Who Speaks For God?

Sermon by James W. Crawford

September 29,1996

Matthew 25: 31-46

 Who speaks for God? I ask that question this morning in light of the current political campaign. Anyone who spent just a moment tuned into the conventions last summer remembers the constant refrain at the close of the major speeches: "May God bless you and God bless America." Paul Scherer used to shudder at that prayer wondering what wrenching surprises would be in store for America if that prayer were answered.

But there is another component on the political and religious landscape these days exercising influence, calling some shots, making an impact and identifying its religious faith with particular policies, platforms and candidates. It calls itself the "Christian Coalition." The Christian Coalition was founded by a Baptist minister named Pat Robertson. No doubt some of you have seen his television program called "The 700 Club. Robertson, you'll remember, ran for President in the Republican primaries and Convention back in 1988. Since then, he and his coalition have worked at devising a political program for what they call a "Christian America." The Christian Coalition asserts, for instance, in The Reverend Robertson's words, that only Christians are worthy for leadership in our country. Among other things, this Christian Coalition declares, "tax money spent on public education instills atheism in our society." And in a letter sent to Coalition adherents to help defeat an Iowa ballot amendment extending the protection of the state constitution to women, The Reverend Robertson wrote, "The feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witch-craft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians." The Rev. Robertson equates a woman's choice in the matter of reproductive rights to consequences worse, he says, than "Hitler's holocaust." He insists that the separation of church and state is, as he says, "a lie of the left and that [he and his friends] in the coalition will not take it anymore." And, as he reviews his political efforts over the last eight years, The Reverend Robertson claims, "We are seeing the Christian Coalition rise to where God wants it to be in this nation, as one the most powerful political forces that has ever been in the history of America."

To say the least, I am intrigued by this claim. And the more I think about the claim of a "Christian Nation", Christian Coalitions, a nation blessed by God and the fusion of these claims with political means and ends, the more intrigued I become. So, if you will bear with me a few moments this morning, I want to brood about these matters with you. I want to reflect on just what might make what we could call with some integrity, a Christian Coalition. I want to ask the question, "Who speaks for God?"

In the first place, I want to say I am a strong believer in the separation of church and state. The genius of these constitutional doctrines enables us as a religious community, on the one hand, to propagate and practice our faith with all the fervor and resources at our command without interference from government agencies. On the other hand, the doctrine protects our religious uniqueness against the inclination of any religious community, including ours, to claim a preeminent niche in the civil order. We are saved, if you will, from the worst sins of our Massachusetts forebears. As Bill Moyers observed, when John Winthrop came to Massachusetts he envisioned "a city on the hill," a Puritan theocracy, unfortunately a lofty vision with a fatal flaw. Winthrop and his Puritan Christian Coalition would be "king of the hill." The separation of church and state is not, as the Reverend Robertson would have it, "a lie of the left." If so, then James Madison and Thomas Jefferson are treasonous liars and the dupes of atheists and anarchists.

But to be for the separation of church and state is not to be for the separation of religion and politics. The Reverend Robertson and his Christian Coalition, as theocratically inclined as they may be, have every right to carry what they call their religious conviction to the political arena.. I will fight for their right to do that. I will listen to their religious case. I will give hearing to their political case. I will try to discern what compels them to call their coalition "Christian" and I will evaluate their political objectives, their partisan stances, their candidate selection, their policy goals and their religious claims.

Indeed, one of the Reverend Robertson's protégés is a young man named Ralph Reed, a winsome and articulate political operative who serves as Executive Director of Robertson's Christian Coalition. He has written a recent book describing the history and agenda of the Christian Coalition, a book entitled "Active Faith." That is a great title--a great title--for all of us. For in the public realm, no less than in the private realm, those of us who follow One who claims us for the Kingdom of God, a community with a moral dimension rooted in love and issuing in justice, for us, an active and exercised "public faith" shaping political choices is inevitable. Our faith and our politics will in some manner be joined.

And let us make no mistake about it, a faith grounded in the Bible will issue in some vivid and generally unsettling politics. Take the prophet Isaiah, for instance. In one of his majestic utterances aimed at worshippers gliding through their religious rituals in smooth and elegant fashion, speaking for God Isaiah insists the true worship of God lies in removing "the chains of oppression and the yoke of injustice, and letting the oppressed go free." Or again, the prophet Amos is sickened by religious festivals apart from justice. "Stop your noisy songs," he cries. "I don't want to listen to your harps. Instead let justice flow down like waters and righteousness like an ever rolling stream." The prophet Micah rails against pomp and circumstance as a substitute for ethical commitment to the public realm: "God has showed you what is good. And what does the Lord require but to do justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God."

You see, those Hebrew prophets tell us worship and justice, prayer and public fairness, church and the abolition of poverty go hand in hand.

And, yes, take that passage from Matthew we read a few minutes ago. What do we see as the very definition of service to Jesus Christ? Feeding the hungry, satisfying the thirsty, clothing the naked, visiting those in prison, welcoming the stranger, succoring the sick. Now, we know individuals who do this; their lives are beautiful to behold. But I suggest this is not simply a mandate for personal discipleship; this spells out a vision of public responsibility. Matthew speaks for God when he insists that, "as we do for the least of those among us, we do for Jesus Christ himself."

