Articles tagged: values
Posted by: Albert Mohler on April 29, 2004 Classics •
Like a political version of the Continental Divide, a great chasm now separates Americans on multiple fronts ranging from morality to cultural taste and from politics to religion. In a very real sense, we are in danger of dividing into two separate cultures.
This development has caught the attention of The Washington Post, and the paper has responded with a fascinating three-part series on “Red-Blue America.” As might be expected, the Post gives first attention to the political nature of the divide. With the 2004 presidential elections on the horizon, the paper notes a hardening of political lines, as the nation appears to be split right down the middle in terms of a liberal/conservative division. While in previous elections candidates gave strategic attention to those known as “swing voters,” both parties now see the election hinging on their ability to get their base voters to the polls. By some reckonings, the nation is now fully divided along partisan and ideological lines, with the Republican and Democratic parties each claiming about forty-seven percent of the nation’s likely voters. Writing for the Post, reporter David Von Drehle explained that as many as seven out of ten voters say they “have already made up their minds and cannot be swayed.”
The split between “Red” and “Blue” America is traced to the familiar electoral maps used by the networks and other media with reference to voting patterns in the Electoral College. Red America — primarily the districts that voted for George W. Bush — is found in the South and in America’s heartland — populated by farmers, families, and churchgoers. Blue America — primarily those districts that voted for Al Gore — is found on the two coasts and in university centers, where young urban professionals and those involved in the knowledge culture tend to congregate. The values that separate Red and Blue America cover everything from abortion and sexuality to entertainment choices and sporting events. Political scientist Hans Noel of the University of California at Los Angeles argues that the country is now polarized around conservative and liberal positions which—for the first time in the nation’s history — correspond to party lines. “It has taken 40 or 50 years to work itself out, but the ideological division in America — which is not new — is now lined up with the party division,” he said. Some go so far as to describe the nation in terms of two tribes “unhappily sharing the country.” As Noel remarked: “People in these two countries don’t even see each other.”
How does this apply to a political race? Pollster John Zogby reports that voters for Bush were “more likely to be married, less likely to join a union, more likely to be regular churchgoers — mostly at Protestant churches—and far more likely to be ‘born again’ Christians.” Zogby, who often works for Republican candidates, argues that these demographic trends were indicated by “clear statistical margins.”
A pollster traditionally associated with Democrats, Stanley B. Greenberg, has reported similar findings. According to the Post, Greenberg found that Blue Americans “are most likely to be found among highly educated women, non-churchgoers, union members and the ‘cosmopolitans’ of the New York area, New England and California.”
The human reality behind these statistical trends was brought to life by Post reporter David Finkel in two articles published in the series. The first was written from Sugar Land, Texas, and focused on Britton Stein as a representative of Red America. According to Stein, a landscaper, a Republican, and a devout conservative Roman Catholic, George W. Bush is “a man, a man’s man, a manly man.” Al Gore, on the other hand, is “a ranting and raving little whiny baby.” Mr. Stein seems never to be at a loss for words. According to Finkel’s reporting, “he lives in a house that has six guns in the closets and 21 crosses in the main hallway. His wife cuts his hair with electric clippers. His three daughters aren’t embarrassed when he kissed them on their cheeks. He loves his family, hamburgers and his dog. He believes in God, prays daily and goes to church weekly. He has a jumbo smoker in his backyard and a 40-foot tree he has climbed to hang Christmas lights. He has a pickup truck that he has filled with water for the Fourth of July parade, driving splashing kids around a community where Boy Scouts plant American flags in the yards. His truck is a Chevy. His beer is Bud Light. His savior is Jesus Christ.” This is not Kerry Country.
Finkel’s second article was written from San Francisco, and focuses on the Harrison family as representatives of Blue America. The Harrisons describe Bill Clinton in terms like “intelligent,” “charismatic” and “a good representation of America.” George W. Bush, on the other hand, is “frightening,” “a total imbecile,” and “monkey boy.”
Like the Steins, the Harrisons are Catholics, but their understanding of Catholicism is very different from the conservative piety and theology of the Stein family. According to Finkel, “their neighborhood is filled with restaurants that are cafes and stores that are boutiques, and their neighbors include straight people, gay people, rich people, homeless people, married people, single people, and the House minority leader, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, who says of this place: ‘I think it is more American then most places in the country’.”
John Kenneth White of Catholic University argues that the Steins and the Harrisons represent two “parallel universes.” Sen. John Kerry and President George W. Bush will compete for votes in these two parallel universes, knowing full well that what endears them to one universe will make them an object of scorn in the other. For most Americans, the election is not just about politics—it is about choosing a picture of America for the future.
