In a USA Today op-ed, David Gushee - professor of ethics at Mercer University - writes:
It’s no secret that a group of self-identified centrist or moderate evangelicals built a friendly relationship with Barack Obama and rejected the Christian right’s vilification of him. I am in this group, which has also included megachurch pastor Joel Hunter, evangelical lobbyist Rich Cizik, academic-activist Ron Sider and others.
This positive relationship has flowed from three factors.
First, Obama worked to establish a relationship with us by reaching out early in his run for the presidency. Second, he promised transformational leadership that could bridge longstanding gaps in the culture wars. Finally, Obama’s positions on a number of issues — such as torture, the climate, taxes, health care, Iraq and education — struck me, at least, as more consistent with broadly pro-life and pro-justice Christian values than the standard Republican alternative. (I remain convinced on that point.)
I knew from the beginning that if Obama took typical Democratic positions on abortion-related issues, this centrist evangelical friendliness toward him and his administration would be tested. I knew that during the campaign he had hewed closely to the standard Democratic pro-choice line. But his party’s platform also promised a commitment to abortion-reduction efforts, and he has echoed that language. Some of us continue to dream that he will roll out a major abortion-reduction initiative.
Such an initiative has not been offered. But what has occurred are a series of disappointingly typical Democratic abortion-related moves:
And Gushee concludes:
Christian conscience requires me to make this case even if it has no chance of prevailing in American society. And if we lose on abortion, as it appears we will lose for a long time to come, Christian conscience requires me to ask the government not to require citizens to pay for procuring services that violate their sacred beliefs.
And if we lose there, as it appears we will, Christian conscience requires me to insist that religious institutions and professionals not be required as a condition of accreditation, or employment, or contact with federal dollars, to actively facilitate or perform deeds that their conscience forbids them from doing.
And if we lose there, then the entire relationship between religious faith and American society will move into a period of profound crisis.
President Obama, we need more than lip service on these crucial issues. Bring the transformational change your promises led us to hope for.
Read the entire op-ed here.
Related posts:
- David Gushee On The Evangelical Left In Chapter 3 of his new book - The Future...
- David Gushee & Frank Page Question Sen. Obama On Sunday night, both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama...
- David Gushee & Centrist Evangelicalism, Part 1 Church-State expert Melissa Rogers has written two must read blog...
- Anti-Obama Fundamentalist Baptist Pastor Visited By U.S. Secret Service According to Mike Brooks, CNN Security Analyst, the pastor of...
- Dialoguing With David Gushee, Part 1 “Just as many Christian liberals of a previous generation...
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
I want more than lip service on ending torture (and prosecuting those who torture), ending rendition, etc. We’re closing Gitmo, but not Bagram. We are ending the term “enemy combatant,” but the pres. still claims power to detain anyone without trial. We have not fully restored Habeas Corpus.
I’d like to see an abortion reduction program, but it’s not my highest priority. I am surprised that it is Gushee’s.
Well, well, well…
Will Gushee move from the baptist left back to the center?
Who said Gushee was ever on the Left?
Read his books, he’s pretty consistent on abortion-related issues.
Yes, in past books.
But since he started working for lft-wing Baptist Bill Underwood, he has been on a mission to promote Obama. This article signals that he is beginning to see what huge mistake he made. I feel for the guy…
Past books? Try his most recent book, circa 1998. The Future of Faith in American Politics - a book that hit the shelves during his tenure at Mercer.
Gushee has been quite consistent and he’s always been concerned about a plethora of social issues that aren’t on the radar screen of those on the Baptist right.
Gushee might lean left on some issues but on other issues, like Church-State, he undoubtedly leans right. And I’m not convinced that the Evangelical Center and the Baptist Center are the same thing…
But Gushee is definitely not on the Baptist Left. On abortion, he’s been consistent and always willing to work with others - something that conservative Baptists have never been that open to…
Good for Mr. Gushee.
The ordinary voter looking at candidate Obama’s voting record, past speeches and actions knew that he was heavily pro-abortion, with no incentive to change. Has a voting record rated one of the most liberal in Congress, rarely broke ranks with left-Democrats, 100% rating of abortion-friendly groups, subject to intense pressure from those groups, never promised pro-lifers anything but talk and exploring common ground, etc.
