectly, it was Du Bois that actually helped to break down Southern segregation; he spearheaded the "Niagara Movement," which gave birth to the NAACP -- an organization that is still despised by many on the political right but whose membership generally comprised that day's black bourgeoisie. Although Martin Luther King Jr., who occasionally quoted Washington, provided the moral and spiritual muscle behind the civil-rights movement, the NAACP, driven functionally underground in several Southern states, provided the legal muscle. (Also recall that King received his master's and doctoral degrees from Northern institutions.)

Goldberg also fails to appreciate that African-Americans, even those in the North who didn't experience the political roadblocks of their Southern cousins, also need something to vote for, and Obama eventually became that reason. He may not like Obama's liberalism but doesn't recognize that by its very nature his conservatism is highly offensive to much of that community.

I would be remiss if I didn't challenge Goldberg's comment that Dr. Carson "inveighed against a culture of victimology and dependency," the context likening that to liberalism. Thing is, modern conservatism has from the start complained about being victimized by the likes of "evil liberals" and hostile media, among others, many of its apologists always bellyaching that they don't get respect while simultaneously trashing everyone in sight who doesn't agree with them. And I'd be willing to bet that, as a conservative writer, Goldberg is himself on "welfare" from rich conservatives who pay him a mint to serve as their propagandist. Did you know that, in its nearly-60-year existence, National Review has never made a dime of profit? (Indeed, the only conservative medium that to my knowledge is in the black is the Fox News Channel.)

It seems that Goldberg is trying to tell people that African-Americans need to choose between political empowerment and cultural integrity; however, if he understood the history of the civil-rights movement he would see that both were in play. For example, at the time of the Montgomery bus protest Rosa Parks was not the first choice for someone to rally around; the original symbol was a 15-year-old girl who had been abused by a driver -- until the community learned that she had gotten pregnant out of wedlock to a married man. Besides, maintaining "cultural integrity" in the post-Civil-War, pre-civil-rights South didn't mean that folks would eventually give you a chance as a human being.

This is why Dr. Carson's remarks simply didn't resonate in the black community. It's one thing to "pull yourself up by your bootstraps," but try doing that without any boots. And "getting boots" sometimes means political action, the last thing some folks want.

Seeking validation

"They're not sure that what they believe is true at all. If it were I'd be no threat to them."

Those words came from the late atheist activist Madalyn Murray O'Hair in an interview with conservative journalist Cal Thomas, who asked her why so many Christians hated her and which he quoted in the 1999 book "Blinded by Might: Can the Religious Right Save America?" that he wrote with the Rev. Ed Dobson. She, of course, has long been vilified for, among other things, having prayer removed from public schools. (Which is unfair, since what was actually banned was only sectarian — in this case, Protestant-based — prayer exercises conducted by agents of the state — that is, teachers and principals. And the Supreme Court decision at the time was quite popular.)

But O'Hair's statement speaks to a larger point: It seems that we Christians, far from simply trying to engage the greater culture, have been seeking validation from the culture. Which is something we should never do or have ever done because, when that happens, we end up being swallowed up by it.

Christian "culture warriors," including Thomas at times, have long lamented the loss of a Christian consensus as to what's right and wrong, what's true and false. However, in the process — and especially beginning in the late 1970s, with the rise of the "religious right" — we neglected to include our own personal and corporate character, not realizing that part of today's opposition to "Christian values" has to do with the way some of us act in the public square.

I first heard that in early 1980, from the pulpit of a suburban Atlanta church; the pastor was consistently preaching against "secular humanism" and punctuated his rant with the phrase from Hebrews, "for our God is a consuming fire." Later on, and not by just that pastor, that list of targets was expanded to include abortionists, homosexuals, the American Civil Liberties Union, the national Democratic Party, Bill Clinton ... the list went on.

So what does this have to do with validation? Well, if you feel the need to force your values down everyone's throat, perhaps you don't really believe that it will win out in the end. It results from what psychologists call "cognitive dissonance," where folks with a strong commitment to a specific worldview encounter evidence that suggest that they just might be wrong and not only dismiss it outright but go to war against it.

This basically describes the conservative movement and much of the Republican Party today. In the wake of electoral losses they have suffered over the last two decades you might hear some of their apologists say, "If we can get back to Ronald Reagan ..., " with "scholar" Dinesh D'Souza insisting that he had "the winning agenda." Times were different then, however, and besides, they have never faced that the electorate voted for not so much what Reagan stood for but for Reagan himself.

Which is why they hated Clinton so much — they saw, correctly in my view, that he threatened to undo everything they had worked for. Suddenly personal insults, gossip and innuendo, condemned in Scripture, became part and parcel of Christian political discourse, and the hypocrisy wasn't lost on a lot of non-believers, who began turning against them. (Then again, they still exhibit denial, blaming their loss in last year's general election on the media and other outside forces, never considering the reality that people simply aren't buying what they're selling.)

