Faith in Context

Class Warfare and Religion in the United States

By Monte Sahlin

America has always prided itself in being a society unlike many places in Europe and the southern Hemisphere where there are large differences between the elite and the masses. (In fact, Europe has changed significantly over the last half century and more recently there have been emerging middle classes in Brazil, India and other developing nations.) For decades the vast majority of Americans have told surveys that they are "middle class" in proportions that quite different than household income data would indicate. Most Americans have thought of themselves as "middle class" until the emergence of "culture wars" in recent decades in which Christian activists of various kinds have had a role, but the most powerful dynamics seem to be a tension between traditional culture and "cultural creatives" that has strong economic and political correlations.

"Class warfare in America is over," points out a recent issue of Christian Century. "And the well-to-do have won. The result is that the less well-to-do are being shut out of the decision-making process. Very few working-class Americans get into government, even at the state level. Running for office is so expensive that only wealthy Americans aspire to elected office. Once in office they reflect their own class. Social safety net programs are stingier, business regulations are flimsier, and tax policies are more regressive than they would be if our politicians came from the same mix of classes as the people they represent." (Oct. 1, 2014, pp. 8-9)

Has conservative Protestant faith become captive to this traditional culture political/economic dynamic? Historically African American congregations (of all denominations) have traditionally put much energy into helping the poor and promoting education, but now some are becoming more middle class and less involved in community service. In white Evangelical congregation (of many denominations) it is common to find a significant share of the members how think that helping the poor "is not really the mission of the church" and a narrowing of focus to strictly religious activities and support for typical middle class family life.

I see/hear more and more condescending remarks by Christians labeling as "leftist, socialist" any initiative or ministry or expression seeking to address social justice. Has political philosophy and class self-interests erased or modified in the minds of these Christians (who usually read the Bible in a very literal manner) the plain statements of Jesus in a number of places in the New Testament such as Matthew 25:31-46?

This particular passage interests me because it is in the context of the "sermon" of Jesus recorded in Matthew 24-25 which is so relevant to my Adventist faith. It begins with a question from His disciples about when He will return and when will be the end of the world, and specifically focuses on how to live in an eschatological context. There are many other texts that are equally clear about the value that God places on social justice. A friend told me recently that "social justice is heresy." Is that true, or is the shaping of conservative Protestant faith by anti-social justice views the real heresy in God's eyes?

Religious Persecution Still Happening, Increasing

By Loren Seibold

Americans tend to take the measure of religious hostility from their own relatively calm religious culture. While we see interest in religion (and to some extent, conflict about it) declining here, religion remains a major social force elsewhere. Still, a surprising number of fundamentalist, charismatic and restorationist movements claim to rely on increased religious persecution as the marker for Christ's soon return. Some, like Seventh-day Adventists, Mormons, and Jehovah's Witnesses, all of whom have some form of personal persecution in their eschatology, have at times actively searched for and made note of signs of hostility against themselves, which they find useful to motivate their base.

According to a recent study by the Pew Center's Religion and Public Life Project, hostilities involving religion reached a six-year peak in 2012. About a third of the 198 countries inluded in the project experienced significant religious hostilities in 2012. A quote: 

Religious hostilities increased in every major region of the world except the Americas. The sharpest increase was in the Middle East and North Africa, which still is feeling the effects of the 2010-11 political uprisings known as the Arab Spring. There also was a significant increase in religious hostilities in the Asia-Pacific region, where China edged into the “high” category for the first time.… Among the world’s 25 most populous countries, Egypt, Indonesia, Russia, Pakistan and Burma (Myanmar) had the most restrictions on religion in 2012, when both government restrictions and social hostilities are taken into account.

As the last sentence indicates, the study draws a distinction between social hostilities and hostilities instigated by government restrictions on religious practice. This latter has stayed about level, with roughly 3 in 10 countries maintaining high or very high restrictions on religious practice. 

