Cutting Faith

On Wednesday, a meeting of the U.S. House of Representatives Agriculture Committee turned into a bit of a theological debate. At issue was a proposed $20.5 billion cut to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which is better known as the food stamps program. Representative Jim McGovern, a Democrat from Massachusetts who has long been one of the strongest voices in Congress on behalf on the poor and hungry, offered an amendment to restore the cut money (the photo is one I took of McGovern at a Bread for the World gathering). During the debate, members for and against the amendment cited the Bible. With Jesus invoked on both sides of the debate, it seems clear that confessional politics continues to play an important role in U.S. politics.

Quoting Jesus, Representative Juan Vargas, a Democrat from California, argued for the amendment: "When I was hungry you gave me to eat. When I was thirsty, you gave me to drink." Noting that he "follows Jesus," Vargas urged the members to support the amendment to care for "the least among us." Representative Mike Conaway, a Republican from Texas, shot back that he also followed Jesus but read that passage in Matthew 25 to be speaking to him as an individual and not to the government. It is a dichotomy often made, but it is even more troubling when it is used by a governmental leader to justify doing nothing to help the least of these. Representative Conaway should probably read the passage more carefully, because in the parable Jesus is not separating individuals. Jesus actually talks about having "all the nations" before him for judgement and then separating them. This language suggests communal treatment as nations are judged. This and other passages show how the American tendency to individualize biblical teachings is often problematic. Yet, even if Conaway is right, individuals and churches are not doing anywhere close to enough to take over the government's anti-poverty efforts. Representative Stephen Fincher, a Republican from Tennessee, went even further in his arguments. To respond to Vargas's quoting of Matthew 25, Fincher quoted part of a verse in Matthew 26 about how we will always have the poor. Ironically, he then warned people about Vargas's claim by arguing "we have to be careful how we pick and choose verses out of the Bible." Apparently, he did not realize he had just done that. In the Matthew 26 verse, Jesus was alluding to a verse in Deuteronomy that offers two parts (but that the latter one is usually ignored): "There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore, I command you to be openhanded toward your fellow Israelites who are poor and needy in your land." So rather than being a verse about just give up and do not help the poor because we will always have them around, the biblical teaching is instead that since we will always have poor in our land we must help them. A few years ago, Ethics Daily released a film that focused on this point: Always ... Therefore: The Church's Challenge of Global Poverty. Perhaps all of this is a good reason why congresspeople should not be debating theology or invoking Bible verses to justify their partisan public policy positions. After all, they do not seem to even understand the teachings.

Unfortunately, the members of the House committee voted against McGovern's amendment and kept the cut in place. As Bread for the World noted, the cut will result in the following reductions in SNAP services:

*Remove 2 million SNAP recipients from the program
*Reduce SNAP benefits (by about $90 each month) for 850,000 households
*End free school meals for 210,000 children.
*Cut international food aid by $2.5 billion over 5 years—those cuts would include a 78 percent reduction in funding for improving the nutritional quality of food aid

Churches are not ready to make up the difference. Yet, too many legislators seem content to pretend everything will be okay as they balance the budget on the backs of the poor. Maybe they should talk about Jesus less and act to help people more.

Pro-life at Both Ends?

Two cases recently revealed a problem with the way the "pro-life" label is used in political discussions and news: the label is generally used for those who are merely anti-abortion and not necessarily fully pro-life. Although working to reduce abortions is an important effort and is clearly a pro-life goal, surely to wear the title "pro-life" one must be concerned about life for more than just nine months. Last week, three women were rescued from a home in Cleveland home where they had been imprisoned for about a decade. Ariel Castro, the man who held them there, could face the death penalty for causing at least five miscarriages (by beating and punching the woman). This week, abortionist Kermit Gosnell was found guilty of three counts of first-degree murder (for horrendous crimes he committed during abortions). Gosnell faced the death penalty but quickly cut a deal to instead get life in prison. The latter case particularly attracted attention of anti-abortion activists, with some pushing for the death penalty (Fox News commentator Todd Starnes even argued Gosnell should be killed with the same techniques he used, which does not put Starnes in a good light considering Starnes rightfully considers those techniques to be something only a monster does). Can we really support using the death penalty on Castro and Gosnell and still be pro-life? Killing someone to prove you respect life seems like an odd and contradictory message. Hopefully cases like this will cause more anti-abortion leaders to consider embracing a consistent life ethic, which Catholic leaders like Eileen Egan and Cardinal Joseph Bernardin called the "seamless garment" of life perspective. All life is sacred.

