Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Faith in secular government
Elizabeth Strother
Recent columns
- Independent voice is silenced in merger
- TOP takes a hard knock
- Lagging on college access
- Alzheimer's drains minds and finances
From the RoundTable blog
The late Rev. Jerry Falwell's son wants to turn out the conservative vote for this fall's legislative election in Virginia, and his pitch is familiar.
Whatever you think of the governance of the Republican-controlled General Assembly, set aside your mundane concerns and focus on a higher imperative. Vote for "family values."
It's worked so well for the GOP in the past. It's so Karl Rovian.
Jonathan Falwell, who inherited the leadership of Lynchburg's Thomas Road Baptist Church from his father, is showing an interest in the political activism that once powered Jerry Falwell -- founder in 1979 of the Moral Majority -- from a pulpit in Central Virginia onto the national stage.
So far, son Jonathan's sights are set more modestly, on Virginia, where every seat in the General Assembly is up for election in November. But, like his father, he'd like to make his family values your family values -- by law. And, like religious leaders on both the political left and right, he has to try to do it without risking the tax-exempt status of his church.
Thus, according to published accounts, a Pastors for Family Values gathering in Richmond, where Falwell spoke last week, told pastors how to register voters, asked them to use their pulpits to encourage turnout at the polls, and advised them on how to engage in political advocacy without running afoul of the Internal Revenue Service.
Basically, advocate for issues, not political parties or individual candidates.
People who don't share Falwell's particular family values -- making abortions illegal, for example, and divorces more difficult -- might gnash their teeth over his attempts to galvanize the religious right in this election year.
No public morals issue like last year's anti-gay-rights marriage amendment is on the ballot to divert these voters' attention from the worldly business of governance. It's time that Virginia's electorate concentrated on the building blocks of continued prosperity -- on the transportation, education, public safety and health care systems that open opportunity not just to an elite but to everybody. Right?
Maybe. This year's Frankenstein of a transportation financing scheme has plenty of people steaming. But personal values always inform people's political choices, and for many people personal values are guided, sometimes dictated, by religious beliefs. It is folly to think it could be otherwise in a free society.
So this year, with the balance of electoral power listing ever more heavily toward fast-growing -- perhaps quickly-growing-Democratic -- Northern Virginia, Falwell is helping the Richmond-based Family Foundation spread a gospel of conservatism through the Pastors for Family Values.
The Family Foundation is careful not to endorse candidates or political parties, though it comes close. Its nonprofit Family Foundation Action grades lawmakers and produces voter guides based on candidates' positions on issues, two exercises that generally favor the Republican Party in the eyes of the foundation's constituency. But then, issues advocates and public watchdog groups of all kinds track politicians' records.
Voters uncomfortable with the Family Foundation's view of a better society need to galvanize "values voters" of their own.
The political value I hold most dear, and feel is most at risk from the demonstrated power of the religious right, is secular governance. It's the cornerstone of the religious freedom that I enjoy and that Jonathan Falwell and his followers enjoy every day.
I can hold tolerance and love of all creation as integral to the Gospel that I hear on Sundays. Other Christians can hold to the Gospel they hear. Jews can govern their inner lives by beliefs drawn from their ancient texts. Atheists can say "baloney" to us all. And so on, through every faith, old and new.
The Washington Post quoted Falwell exhorting his audience to turn out their congregations this fall to vote for candidates who "believe the Bible is the truth." I want public officeholders who believe in every individual's right to believe the Bible is the truth, or not -- depending not on the dictates of law but of their own minds and hearts.
I want to live in a nonsectarian society, governed by secular laws that draw their authority from imperfect human knowledge and experience, not religious laws based on imperfect human perceptions of the perfect will of God.
I don't expect anyone to vote contrary to their most deeply held values. But I hope that most Americans, however conservative their personal views on morals and faith, hold sacred the ideal of religious freedom.
It is what allows this religiously diverse society to live in peace, as one.
Strother is a member of The Roanoke Times editorial board.