White, who teaches political science, explains that lifestyle issues such as marriage, church, sexuality, gay rights, and guns separate these two moral universes. David Finkel gets down to the basic questions at hand: “Is the United States to be guided by the rigid morality of the Ten Commandments, or by something more elastic? By the desire for national security or civil liberties? By the feeling that leaders are authoritative or authoritarian? What is the proper definition of marriage? Of family? Of the true American life?” There is very little middle ground on these issues.
The split between Red and Blue America has been noted by many scholars and reporters, but few have approached the issue with the verve and insight of David Brooks. In “One Nation, Slightly Divisible”, an article published in the December 2001 edition of The Atlantic Monthly, Brooks described the split between Red and Blue America in terms of lifestyle and cultural issues virtually all can understand: “Different sorts of institutions dominate life in these two places. In Red America churches are everywhere. In Blue America Thai restaurants are everywhere. In Red America they have QVC, the Pro Bowlers tour, and hunting. In Blue America we have NPR, Doris Kearns Goodwin, and socially conscious investing. In Red America the Wal-Marts are massive, with parking lots the size of state parks. In Blue America the stores are small but the markups are big. You’ll rarely see a Christmas store in Blue America, but in Red America, even in July, you’ll come upon stores selling fake Christmas trees, wreath-decorated napkins, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer collectable thimbles and spoons, and little snow-covered villages.”
Brooks went on to describe Blue America as culturally enlightened, sophisticated, and cosmopolitan, but completely out of touch with the culture of Red America. “We don’t know who Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins are, even though the novels they have co-written have sold about 40 million copies over the past few years. We don’t know what James Dobson says on his radio program, which is listened to by millions. We don’t know about Reba or Travis. We don’t know what happens in mega-churches on Wednesday evenings, and some of us couldn’t tell you the difference between a fundamentalist and an evangelical, let alone describe what it means to be a Pentecostal. Very few of us know what goes on in Branson, Missouri, even though is has seven million visitors a year, or could name even five NASCAR drivers, although stock-car races are the best-attended sporting events in the country. We don’t know how to shoot or clean a rifle. We can’t tell a military officers rank by looking at his insignia. We don’t know what soy beans look like when they’re growing in a field.”
Even so, Brooks ended with an optimistic conclusion. Despite the lifestyle, moral, and spiritual issues dividing Americans in to two different camps, Brooks denied that the nation is fundamentally divided into two immovable groups. “We are not a divided nation. We are a cafeteria nation,” Brooks argued. “There is no Culture War,” he firmly insisted. Nevertheless, voting trends say otherwise. As one letter writer to The Atlantic Monthly responded to Brooks, “Americans . . . let their ballots do the talking, and in the 2000 election they voted as if there was indeed such a war.”
The Washington Post series does not offer the final word on the subject, but the paper’s insightful reporting demonstrates that our current cultural conflict is deeper than most Americans have ever imagined. Both sides see the 2004 presidential election as crucial for the nation’s future. Both sides are right.
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R. Albert Mohler, Jr. is president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. For more articles and resources by Dr. Mohler, and for information on The Albert Mohler Program, a daily national radio program broadcast on the Salem Radio Network, go to http://www.albertmohler.com. For information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to http://www.sbts.edu. Send feedback to mail@albertmohler.
R. Albert Mohler, Jr. is president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. For more articles and resources by Dr. Mohler, and for information on The Albert Mohler Program, a daily national radio program broadcast on the Salem Radio Network, go to www.albertmohler.com. For information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to www.sbts.edu. Send feedback to mail@albertmohler.com.
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Posted by: Brent James on January 18, 2008 Biblical Values •
Perhaps at no other time in our history will Americans have a more critical decision to make than that of electing a president this November. Among us, we Christians have an exclusive call to be salt and light to this to this generation and as such will set our country’s course (or ‘curse’ should we fail). This will require some homework and discernment, but not to fear, we have time and God gives us wisdom in full.
Daily news interviews feature voter reasoning that defies rationality. I shudder when I hear well-meaning citizens offering the strangest reasoning in support of their candidate. “He’s really a nice guy” or “She is really smart and cares about America.” I shudder even more hearing the reasoning of believers articulating their own musings along these lines. Shouldn’t logic and values go hand in hand? One would think.
One would also think that endorsements at this stage of the game would be few – especially among evangelical leaders. We should’ve learned from 2000 and 2004. It is still too early. Paul Weyrich and Pat Robertson have made amazing endorsements. Logic and faith are not mutually exclusive, yet many, including these men, have overlooked glaring differences between their values and those of the candidates they’ve endorsed. What does that say about our faith? Are we to make concessions on our beliefs in order to support someone who has a better ‘chance’ of winning?