Online Summer

Today I start teaching a four-week online summer course for James Madison University. The course, Media and Politics, is one I have taught multiple times face-to-face during regular semesters (it is the course that Tareq Salahi spoke in during this past semester). But I have not yet taught a summer course or an online course, so this should be interesting. My students will be tweeting during the term using the hashtag #MediaPolitics472 and blogging here.

Bringing Scholarship Out of the Ivory Tower

Today I led a session during the May Symposium for faculty that is sponsored by the Center for Faculty Innovation (CFI) at James Madison University (JMU). My session was called "Bringing Scholarship Out of the Ivory Tower." Here is the description:

Too often brilliant scholarship gets published in academic journals and then disappears to the shelves of other scholars. Yet, when scholars and their work reach a broader audience through media coverage, it expands the impact of the scholarship and makes the work more meaningful. This session will explore the importance of such public scholarship and specific strategies scholars can employ to attract media coverage for their ideas.

I enjoyed giving the presentation and the engaging dialogue with those present.

Redemption in South Carolina

Disgraced Republican politician Mark Sanford found his political redemption in South Carolina last night. Somehow the former governor of the Palmetto State managed to shake off concerns about the fact that he left his wife for his Argentinian mistress, lied to his gubernatorial staff about "hiking on the Appalachian Trail when he instead left his job to secretly visit her, used state money for the private rendezvous in South America, and broke into his ex-wife's house during the campaign. Wow! If Democrats cannot beat that - especially with a solid candidate like they had (who got a big fundraising boost thanks to her brother, Stephen Colbert) - then they simply cannot win in that super red district. Apparently last night's election proved how important partisan ties can be for voters. Many people will vote for the candidate nominated by their party even if that candidate makes a mockery of their stated principles. The election results may also show the continuing influence of confessional politics. As I noted in an earlier post, Sanford's campaign has been heavily confessional as he sought political forgiveness from the voters. His highly-religious language also seemed to conflate redemption from voters and from God. He won the former last night, but I doubt the results impacted the latter.

Not a Way to Pray

Today is the "National Day of Prayer." Although intended to help promote prayer, the day really does not seem helpful to religious piety. After all, why do we need the government to tell us we should pray? And why only one day? What about praying because God told us to? And what about praying without ceasing? The Baptist Joint Committee on Religious Liberty put out a statement this morning that captured the paradox of government-promoted prayer:

The National Day of Prayer is unnecessary, says the Baptist Joint Committee. "There is nothing wrong with the American people getting together to pray on a designated day, even public officials," BJC Executive Director Brent Walker said. "In fact every day should be a day of national prayer." However, "the government shouldn't be in the business of telling the American people what, where or when to pray or even if they should pray," Walker said. "The problem with the National Day of Prayer is that it is an official act of the government urging citizens to engage in a religious exercise," he said.

Even more troubling is how partisan the "National Day of Prayer" has become in recent years. It seems the day is less about prayer and more about how to make partisan attacks on President Barack Obama for supposedly being anti-Christian. I critiqued specific examples in earlier years (see posts here and here), and again today there are conservatives claiming Obama's not being Christian enough with this day. Ironically, these critics are employing an attitude that demonstrates why the BJC is correct that the government should not promote this event; Obama's critics want it to be a day to blatantly promote sectarian faith, which is clearly unconstitutional. Although Obama's proclamation in support of this year's "National Day of Prayer" is not as sectarian as his conservative critics would like, it is clearly a case of government promoting religion. But despite this, some conservatives still want to use confessional politics to attack Obama's faith. If you use the "National Day of Prayer" to make partisan attacks on the nation's leader, then I do not think you are praying right.

More Public Confession

In my book on confessional politics (Presidential Campaign Rhetoric in an Age of Confessional Politics), I noted the use of public confessions as a metaphor for what I argued presidential candidates do during campaigns. Among the examples I highlighted were evangelical groups using a public reverse confession to apologize to people hurt by the church (a concept popularized by Donald Miller in Blue Like Jazz), megachurches encouraging people to confess on public websites or in videos to be played during services, and Catholic priests holding private confessions in public places like shopping malls. Each of these helps illustrate our confessional society. Religion News Service offers another example in a new article about a priest in Connecticut. Reverend Janusz Kukulka noticed that there used to be two old-fashioned confessionals at the rear of the church building, but they had been removed in the 1970s to add air conditioning units (that story could be an interesting metaphor as well). Since then, confessions were held in a private room. So Kukulka decided to install "a visible confessional" to encourage more people to participate. And it worked! Although the confession is to be private in either space, there seems to be something about heading to the public space. It is this type of religious expectation that bleeds over into the political realm and impacts our expectations of how candidates should bare their souls and private lives to we the people.