To me, this points to several things: 1) A practical atheism, a lack of trust in God that He will preserve His people in the midst of tribulation; 2) Self-absorption, in that life revolves around you and you alone and thus the lack of consideration of others, especially those that don't agree; and 3) Idolatry, in that His Kingdom isn't the supreme value.

I am not saying that Christians shouldn't be active or argue for our values in public life. I am saying, however, that we need to rethink our entanglements with non-believers who will cherry-pick what they want to curry favor with us lest we be perceived as just another interest group. Moreover, we also need to act with a certain humility, understanding that if the world doesn't get it, well, it didn't get the LORD Jesus either. He never sought validation from the powers of the world, and neither should we.

What to do about abortion today

Today marks the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade and, as someone who has always despised legal abortion as well as the excesses done to combat it, I'm still not sure how just how to respond. It seems as though nothing has been effective -- rallies, marches, voting -- in causing a groundswell of grass-roots opposition from the public.

And it's not that folks haven't tried -- I personally know two people who were arrested in Operation Rescue demonstrations in 1988; locally, it was centered in the church that they attended at the time.

It could be that part of the problem with fighting abortion is its prominence in the "culture war" because, outside of some religious types, not all that many people care enough to cast their votes on the issue -- I've seen abortion become an issue in just two political campaigns, ever, and one of those was last year.

I know what you might be thinking -- We're talking about human life here. Isn't there anything more precious than that?

Well, yes, there is -- a walk with God. If your activism no matter the issue detracts from that, it's frankly idolatry and needs to be put away. You simply can't assume that you're obeying God just by being involved because the devil can certainly disguise himself and worm his way in there. Remember that the only thing that Satan cares about is disrupting God's agenda and will use anything, even His Word, to do it.

For that reason it's probably a good thing that abortion isn't even directly mentioned in the Bible, although you can certainly make the case that it is indeed evil.

I do have one prediction: Abortion will not become illegal again unless and until the culture war ends -- with a loss. I say this because only when it's freed from what might be considered its exclusively religious context will folks begin to consider when life truly begins. However, for that to work it also has to be coupled with "quality of life" issues such as poverty and pollution, thus embracing a more comprehensive "pro-life" approach.

And doing that costs time, money and power -- things that folks don't want to give up.

The book "Blinded by Might: Can the Religious Right Save America?", which was published in 1999, mentioned how abortion came to be banned before -- around the turn of the last century, and that had to do with men who played the "use 'em and lose 'em game" and left the women that they had seduced in a lurch. The churches weren't involved in banning the practice, simply counseling people about sexual activity; meanwhile, abortion laws were enacted in every state with popular consent.

Times are different today, of course, with women often now seeking sexual fulfillment for its own sake and abortion seen as a "right," but the premise still applies. Deal with the issues between men and women and you deal with the abortion issue.

Evangelicals and King

I am deeply heartened that we in the evangelical community are beginning to give the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. his due as not only a civil-rights leader but as a man of God. We recognize him as such in my church, which is socially progressive but theologically conservative, and the Christian Leadership Concepts program, an intense two-year course for men which is winding down for me, has as part of its curriculum "Strength to Love," his classic series of sermons that was first published in 1963. On top of that, many of you know that Dr. King is a large part of my Christian testimony; it was he who showed me in a practical sense just what the Gospel of Jesus Christ was about.

That being said, however, it would behoove us to admit that, when he was active, many of us dismissed his Biblically-based efforts toward justice and reconciliation. Now that he's gone to his reward it's easy to see that he was ultimately right, but even today many of us run away from the historical fact that evangelicals for the most part generally ignored him, with many even opposing him. Indeed, in that day only Billy Graham recognized who he was and took a lot of heat for his own commitment to integrate the Body.

I'm hoping that embracing this reality will cause repentance.

Many conservative Christians, for example, will insist that Dr. King was a committed Republican who would by inference likely support the modern conservative agenda were he here today. History and his own words, however, suggest otherwise.

He didn't even get involved in political campaigns until 1964, when he endorsed President Johnson's election to his own full term and, in an interview with Playboy magazine, denounced Republican challenger Barry Goldwater afterwards as "the most dangerous man in America [who] gave aid and comfort to the most vicious racists and the most extreme rightists in America." However, he ended up breaking with Johnson over the war in Vietnam and in 1968 was considering throwing his support to either Eugene McCarthy or Robert Kennedy. (Of course, he didn't live to see the results of that election.)

In his 1956 address "Facing the Challenge of a New Age," he complained, "The Democrats have betrayed us by capitulating to the whims and caprices of the southern dixiecrats. The Republicans have betrayed us by capitulating to the blatant hypocrisy of right-wing reactionary northerners. This coalition of southern Democrats and northern Republicans defeats every proposed bill on civil rights."