Now its precisely here that I find myself in a quandary about The Reverend Robertson's "Christian Coalition." In Matthew's passage we discover what John Paul II calls "a preferential option for the poor," a special concern for the stigmatized, the outsider, the homeless, the unemployed. I think Matthew, in our passage this morning, when he tries to tell us where we truly find Jesus, I think Matthew sees Jesus in refugees and squatters, in aliens and immigrants, in those banished to oblivion with the so-called three strikes. I think Matthew discovers Jesus among those in any society who find themselves always in jeopardy, at risk, vulnerable. And I wonder as I read the political agenda of this group claiming to be a Christian coalition how its legislative priorities jibe with those others who speak for God, the prophets, and the evangelist Matthew.

To take an image used by a colleague of mine, Jim Wallis of Sojourners Magazine, sentimental perhaps, maybe even foolish--but suppose we were to place Jesus in a room with the Reverend Robertson and members of his Christian Coalition. As the Coalition prepares its legislative priorities the members look up and see this raggedy dressed character, so out of place in their 100 million dollar enterprise. This raggedy dressed character says, "I was hungry...." And our Christian Coalition friends respond: "We've got a budget to balance, taxes to cut, bombers to build, contributors to protect. Sorry."

"I was thirsty..." says our raggedy guest. And the coalition, joined by the President of the United States, says, "It's time to change welfare as we know it. Cut the food stamps, cut the job training, cut the day care, cut the school lunches, cut the college assistance supports, cut the head start. If you're smart," says the Reverend Robertson, You'll catch up anyway."

"I was naked," says our guest. "Sorry, but we must dump public advocacy. And anyway, if you're naked it's your own fault. You're a moral failure. Start pulling yourself by your own bootstraps."

Our friend says, "I was a stranger..." And here our Christian Coalition turns fierce. "You are a stranger," they cry. "You're the gays and lesbians wrecking our families. You're the immigrants stealing our jobs, you're the aliens threatening our race and culture." In tones of fear and words of blame this so-called Christian Coalition demonizes the outsider, dehumanizes the stranger, makes the different a pariah.

And yes, continues our friend: "I was sick..." "Well," says our Christian Coalition, "Health care is your problem. If you didn't have insurance, you shouldn't have gotten sick. Fend for yourself. If you can afford it, you'll get it."

And finally this raggedy guest says: "I was in prison..." And our Christian coalition, now comfortable and in their element, respond: "You were in prison? You deserved it. No more coddling criminals. It's chain gangs now for men and women. It's new prisons to warehouse your urban underclass. Out of sight out of mind!"

And with that, our raggedy guest leaves the company of the coalition bearing his name. He leaves with the words, "As you have done it unto the least of these, my friends, you have done it unto me."

Oh friends, the legislative priorities of the so-called Christian Coalition and the Reverend Robertson are on the one hand legitimate subjects of debate in a democratic society. But we had better be wary of a coalition placing the adjective "Christian" before those priorities because somehow those priorities exist in a blaring dissonance with the One whose name they claim. The outrageous and sickening homophobia and xenophobia of Pat Robertson and the so-called Christian Coalition smack not of some high religious perspective but rather of demonic assault.

The tax cuts for the wealthy few that he and his coalition propose in a world where Michael Jordan makes more for advertising Nike shoes than all of the Indonesian factory workers do for making them, in a nation according to the Federal Reserves analysis of consumer finances, where the wealthiest 1% of the population owns more assets than the bottom 92% combined, where trickle down economics and charity instead of justice sustain but do not alter a system where such gross disparities exist and the redistribution of income continues to flow from bottom to top--this may be legitimately debatable tax policy, but for God's sake do not identify it with Jesus.

And so on it goes. Both political parties pandering to one degree or another, to this Coalition's pretentious religious claims and mundane objectives, the Republicans more than the Democrats, yet President Clinton, to say the very least, himself hardly immune to their blandishments. One might ask the question, after assessing the platform of our Lord in Matthew25 whether the Christian Coalition, if given the chance, could even vote for the one whose name they claim.

Before we are finished, just one more brief comment. I am aware of the enormous risks of self-righteousness involved in speaking like this. I am wary of claiming as "Christian," or "God ordained," or religiously sanctioned any political strategy, tactic or objective. The worst atrocities against human life are carried out in the name of religion, by those who claim to speak for God. Look this very morning at Nigeria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Israel. Human groups tend to justify their immediate and selfish interests and privileges with the highest and noblest rationale and protect them with every human ingenuity and artifice, including force. Politics is a serious and intense struggle for power among various interests: money, public relations, shading the truth and no little arm twisting among its components. On this fragile earth all of our political goals and strategies are contingent, limited, changeable, subject always to our sinful selves, vulnerable always to our confusing our own interestwith those of God. In the "thinly veiled barbaric world" of politics, as we seek some divine perspective, we do well to be reminded with Reinhold Niebuhr, "that nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in a lifetime, therefore we must be saved by hope. Nothing which is true, or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone. Therefore we are saved by love."