Some contrasts from 2011:

• Abuse of religious minorities by private individuals or groups for acts perceived as offensive or threatening to the majority faith: up from 38% to 47% of the countries studied

• Violence, or the threat of violence used to compel people to adhere to religious norms: 39% of the countries, up from 33%

• Harassment of women over religious dress: up from 25% to 32%

• Mob violence related to religion: up from 18% in 2011 to 25% in 2012

• Religion-related terrorist violence: remaining level at 20% of countries in the study

• Sectarian violence: 18% of the countries in the survey, up from 15%

And which religions are having the most trouble? From the Pew Center study:

Members of the world’s two largest religious groups – Christians and Muslims, who together comprise more than half of the global population – were harassed in the largest number of countries, 151 and 135, respectively. Jews, who comprise less than 1% of the world’s population, experienced harassment in a total of 95 countries, while members of other world faiths were harassed in a total of 77 countries.

Looked at regionally, you won't be surprised that the Middle East and Northern Africa top the list of places with the most religious strife. (Among Muslims, intersectarian violence is still more common than hostility against the West.) The big surprise is the amount of religious hostility in secular Europe, which matches the Asia-Pacific region in number of countries where hostility occurred. One big reason there: harassment of women for religious dress, specifically Muslim women who wear face coverings. 

Most American Christians have ignored hostility against other religions, or against Christians in other places. It might be wise for us to consider the possibility that what happens elsewhere and to others could happen here, and to us. 

Related articles

Pew: Religious Hostility Reaches Six-Year High Worldwide

Who is Lying about Social Security?

Governor Rick Perry has said that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme and a "monstrous lie." Perhaps this is just political BS and should be ignored by anyone serious about religion and moral values. For one thing, it is unclear to me precisely what he thinks the "lie" is; what is untrue about the idea that future generations will have the same benefits that the law calls for and are provided to senior citizens today?

It is true that the Baby Boom generation, the front edge of which is turning 65 this year, will create a problem because there will be for a period of time a smaller population paying taxes and a larger population getting benefits. That problem has been examined in tens of thousands of pages of careful studies and it can be fixed with a small increase in taxes, an average of less than $200 per year per taxpayer. It will leave the United States still with the lowest taxes of any industrialized country.

The interesting thing is that the right-wing politicians who have made speeches similar to Governor Perry's all say that they do not intend to change any of the benefits for the people (like me) who will become eligible for Social Security in the next decade (or longer, depending on the specific speech). What that means is that they are not proposing to fix the "bubble" described above. They are talking about changes that have to do with the situation decades down the line when the larger Millennial generation will be the taxpayers and the smaller Gen X will be those going onto Social Security. Why use the contemporary problem to argue for changes that will not come into effect until the problem is passed?

One possibility is that this entire effort is fundamentally dishonest. The real purpose of rhetoric against Social Security is to attack a plan that some politicians do not like because of the basic concept itself not because there are any real economic problems associated with it. Another clue that this might be going on is the total lack of any description of an alternative. What does Governor Perry propose to replace Social Security with? A previous Texas governor who became president proposed to modify Social Security by allowing individuals to put money into a type of Individual Retirement Account (IRA) instead of paying taxes into the Social Security program. This was dropped after analysts across the political spectrum agreed that it did not solve any real problems; it did not improve anything. It only gave a relatively small percentage of the population with very high incomes a more lucrative retirement.

Frankly, I agree that individuals with sufficiently high incomes ought to be allowed to put money into an IRA instead of the Social Security fund. And Social Security benefits ought to be paid only to people who have incomes below a reasonable ceiling. But, if you look at the numbers you will see that this is simply a trade-out. It does not change any of the major facts in the situation.

What is the moral meaning of this issue?Is there anything about this item that is not simply politics? I believe so. It seems to me that when politicians like Governor Perry say that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme and a lie, they are lying. They are engaged in a propaganda technique that dates back nearly a century called "the big lie." (Look it up in your high school civics textbook.) It is simply this, if you assert something loud enough, often enough and with sufficient conviction, then it will appear to be true even if it is totally lacking in factuality.

In the early 1970s there was an effort to get senior citizens signed up for Social Security and Medicare. I worked in that effort and talked to thousands of seniors, going door to door in inner city neighborhoods. I have seen the kind of poverty and suffering that existed before the Social Security and Medicare programs became as entrenched in American society as they are today. I do not want to go back to that kind of America. I do not know why anyone would want to go back to that kind of America.

I share Governor Perry's biblical worldview which makes him even more morally culpable in my opinion. There is an objective reality which is outside the control of politicians or wishful thinkers or opinionated people of any kind (including myself). If we have no social insurance plan in America, people will suffer. Telling young people that there will be nothing for them, therefore they should vote to close down the program is truly a monstrous lie. It is manipulating them into creating the lack of benefits in the future. Can a politician convince you to shoot yourself in the foot? Is it moral for him to try just so he can get himself elected?

