Speakers at an ethics conference in Nashville, Tennessee, urged Baptist church leaders to confront and clarify thorny social issues for people polarized by political debate. About 155 people from 13 states attended the regional conference sponsored by the Baptist Center for Ethics, titled “Leadership Through the Culture Wars.”
Evangelical author Tom Sine called for a radical “third-wave Christian citizenship” to correct flaws of both the right and left.
Sine said neither the right nor left take Scripture seriously, Sine said. The greatest threat to Christianity is not “secular humanism,” he added, but an “enlightened secularism” that defines “a better future largely in economic terms.”
The “real secularism” threatening American Christians consists of “materialism, individualism and consumerism,” Sine said. “We’re using a two- legged milk stool,” Sine said, by emphasizing a faith that focuses on “getting our hearts right with God” and “getting our moral lives cleaned up. God wants to define our cultural values, too,” he said.
Marv Knox, associate editor of the Baptist Standard, tracked “From Carter to Clinton,” 20 years of Baptist involvement in politics. In the 1970s, Knox said, progressives were more likely to be involved in politics than conservatives, who considered their faith “a private realm.” Now, that is reversed, and the more conservative a minister is, the more likely he is to be politically active.
Two reasons for that trend are that middle-class Americans have reacted conservatively to perceived emotional and physical threats and are appalled by what they regard as moral and spiritual decay, Knox said. “Many conservative Christians think America is going to hell in a big yellow school bus driven by a Democratic lesbian gang member who grew up to become a school teacher who makes pornographic movies and rock music on the side,” he said.
Oliver Thomas, co-author of “Finding Common Ground: A First Amendment Guide to Religion and Public Education,” described his approach of getting people on both sides to sit down and talk about the emotional issue of religion in public schools. Thomas outlined four “strategies for finding common ground.” They are:
— Agree on the ground rules. Thomas suggested all parties agree on statements such as religious liberty is an inalienable right, that all parties take responsibility for protecting all people’s rights, that schools ought to be neutral and fair, that parents and not school bureaucrats have the right to make decisions about education and that when individuals disagree they will treat each other with respect.
— Include all the stakeholders. Vocal minorities need to be included because “they’re going to get in the conversation anyway,” Thomas said. “I want them at the table, talking face to face.”
“You have to pick somebody from each group that’s represented in your community,” he said. “We have to establish a climate where people feel like they’re being listened to.”
— Work for comprehensive policies. “If you focus in on one issue, particularly one you’re already divided over, you won’t get off the ground,” he said. “If you pick one hot-button issue, there will be a winner and a loser and your community will be worse off than when it began.”
— Be proactive. “Don’t sit back and think, ‘Hey, we’ve never had a problem in my community.’ If you haven’t had a problem, you will,” Thomas said. “But if you want to have a real problem, wait until someone files a lawsuit or someone leaks a front- page story to the newspaper.”
Dellanna O’Brien, executive director of Woman’s Missionary Union, said Christians should be guided by “a love ethic that causes to see what God sees, go where God goes and do what God does. The challenge of the church today is to get the salt out of the salt shaker and into the world where it belongs.” O’Brien described new WMU programs aimed at involving women in hands-on missions. One such program is “Project Help,” an annual program aimed at increasing awareness on a selected social issue.
This year’s emphasis is on AIDS. Churches and associations across the nation are sponsoring AIDS conferences using materials developed by WMU, she said. Also, funds are being collected to operate an AIDS hospice in Brazil. “Primarily the purpose is to create awareness in social issues, to give women and men some handles on how to minister in those areas and then possibly continue in those ministries after the emphasis year,” O’Brien said. She also described a pilot WMU program setting up a “Christian women’s job corps” in selected cities, designed to help women with “a hand up instead of a handout.” She said the project will be evaluated next year. After that, the WMU plans to produce materials and officially launch the program.
Nashville Tennessean columnist Dwight Lewis said “unrealized expectations on the part of blacks as well as whites” has widened the gap between the races. The 20th century has seen gains for African-Americans including a 1954 Supreme Court ruling banning “separate but equal” public schools, Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech in 1963 and the 1964 Civil Rights Act and subsequent Voting Rights Act, Lewis said.
Despite those gains, America remains “two nations separated by the color of our skin,” Lewis said. He urged pastors and church leaders to take personal responsibility for leading people to reach out across racial lines. “I think we’ve got to get to know each other,” said Lewis, an African-American. “If you think there’s too much gap between the races, why not go home as church leaders and devise some programs that bring people together?” he asked.
Bill Purcell, majority leader in the Tennessee House of Representatives, urged Baptists to help their legislators by speaking up for children. “I think we have the possibility for great good, but also the possibility for great failure in the political process as it relates to children in particular,” said Purcell, a Democrat from Nashville. Because loud partisan voices can gain the attention of legislators, misinformation is always a danger, said Purcell, a Methodist layman.
“We need your voice desperately in this debate,” he said. “In a vacuum, a few voices are quite loud. A very few voices can be believed to be a groundswell.” If churches are not heard, “then the vacuum is filled by those voices you do not believe are right,” he said.