I also find it ironic that it was President Reagan, the first candidate whom evangelicals openly supported, who in 1983 signed the legislation making Dr. King's birthday a Federal holiday -- upon doing so he responded to political ally Sen. Jesse Helms, who voted against it on the grounds that King was a Communist, “We’ll know in about 35 years, won’t we?”, referring to FBI files that would supposedly prove his alleged pro-Communist activity. Indeed, according to an editorial in the Boston Globe, Reagan, no fan of Dr. King's, upon his assassination referred to the civil-rights movement as “a great tragedy that began when we began compromising with law and order, and people started choosing which laws they’d break,” never mind that Dr. King broke the law only reluctantly and only when all other options were exhausted.

Clearly, certain folks just didn't "get it," and it's one reason the church is still sadly divided along racial lines (though that is slowly changing). I just hope that we evangelicals eventually begin to abandon our commitment to a socially divisive ideological agenda for the sake of the reconciliation that our LORD and Savior Jesus Christ not only called for but also died to promote.

The Republican Party's real diversity problem

Six years ago a couple of conservative Republican friends excitedly sent me an e-mail that they were sure would foster "reconciliation of the races." I decided to click on the link, and it turned out that it was touting the candidacies of Michael Steele, who was running for the U.S. Senate in Maryland; and Ken Blackwell and Lynn Swann, who were each running for governor in Ohio and Pennsylvania respectively -- all African-American and all as Republicans.

I quickly dismissed the publicity as irrelevant, saying that the conservatives who run the GOP wanted capitulation, not reconciliation. It turned out that they had the bad fortune of running for office during the Republican "meltdown" of that year, all of them losing easily and with Ed Rendell, the victorious Democrat in the gubernatorial race in Pennsylvania, even saying that he received a lot of votes because Swann was black.

I bring this up because South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley is planning to nominate Tim Scott, touted as the first black Republican to enter statewide office since Reconstruction, to the Senate to replace Jim DeMint, who is taking a position with the Heritage Foundation. Some folks are making this appointment into a big deal -- which it isn't, especially when you consider that Scott is a hard-core conservative and a tea-party sympathizer. In that context, in many eyes nominating Scott to such a position is a lot like nominating an ex-slave to promote the positions of the slavers.

But the problem with Scott being in the Senate is not merely, or even primarily, about race. Rather, it's about the unwillingness to address ideological diversity -- or, more accurately, the lack thereof -- in the party.

Since the 1980s, when the political right began to take firm control of the former "party of Lincoln," it has systematically pushed out "apostates" who dared to deviate from its ideological line. Even after it took unexpected losses, especially in the Senate where tea-party adherents ended up being crushed at the polls, last month, it still remains committed to the death to the principles of "less government." (In practice, however, only for themselves.)

Such an unyielding stance was bound to cost it politically because it willfully, and in some cases deliberately, alienates much of the electorate, as evidence by last month's election. Trouble is that it doesn't get that, always blaming its defeat on "political correctness," hostile media or a lack of understanding of its views, nor does it talk or listen to anyone else.

Some have said that the Republican Party will soon become a relic of history à la the Whigs, which it eventually replaced. That may be overstating things a bit, considering that it still remains strong in the South and rural America, but unless it makes an effort to communicate with the rest of the country it will be relegated to permanent minority status as a whole. And nominating racial minorities to prominent posts won't change that.

No easy answers: We can't just run away

Last week's mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. is still very much in the news, if for no other reason than people are trying to figure out how to keep that from happening again. Such things as re-instituting a ban on assault weapons, obliging teachers to be armed and even "returning God" to public schools have been proposed.

What should be obvious to us Christians is that, since we live in a world full of evil, things like this happen and all the security in the world won't change that. However, it isn't obvious because too many of us have a worldly mentality in that we think that we should sail through life without any serious difficulty -- massacres happen only to them.

More to the point, it seems to me that too many believers have forgotten that there is an invisible war going on all around us. We may pay lip service to that from time to time but don't have a handle on its full import, which is why we offer simple political and cultural solutions to what is, ultimately, a spiritual problem.

Which may get you to thinking: If we had a return to Godly principles or even if people had converted to Christianity, could this have been averted? Wrong question. One parent of a victim who had moved to Newtown from the New York City area said they had done so because they thought it was "safer." I don't claim to know the spiritual condition of that parent, but if that person were really following God he or she might not have moved to that town in the first place. (Recall in Genesis that Lot had moved to Sodom because it was a wealthy place and he thought he could make money there.)

Indeed, I've noticed that the majority of these recent massacres since Columbine High School in 1999 have taken place in "safe," upper-middle-class areas, not the 'hoods that are considered cisterns for violence. That was even the case here in Pittsburgh, which saw two in 2009, with one young man mowing down three city policeman in April and a middle-aged man spraying gunfire at during a women's fitness class at a suburban shopping mall in August.

I think it would be more appropriate to focus not on the actual tragedy but the aftermath of such -- what God does in response. Most of us have experienced bad situations where He in His perfect timing had to intervene and did. As John Eldredge once said, "God loves to come through." So while we wait and grieve with those who have suffered loss and violence, we also know that God will come out of it.

That can't happen, however, if we try to escape it.