Moral Consequences of Economic Decisions

The economy and the political agitation around the national debt has forced all Americans to make decisions. Who is paying attention to the moral consequences of those decisions?

If a state legislature votes to stop paying for certain kinds of hospital care and as a consequence respirators are turned off and a number of people die, are the lawmakers who voted that budget cut guilty of murder in God's eyes?

If I hire a man at $12 an hour and I know that in my community full-time employment at $12 an hour will not pay the rent on the least expensive apartment available and as a consequence the man sleeps in his car (which is old and in ill repair), leaves the windows rolled up because it is cold outside and dies from carbon monoxide poisoning, am I guilty of murder in God's eyes?

If the national Congress votes to cut funding for emergency food programs and as a consequence 10,000 babies die from malnutrition over the next year or two, are the politicians who voted for that budget cut guilty of murder in God's eyes? What if I voted for one of those legislators because he promised to keep my taxes down, do I share in that guilt?

Or does God give a free pass for anything that is necessary to balance the budget? Does God not require any moral accounting of the decisions that are necessary to protect the savings that I have, or keep taxes down or encourage job creation in our country and keep the economy going?

Maybe you are not troubled by these questions. Does God think about them? People of faith have always taught that He expects us to think about moral consequences. Is that an idea that we are now free to discard?

What is the Morality of the Budget Compromise?

I confess, I am deeply disappointed in our president and our congress. It seems to me that the politicians have arrived at a compromise that is morally flawed to a degree that I would have rather seen the government shut down.

The compromise means that we are making much larger cuts in the essential services for the poorest and most marginalized in America than we are in the military and at the same time we are doing nothing to increase income from taxes, even among those who could easily pay a little more without any negative impact on their families, their corporations or the economy.

One example: One budget cut is $600 million from the Community Health Centers program. This is a large percentage of the total budget for this program which provides the only primary health care services to over 5 million of our poorest and most vulnerable neighbors.

A budget is a moral document. So, why cut here? This is not about abortion (an issue about which I am conflicted), nor is it about welfare (there are no benefits involved). It will cost all of us more by increasing our private health insurance costs because untreated illness will end up in emergency rooms instead of being cared for in the more appropriate context of a community health center. No one has ever said that the community health centers were a location of significant fraud or waste. These are small, local organizations run on a shoe-string.

The display of selfishness and greed in this package is so obvious that I cannot in good conscience vote again for any of the politicians who enginereed it! We are being overwhelmed by the fears of the wealthy that somehow in the current situation they are going to lose something. There is no evidence of any actual losses of consequence to date. Yes, my retirement accounts are worth less than they were. I may have to postpone my retirement. But that is not the same thing as being forced out on the street with no access to health care.

Many of these politicians are fans of the ideas expressed in the novels of Ayn Rand. (In fact, it appears that one key Senator may be named after her.) I do not think that any authentic follower of Jesus can accept these concepts. They are clearly contrary to His demand that we care for the neighbor. Remember, that her concepts deal not just with what should be done by the government and what should be done by private charity, but with the whole concept of helping others in any form. Jesus says that her approach is cruel, unjust and immoral. The fact that we have leading politicians who openly profess agreement with her immoral lifestyle and philosophy is a measure of how low American morality has declined.

As more details emerge from this compromise budget, the more I am sickened. I would challenge all Christians to increase your personal giving to local, faith-based charities that serve the poor. It is going to require triple the giving you did last year to make up for the cuts in this budget.

I would be happy to cut the budget further than the compromise. I would be happy to forgo all highway funds and drive on even more pot holes and dangerous bridges than I do now. I would be happy to cut it until it balances. But not on the backs of the poor. That is simply wrong. This is a demonstration of the moral weakness of our political leaders. And if we keep re-electing them it reflects clearly on our own morality.

The End of the Community Action Program?

One of the items on the hit list of the new majority in the House of Representatives to "balance the budget" is the Community Action Program (CAP) or what is currently labeled Community Service Block Grants. This is a program begun in the 1960s in the Lyndon Johnson administration. It is a nearly unique program in that it empowers local, grass-roots organizations made up of partnerships of citizens and local elected officials. It is perplexing that the same party that wants to encourage solutions outside of government bureaucracy also wants to do away with one of the few examples of this kind of strategy actually being implemented.