President Obama may be a pragmatist in some areas, but on life issues he has always been consistently and reliably abortion-protectionist.
One must always parse President Obama’s words carefully. On the campaign trail he contradicted himself from venue to venue. He spoke in broad generalities, addressing both sides of issues but never really settling on a side. He always seems to leave room to do other than what he said or implied. Even now people believe that he is against cloning. He said so! No; he only said he will not permit REPRODUCTIVE cloning. That leaves therapeutic cloning wide open (where sperm and egg are mixed and allowed to develop, but destroyed for research purposes before 14 days; so-called “clone-and-kill”).
Also, Pres. Obama did not merely open federal funding for embryonic stem cell research; at the same time, he rescinded Bush’s exec. order supporting cell research that would not harm embryos. Was that necessary??
Obama hides in plain sight. But to see his ideology requires putting aside his immense likability, political talent, civility and attractive but ambivalent rhetoric. Our discernment should be sharpened now.
In the comments to David Gushee’s op-ed, two themes predominate: (1) hey fairy-tale believer theocrats, haven’t you ever heard of separation of church and state? and (2) don’t listen to Obama, watch him instead.
To: Michael W-W
From: An unborn child
I just want to be sure I understand your stand regarding my life:
You’re “less concerned” that I be tortured and killed in the womb than that–should I be born and decide as an adult to kill infidels, innocent men, women, and children, and be caught–I be waterboarded for information to prevent the slaughter of born innocents, and my life preserved?
Wow.
Actually, that book by Gushee was published in 2008, not 1998.
Gushee is nowhere near the left of anything. He and I have been friends for years. We see eye to eye on torture and human rights and women in ministry, but his view of church-state matters is too accomadationist. His view on abortion insists on confusing life with personhood–which comes from Hellenistic philosophy and not Scripture (I trace it to his Catholic upbringing).
He is too just war for me, too and he is completely closed to any rethinking of Scripture and tradition on same sex matters.
Further, when the chips are down, opposition to abortion trumps everything else for Gushee–just as it does for most conservatives. I was hoping the move to Atlanta would move him more to the Baptist center, but I am afraid he will move McAfee to the right.
Gushee’s co-writing of Kingdom Ethics with my mentor, Glen Stassen, strained my relationship with Glen because I thought that in too many places in the book, Dave’s views trumped Glen’s because the book was being published by IVP.
Only a fundamentalist could ever think that Dave Gushee was “left” anything!
Yea, that was a major typo on my part. The Future of Faith in American Politics was published in 2008 by Baylor U Press!
Irony: Before the election, David Gushee editorialized in the Baptist Standard that a “more mature” Christian vote should center on economics and American world stature, not (less mature?) cultural issues such as abortion and same sex marriage.
Those cultural issues continue to matter, even while the economic ones press to the fore.
Gushee’s conclusion concerns me. What is he asking for when he says:
Is he suggesting that no taxpayer funds be used to provide services that violate some taxpayer’s sacred beliefs? If so then, does that give those with certain beliefs veto power
over government spending? If so, is he willing to allow the sacred beliefs of religious pacifists to disallow procurement of the tools of war? Should the Department of Agriculture
stop subsidizing school lunches that serve children parts of dead animals to eat because some deeply religious people view all life, not just human, as sacred?
And at what level do these beliefs have to be held to veto public spending? Must they be ’sacred beliefs’? Are ‘deeply held beliefs’ enough to veto legislative budgets? And what of the non-religious, do their beliefs not count because, de-facto, the non-religious can’t have ’sacred beliefs’?
Or is Gushee simply suggesting some kind of opt out system. One where you can check off what parts of government spending you do not wish to be a part of and you can have your taxes rebated for goods and services that ‘violate your sacred beliefs’?
And what of
Should a newly converted Scientoligest pharmacist be allowed to keep his job in a federally funded community health clinic while he refuses to dispense and denies the existence of psychiatric drugs to depressed, bi-polar and schizophrenic patients because his conscience forbids it? Should federal funds flow to evangelical social ministries who’s conscience forbids them from not aggressively proselytizing everyone they interact with in every situation, even when providing federal funded social services?
It looks to me that Gushee is trying to find a way to trump representative democracy and the legislative process with his religious beliefs. And I’m not sure that he wants to support similar prerogatives for those who do not share his beliefs.