Talk to anyone about this election and the big question becomes “Yeah, but can they win?” or “Are they really electable?” Should that be our standard for supporting a candidate? What chance did Gideon’s band have against an army of 130,000? What chance did Sampson have against 1000 Philistines or the Hebrew nation against Pharaoh’s chariots? We don’t work that way. We should vote the tenets of our faith and leave the results to God – not try to determine the outcome based on what looks outwardly promising minus a few concessions. Samuel would not have chosen David as king.
Dan Bartlett, a former Bush advisor, gave this analysis of Mike Huckabee’s problems as a candidate, “..having the last name ‘Huckabee’ you’ve got to be kidding me! Hope, Arkansas? Here we go again.” While saying Huckabee’s name is too ‘hick’ might make for amusing political banter, it lacks the faith component God requires. Before all this is over many strange and unusual twists will have played out.
Watch and be diligent. This process is our great privilege. Our hope is not the wishful kind. Ours is a hope of action.
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Posted by: Richard Land on January 21, 2008 Featured Article •
Article VI of the U.S. Constitution says, “The Senators and Representatives before mentioned and the members of the several state legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the several states, shall be bound by oath or affirmation to support this constitution, but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States” (emphasis added).
Our Founding Fathers prohibited that a person be a person of any particular faith or of no faith to hold public office or public trust in the United States. Instead, we are to select public officials based upon their character, their public policy record, their policy positions and their vision for our country.
In the famous speech delivered almost 50 years ago regarding his religious faith and his run for the White House, John F. Kennedy noted that while it was a Catholic who was the victim of suspicion in 1960, in other years it may be a Jew or a Quaker or a Unitarian or a Baptist who is targeted because of their faith.
Indeed, as Kennedy reminded the nation, it was the persecution of Baptists in 18th-century Virginia that inspired Thomas Jefferson and James Madison to pass the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom. In other words, discrimination against a person of any faith opens the door to discrimination against people of all faiths.
While Gov. Mitt Romney has been criticized for his Mormon faith for some time, Gov. Mike Huckabee is the latest target. Huckabee has been criticized by feminist groups because while serving as governor of Arkansas, he and his wife endorsed statements, which appeared in USA Today and World magazine, affirming the Southern Baptist Convention’s confessional stance on the family.
In 1998, the Southern Baptist Convention added an article to its Baptist Faith and Message, the denomination’s confession of faith, addressing the family and marriage. At the time, the priests and priestesses of political correctness, those gurus who take it upon themselves to police what may and may not be said in American society, had a collective fit because the Southern Baptist Convention dared to say that a husband “is to love his wife as Christ loved the church” and a wife “is to submit herself graciously to the servant leadership of her husband, even as the church willingly submits to the headship of Christ.”
You may recall that most newspaper and news magazine editorialists were in a dither as well, printing cartoons portraying Southern Baptists as modern-day Neanderthals, with their knuckles dragging the ground, outfitted in animal skins, and with clubs clutched in their hirsute hands.
I have a somewhat unique perspective on this because I was a member of the committee asked to draft the article on the family for the convention’s consideration and approval in 1998. It is a very clear statement concerning what the Bible teaches about the family. The convention’s elected messengers, from their local churches all across the nation, meeting that year, interestingly enough, in Salt Lake City, overwhelmingly adopted the article on “The Family” as Article XVIII of its confessional statement.
In support, numerous prominent evangelical leaders from across the country endorsed a joint statement that asserted: “Southern Baptists, you are right. At a time when divorce is destroying the fabric of our society, you have taken a bold stand for the biblical principles for marriage and family life.” Now, several years later, these feminists are attacking Mike Huckabee, labeling him as anti-feminist and anti-woman because he signed this statement in support of the Baptist Faith and Message article on the family.
In his Dec. 6, 2007, speech (which Time magazine suggested may be “Romney’s Kennedy moment"), Governor Romney told the assembled crowd at the George H. W. Bush Presidential Library, “A person who is running for political office should not be the chief spokesperson for his faith or his denomination in public life.”
If I had been advising Governor Romney, I would have told him to say, “Look, if you want to know what the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints believes, call Salt Lake City. If you want to know what my values are, what my beliefs are, and how they influence my life, my character, my public service, my policies and my vision for America, call my office or go to my campaign’s Web site.”
If I were Mike Huckabee, I would say, “Listen, we don’t have a religious test for office. I am a Southern Baptist and I subscribe to the Southern Baptist Convention’s confession of faith. If you want to know what Southern Baptists believe, call a local Southern Baptist pastor or read the Baptist Faith and Message. If you want to know what my policy positions are, call my office or go to my website.”