I have personal knowledge of CAP because I worked in it for 18 months in 1971-72 while in graduate school. It was launched with the idea that it would help local citizen groups reduce or end poverty in their communities and it never really provided much that is in the self-interest of politicians or political parties. Over the years it has been weakened by every administration and both parties. Yet there are hundreds of local Community Action Agencies (CAA) that continue to work as best they can.

There are those that argue that CAP is a government program, despite the fact that each of the CAA are locally controlled and almost all of them are incorporated as nonprofits with 501c3 tax-exempt charity status. The law originally required that the majority of the board members be people living below the poverty line and some CAA still follow that guideline. The Federal funding is simply a catalyst, not the major source of the budgets for most CAA.

The savings to the Federal budget from cutting these funds is miniscule. It cannot make any difference in the deficit or repaying the debt. This is actually a good example of how budget cuts are often just a cover story for getting rid of things for other reasons. In fact, both parties have already agreed to not cut the items that are necessary if anything significant is going to be done about budget deficits or the national debt.

There are three kinds of opponents to the Community Action Program:

(1) Those who do not believe in doing anything about poverty. These are often people who believe that the economy will take care of itself and if no one helps the poor they will get jobs and take care of themselves. In my opinion, this view can only be sustained out of ignorance, even if it is willful ignorance. Any significant experience with entrenched poverty reveals that intervention is necessary to overcome it.

(2) Those who think private nonprofit organizations can fight poverty more cheaply than government. This category includes people who really do not care about the poor, but feel that civilization demands that something be done about poverty and want the cheapest possible solution. They choose to ignore the fact that the cheapest solution is not always the best solution.

(3) Those who think private nonprofit organizations can fight poverty more effectively than government. It is tragic that there are people who want to defund CAP on the basis of this logic. This is the very purpose for CAP. The inventors of CAP believed this precisely and designed the CAA on this basis. The Federal funding is simply a catalyst and the CAA are weak enough (especially at this moment in our economic history) that without the catalyst the whole structure could collapse in many communities where it is most needed.

In 1927 the great Mississippi flood demonstrated to Americans that the country had become too large and complex to continue a policy of non-involvement by the Federal government in issues related to disaster response, unemployment and poverty. It is unfortunate that most Americans have such a limited knowledge of history that we seem fated to relearn important lessons every 80 years or so.

Update on Giving

Giving USA recently released the data on charitable contributions in 2009, making it the most recent year on record. Overall donations slipped 3.6 percent lower than the previous year, an amount surprising more for how small it is than for how large, given the economic situation. Donations from individuals were down less than a half percent, so much of the overall decrease is linked to corporations and their individual current financial problems or fears.

Giving to religion, education, and the arts all declined, while giving to international aid, health, human services and the environment actually increased. The more than six percent increase in giving to international aid is probably linked to the Haiti earthquake.

Not a bad year, in general. The genorsity of Americans in general is largely undaunted by the most difficult economic situation since the Great Depression of the 1930s. "Praise God from whom all blessings flow."

Will Gordon Gecko go to heaven?

It is short hand and not theologically correct. Of course you know that Gordon Gecko is a character in a movie (two movies, now), not a real person. He is a character meant to personify the self-centered, avaricish Wall Street type who loves only money and has no moral boundaries. He is famous for proclaiming that "greed is good." In the latest movie he imagines that money is a "she" who sleeps with him "with one eye open." So, frankly the character is so over-drawn as to have a real mental health problem when it comes to economics.

Are there real people like Gordon Gecko? My own experience with people who work in the finance industry is that many (maybe most) are normal people with strong moral limits and no mental health problem when it comes to money. Some are people who have centered their life in Christ and work to bring Jesus and His values to Wall Street. It may be, as in many professions, that it takes someone who lacks balance to get to the top and that leadership includes an undue percentage of Gordon Geckos.

