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Miscellaneous Voices

Mainstream Christians--Unite!

By Rev. James W. Watkins
December, 1998

When I began my ministry 28 years ago, Christianity was defined by the major denominational churches and by pastors in pulpits every Sunday morning. Today, this Christian mainstream is becoming marginalized as the Religious Right successfully redefines Christianity. In this redefinition, faithful Christianity is reduced to little more than hard right political activism.

Over the last two decades, the Religious Right has bypassed the church establishment, seizing the floor and setting the public agenda for American Christianity. It has done so through a sophisticated use of the media. Regular radio and television programming steadily repeat their message. A cadre of print writers regularly circulate stories unfavorable to mainstream Christian denominations. Their rumor mill promotes a number of myths all calculated to inflame public opinion. They have rewritten American history to sound as if our Founding Fathers were theocratic fundamentalists. Small, but effective, local groups of workers provide manpower to elect their candidates.

The Religious Right has been so effective with its propaganda that mainstream Christians have become somewhat demoralized. Meanwhile, a great number of secular Americans no longer realize that the vast traditional Christian mainstream still exists and is easily definable.

Mainstream Christians believe that persons of religious faith have a responsibility to be involved in political life, but do not believe that it is proper to use elected positions to advance the office holder's particular sectarian religious beliefs. Most Christians see this as the use of government to "establish" a sectarian interpretation of religion. This is generally unfair and not in keeping with the spirit of democratic pluralism.

The Religious Right is fond of saying, "We don't want to dominate; we just want to participate." One has only to view the meetings of the public bodies that have been targeted for Religious Right takeover to observe how their partisans either dominate or slow the work of a public board to a crawl. Their main interest is not the public's business but the advancement of their sectarian religious belief system. It is this type of "Christian" office holder that mainstream Christians call "divisive." We are happy to see them recalled or defeated at the polls.

Mainstream Christians question the theological depth of the Religious Right. We do not believe that the Kingdom of God is brought about by the electoral process. Christianity is about the majesty and goodness of a God whose unmerited love is poured out upon all humankind. It is about peace, love, joy; about tearing down the walls that separate us; about learning to trust each other; and trying to build a better, gentler and saner world. God's reign in human lives is not brought about by government of any sort or by the particular stands of politicians in any election. God's Kingdom comes through an individual's acknowledgment of their need and an individual's personal acceptance of God's loving authority in their lives. All this is proclaimed by the church-never the government. The Religious Right has forgotten something that most Christians know well: that one can have a variety of political, social, economic, and theological views and still be devoutly religious.

What we see with the Religious Right is not Christian values being introduced into the public debate, but intolerance, paranoia, anger, hostility, innuendo, hysteria, attack videos, smear tactics, political myths, and rumor-mongering, all in the name of Christianity. We see the Religious Right crassly using the Christian Faith as they wrap Christian language around their politics, and then call any disagreement with their politics an attack on the Christian faith.

Mainstream Christians are not comfortable with the manic spirit of the Religious Right. The Religious Right is a political reaction to the disorientation that comes from the rapid pace of social change. This disorientation can generate a fearful depression alternating with manic activity. This manic-depressive spirit generates a need for the security of religious certitude. As their world view intensifies, it distorts and dialogue becomes more difficult. Debate becomes a shallow exchange of one liners. As they meet resistance from the rest of society, their religious certitude easily crosses the line into fanaticism, producing the tragic incidents of violence already perpetrated by the movement's most extreme factions.

History teaches us that every age produces some serious perversion of traditional religious faith. From the perspective of mainstream Christians, our age has produced the Religious Right.

Rev. James W. Watkins has been pastor of Old South Church, United Church of Christ, Kirtland, OH, since November of 1993. Over a 28-year ministerial career, Rev. Watkins has been pastor of six churches. In addition to his pastoral work, Rev. Watkins is an author, educator, and community activist.