Then I would challenge my feminist critics by saying, “You have no right to accuse me of being anti-woman, for exercising my constitutionally protected right to free expression of my faith in stating what I believe about God’s plan for the family. Unless you can find evidence of anti-woman bias in my public policy statements or my record as governor of Arkansas (and you will not find such evidence), then you are engaging in anti-religious bigotry by attacking me for expressing my beliefs about how husbands and wives ought to fulfill their roles in the voluntary relationship called marriage by some and holy matrimony by me.”
Just as then-Sen. Kennedy spent virtually no time defending Catholicism, but rather the right of a Catholic to run for the presidency, Gov. Huckabee and Gov. Romney should not spend time defending the religious beliefs of their respective faiths. Instead, as Kennedy did before them, they should affirm their right to run and to be judged on their records and their vision for the country’s future.
To ask Gov. Huckabee or Gov. Romney to explain and to defend the details of their personal faith IS a de facto religious test for office, and that is unconstitutional—and un-American. Mike Huckabee has said that he is a person of faith, that his faith defines him. That means his faith impacts his life, shapes his character, and guides him as he faces the crises and issues of life.
How his faith has molded his character, life and vision is fair game in political debate. The precise theological affirmations of his personal faith, however, are not proper subjects for debate, analysis or scrutiny as a candidate in a presidential campaign.
We have no religious test for office in this country. We don’t judge candidates on their faith or their lack of faith; we judge them on how their faith or their lack of faith impacts their lives, character, conscience, public policy positions and their vision for the country’s future.
While discussing this subject, a reporter asked me a provocative question: “Would you apply similar tests to the candidacy of a radical Islamist?”
“Yes, I would,” I responded. “I would not reject someone who was a follower of radical Islam because they were a follower of radical Islam; I would reject that person as a candidate for office because his radical Islamic faith impacts his character by telling him it is all right to kill people who disagree with him under certain circumstances. I would reject him because his faith gives him a vision for America as an Islamic republic that would stifle dissent, deny religious freedom, and make everyone who is not a Muslim a second-class citizen. So I wouldn’t be rejecting a Muslim based upon his radical Islamic faith, I would be rejecting him because of how his faith impacts his character, conscience, life and public policy positions.”
That is the way our Founding Fathers envisioned it to be, and that is the way it should be.
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Posted by: Brent James on January 29, 2008 Hot Issues •
I live in a small town next to a big city. Everyone in the small town worries that the big city is going to annex us and turn us into them. They have more crime, higher taxes, worse traffic and all the other benefits that come with growth. Then, as annexation worries subside, growth springs upon us. The growth advocates tell us that it’s a good thing. They tell us that we just “need some change.”
Now, we have more shopping malls, more housing developments, rising crime, higher taxes, traffic, etc. And they said our sleepy little town would stay the same. I prefer things like they were, but permanence has little relevance in a temporal span. The Bible teaches that aside from God’s nature, everything is subject to change. It is inevitable and constant. Expect it.
There’s nothing wrong with change unless you don’t want it. Who wants square tires put on their car? Most of us appreciate the kind of changes that keep life interesting. When people talk about change, however, they are talking about pepperoni instead of sausage – not homosexual marriage. They are talking about an Apple instead of a PC – not mandatory healthcare coverage courtesy of the federal government.
So be careful when the presidential candidates speak of ‘change’ as they are doing with great regularity and little specificity. After November, it will have vastly different meanings depending on your point of view. As a country, we are in dire need of changes in Washington. Ask yourself: Are these the changes we want? How will their changes change America? How will they change our lives? Lots to ponder.
Vote your values.
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Posted by: Brent James on February 25, 2008 Biblical Values •
As you “shop” for our next president, shouldn’t character be the prime consideration? Not the candidate’s character, but yours. Scrutinizing a person’s ability to justly lead our nation is done so through our own personal lens. Most choose the candidate they feel is best based on their values. But aren’t we, in effect, saying much about ourselves in the process?
Would anyone select a president with lesser values than his or her own? That’s courting disaster. Or do we believe that a president should reflect the electorate in every possible way? Voters preferred Bill Clinton to his predecessors because he was “cool.” Somehow, he was more human. He made Americans more comfortable with their own failings. But character matters and integrity never goes out of style.
Some consider it hypocritical to elect a person with higher values than their own. The question then becomes, “Why should we expect more from an elected official than what we expect of ourselves?” Our standard should be exemplary, should it not? The best mankind has to offer.
All peoples are prone to human failure, an unfortunate characteristic of the race. We would do well to emulate a higher standard than one of our making. Though many Christians identify with King David, it is Christ’s unfailing example to which we should aspire.
“Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.” Acts 17:11
Apparently, people of noble character do their homework.
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