Legacy of Tactics

I note this week Coral Ridge Ministries, Family Research Council, Focus on the Family, and former Nixon operative, Chuck Colson, are lobbying hard against pending hate crimes legislation. I also note stalwart support for the bill by the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church.

I've written before on the challenge of engaging conservatives in debate without their resort to the yahoo beyond rational argument. Albeit rarely, the challenge is well met. Pat Buchanan's just written an incisive mournful piece on modern Iraqi Christian martyrs. In, From the Holy Mountain, William Dalrymple wrote, a decade ago, on the same subject, in a book I heartily recommend. Safe space for Christians in the Middle East is, indeed, rapidly disappearng (though Dalrymple patterned his book on a travelogue written by John Moschos, a 6th century mobile monk, who wrote of the same danger).

The Anglican Archbishop of Uganda, Henry Luke Orombi, also just published a thoughtful piece for First Things called What is Anglicanism? (We'll dissect that one at a later date.) He, too, writes of martyrs; how the Ugandan Church is built upon three pillars: revival; the historic episcopate; and the stories of martyrs, dating from Latimer and Ridley in the 16h century, to 1977, when the then AB of Uganda was murdered by Idi Amin.

The hate crimes legislation on the table is called The Matthew Shepherd Local Law Enforcement Hate Crime Prevention Act of 2007. It was nine years ago that Matthew was tied to a fence in Laramie, Wyoming, beaten and left to die. In the shelter I managed in Virginia, two teenagers lured a resident named Kevin into the woods by a promise of beer and beat him to death. Their lawyer justified the murder by employing the widely used gay defense; that the crime was mitigated if the victim came on to the murderers.

As I read Buchanan's and Orombi's articles, I didn't discount in any way the witness, sacrifice and glory to God of the martyrs they described; my problem, with Orombi, specifically, is that he takes no notice or responsibility, for martyrs like Matthew or Kevin; victims of a culture fostered and perpetuated by leaders with authority; a culture that discounts the humanity of those it destroys to such a degree as to even allow for the outrageous audacity of a legal tactic like the gay defense.

In a thoughtful editorial a few weeks ago, by Rob Dreher, he wrote, "why ordinary people become conservative: because to be a conservative is to believe in personal responsibility, in accountability, in consequences for actions," and, "it also meant you stood for certain virtues...[like] old fashioned honor."

Did the two women and a man who recently shouted "this is an abomination," and were arrested for disrupting Congress, as a Hindu minister offered the Senate's opening prayer, act with honor? Did those who threatened the Texas mom, who'd challenged the recitation of sectarian prayers at high school football games, with drive-by shootings, act responsibly? Will there ever be an earthly accountability for the former Episcopalian priest, now a Ugandan bishop, who preached in a Sunday service I attended, "as I would not have an axe murderer in my church, I would not have a homosexual."

Noted conservative Cal Thomas wrote a balanced book a few years ago, Blinded by Might, which raised deep spiritual issues about the appropriate role of Christians within the political realm. This is nothing new: Anabaptists during the Reformation barricaded entire cities to withdraw from the world. Hermetical Desert Fathers lived in caves. Could they remain uncorrupted in this way?

If Dr. King could lead a faith-based civil rights movement from the Left, why isn't it dually appropriate to lead crusades from the Right? (I struggle with this.) Thomas' decision at that time was to personally withdraw from active participation in Moral Majority-style politicking in order, he said, to educate the general public on the themes of classical theology.

I've walked a similar path. I once thought the penultimate Christian purpose could be realized by public service at a shelter. Now I'm finding the experiences gained there were a stage toward informing the foundation of the Adult Education classes I'm teaching at church. That seems, at least, now, to be God's greater purpose.

In a recent Thomas article my sister sent from Florida, it appears that Thomas hasn't quite escaped the yahoo. He's ridiculed Hillary Clinton in a New York Times article for a "liberal faith that is more concerned with poll-tested relevancy, as [in relation to] the environment, what kind of SUV Jesus would drive; larger government programs and other do-good pursuits, than the Gospel." It doesn't seem from this, he's followed his own advice; this language, disappointingly, isn't any more classy, or classically theological, than what he's bestowed upon the populace in the past.

I'd been thinking along the lines of the religious/political divide, anyway, after hearing that Ruth Bell Graham died. Billy said "she was the greatest Christian I ever knew." In his large and famous public position, and in the small, but still public position I held, as shelter manager, folks tended to bestow praise and prizes. It seems, though, that those who quietly nurse a sick spouse or neighbor, those who visit the home-bound elderly, or folks like my late father-in-law, who assisted widows with their finances, are those who are truly laboring in the vineyard, with responsbility and honor, accountable and known, only to God.

Yet, despite that instinctive feeling, great matters still cry out for justice. In regards to the hate crimes legislation, I hold not even a tiny scintilla of doubt towards the righteousness of such a bill supported with the full power of the Episcopalian Church of which I'm honored to be a member.

It's been said when the struggle within our Church is over, what will remain, despite where you stood, was legacy of tactics employed. It's ironic that those who advocate for the justice of inclusion are the most ilequipped by nature to use the very tactics that the world most identifies with success. Perhaps it's our greatest weakness; it also ensures an honorable legacy.


P.S. The Spotsyltuckian, and family, are taking a vacation. Look for the next post no later than Friday, August 17th.