Unfortunately, it seems that a significant percentage of business (in all industries) seems to think that money cannot be made if one is completely open and fair with people. There is too much deception and manipulation of the very people upon whom the business depends for its life; the customers. It seems difficult to find what has been called "Shaker values." By that I mean businesses that enjoy the creation of their products or services more than stacking up wealth. That is one reason why I favor small, local businesses. I look for people for who are happy to make enough to feed their family, put a roof over their heads, send the kids to college and survive as a business, just so long as they can keep making what they make or doing what they do.

I have strayed from my story: Does economic behavior make a difference in God's eyes? The Bible is replete with prophets condemning the greedy, the dishonest and the manipulative. In Isaiah 58 God says He will not listen to the prayers of otherwise pious people who cheat their workers and play unfair games in the marketplace. It does not matter if they fast and lay prostrate before Him adorned in their religious humility, God will not listen to their prayers because they do not practice economic and social justice. Unless he repents of his sins and allows God to transform his character, there is no room for Gordon Gecko in the New Earth.

How to Change the World

How does Christianity impact today's world and make significant changes? This is the focus of the new book from James D. Hunter (professor of religion and culture at the University of Virginia), To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy & Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World (2010, Oxford). He summarizes the history of three contemporary Christian movements:

1. The Christian Right who are motivated by a religious vision of the right ordering of society and "see modern history as a decline from order to disorder."
2. The Christian Left who are driven by compassionate concern for the marginalized and impoverished and see today's society as deformed by social injustice.
3. The "neo-Anabaptists" who believe that the New Testament calls the followers of Jesus to a life ordered around Christian community, not cultural dominance, and are equally dismayed by unrestrained tolerance of the Christian Left and the unrestrained free market advocated by the Christian Right.

The Christian Right has become the most visible and numerous of these three approaches to changing the world, but because of its aggressive, confrontational tactics and widespread cultural naivete has not realized many of its goals. The Christian Left is much smaller in numbers but more influential because of its adept approach to social change, yet it may have been more completely co-opted by its political allies in the Democratic party. The "neo-Anabaptists" are the fewest in number and almost invisible, yet increasingly influential. (See The Politics of Jesusby John Howard Yoder.)

Hunter points out the facts well known to sociologists: massive rallies, angry speeches, and maverick figures do not make much real change in any society. The Civil Rights Movement was able to pass landmark legislation ending Jim Crow only because quiet allies in the Kennedy-Johnson administration and the Congress, as well as universities, research centers, labor unions and established churches joined in. Change in America and any other truly democratic society becomes a reality as new ideas become widely adopted among the professional class and institutional middle management.

Evangelical Christianity has largely failed to take this reality into consideration. They have failed to make a compelling argument to the educated elite about abortion, gay marriage, stem cell research, etc. And they have been inconsistent in applying the same Bible ethics to capital punishment, war, health care and immigration. (Unlike Catholic social teachings.)

Hunter's book could be seen as a road map for the Christian Right to take advantage of its more dominant position and define the new politically correct ways of thinking. Will they take it?

[I confess, I am turned off by the politics of both the Christian Right and the Christian Left and tend to see myself among the "neo-Anabaptists" where my spiritual heritage comes from.]

The Demographics of 5-year-olds

It is a routine Census Bureau release during the week that schools start in many places across America. Why would major newspapers make it front page news? Because it is a harbinger of the American future. Just a little over half (53 percent) of these children are White. Nearly half are "minorities," and we are soon going to have find a different word since all ethnic groups will soon be minorities in the way demographers use that term. One in four are Hispanic. One in eight are Black. The Asian segment has increased by a quarter in the last decade and the multiethnic segment by a third. These children will graduate from high school in 2024 and Whites will be a minority in the adult America they will live in.

This is why you hear so much reactionary hysteria these days. This is why negative attitudes about immigration have become so widespread, despite the fact that 100% of White Americans are the descendants of immigrants, most of whom arrived here without legal papers. It is really about ethnicity, not economics or the law or any of the other propaganda terms. TV personality Glenn Beck is calling for a rally on the capital mall in Washington aimed at "restoring honor" to the country. Who was the last major politician to launch a movement with the same theme? Hint: It was during a depressed economy and a time when the nation in question had a lot of ethnic resentments. He eventually won election because too many people did not vote their conscience.

This ethnic transition is not going to be easy for America. No one can really predict how it will play out and what the unintended consequences of the political reactions will come to. It will be a real test of the values of those who think of themselves as people of faith, especially the followers of Jesus.