A NETWORK FOR RENEWAL
On May 18, after the Christian Coalition released its Contract
With the American Family, NPR's Alex Chadwick asked the executive
director of the Christian Coalition, Ralph Reed, what his organization
hoped to accomplish over the next five to 10 years. Reed replied,
"What we aspire to be is a permanent fixture on the American
political landscape for people of faith, just as the Chamber of
Commerce is for business, or just as the AFL-CIO is for union
workers, or just as the Veterans of Foreign Wars are for veterans."
Then Reed defined what he meant by "people of faith"
as "those with devout faith, those who have sought to elevate
a sense of civility and a sense of values in our society, those
who attend church or synagogue and who testify to a religious
commitment." That's a pretty big group. It represents most
people I know. Reed says he desires to give us all a "voice
in government." The problem is that many people who fall
into Mr. Reed's definition of "people of faith" don't
want to be politically represented by the Christian Coalition
or the Religious Right.
Out of that concern, a network representing alternative voices
to the Religious Right began to form several months ago. More
than 100 Christian leaders from a diversity of traditions joined
in a call titled "The Cry for Renewal" that sends a
clear message to the nation's media and political leaders: Let
other voices be heard.
On Tuesday, May 23, a delegation representing that broad group
gathered in Washington, D.C., to meet with the press and the political
leadership of both the Democratic and Republican parties. The
group was led by evangelical Christian leaders to correct the
media-created public impression of a monolithic right-wing evangelical
juggernaut. There was a wonderful and complementary unity in our
voices, and together the message was very clear.
Many who spoke have been doing the things we testified to long
before the Religious Right grabbed the nation's microphones. Ron
Sider of Evangelicals for Social Action, was there, and he has
probably done more to promote evangelical social concern than
anyone else. So was Tony Campolo, the popular evangelist who believes
people are converted to Jesus Christ in order to make a difference
in this world, and not just to prepare for the next one. Eastern
College president Roberta Hestenes and InterVarsity's Steve Hayner
represented the concerns of a new generation of evangelical leaders,
and the Reformed Church in America's new general secretary, Wes
Granberg-Michaelson, showed how a new generation of mainline Protestant
leaders is anxious to build bridges across old chasms.
James Forbes, senior pastor of Riverside Church in New York City,
brought the poetic and pentecostal power of the black churches,
while Eugene Rivers and Ray Hammond from Boston's Ten Point Coalition
carried that authentic message from the streets. Margaret Cafferty,
executive director of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious,
voiced the conviction of 80,000 Catholic women religious who teach
the children, run the soup kitchens, and bind up the wounds of
those who suffer from callous public policies. And Jim Dunn of
the Baptist Joint Committee explained in his slow Southern drawl
why he "gets irritated" when right-wing Christians claim
to speak for born-again Texas Baptists like himself.
It was a great day and the phone hasn't stopped ringing since.
The press coverage was extensive and fair. So far, stories have
appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post,
The Washington Times, the Los Angeles Times, The
Boston Globe, The Atlanta Constitution, USA Today,
The Christian Science Monitor, The Dallas Morning
News, The Phoenix Gazette, The Charleston Daily
Mail, The San Francisco Chronicle, The New Orleans
Times-Picayune, and U.S. News and World Report, just
to name a few. Syndicated stories in the Associated Press, Knight
Ridder, and Newhouse News carried the message to hundreds of smaller
town newspapers around the country.
National Public Radio's Morning Edition carried the story
and covered it throughout the day. NPR's Fresh Air, ABC
radio, CBS radio, AP radio, CNN radio, UPI radio, Wisconsin Public
Radio, and scores of other interview and talk radio shows, both
secular and Christian, carried discussions on religion and politics
in the days following. NBC Nightly News and CNN carried
stories, and more extensive TV follow-up coverage was planned
for the next several weeks by all the major networks.
THE MEETINGS our delegation had with both Republican and Democratic
political leaders were much more substantive than we expected.
We said that religious conviction must not be manipulated for
partisan purposes, and that we seek an honest dialogue with political
leaders about holding the process more accountable to moral values.
We pushed Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and House Majority
Leader Dick Armey on their lack of alternative strategies and
resources for local communities in the face of massive social
cutting at the federal level. We pressed House Minority Leader
Dick Gephardt and his congressional colleagues on the need for
a new approach at the community level beyond just defending current
social programs. And we got into a very good discussion with Sen.
Bill Bradley about the need to reinvigorate the "civil society"
with new public-private partnerships. All day we spoke of the
need for what I had called at our press conference a "new
politics of civility, compassion, and community."
Gingrich was both challenged and interested. He asked for a continuing
dialogue and offered a more substantial, two-hour discussion this
summer. Gephardt wants the same thing and Bradley wants to convene
a dialogue with several senators on what it would mean to create
new approaches for rebuilding local neighborhoods around the country.
The hunger and need for a new political conversation beyond liberal
and conservative, Left and Right, was apparent in all of our meetings.
The White House asked for a meeting a week later, also on the
subject of politics and values.
We were disappointed that Ralph Reed of the Christian Coalition
was the only person who turned down our invitation for a meeting,
because our group sincerely wants a more civil dialogue between
Christians on these matters, after so much divisive and polarizing
religious political talk. Since May 23, the Christian Coalition
has been pressed by the media and others to respond to this broad
and significant group of church leaders offering an alternative
voice to the Christian Right.
Christian Coalition leaders are now being much more careful to
say who they speak for and who they don't. They are claiming now
to be bipartisan ("We work with both political parties").
And they are being challenged heavily on their silence on issues
of justice for the poor and their lack of involvement and representation
of African Americans, after such a strong witness from black and
white clergy who spent the whole day defending those whom Jesus
called "the least of these" from political assaults.
WE WANTED to accomplish three things. First, we hoped to raise
up a clear, public, and visible alternative voice to the Religious
Right. That finally happened. For the first time, the press got
it: They were truthful and honest in their coverage, they didn't
write us off as "liberal left" groups, and they promised
to cover the wide range of voices more faithfully on politics,
morality, and religion. Also, the political leaders on both sides
of the aisle got it too. Republican and Democratic members of
Congress said they welcomed our voice as new and fresh and were
glad that we are now in the mix.
Second, we wanted to speak to the possibility and necessity of
a new kind of politics-a community-based, values-centered, and
solution-oriented approach that goes beyond the old categories
of liberal and conservative. The press picked up some of that,
and the political leaders understood what we were saying. Their
desire for more dialogue indicates their interest.
Finally, we wanted to bring together a new network of spiritual
and social concern across the life of the churches. We succeeded
in doing that with the widest coalition that people have seen
for some time. "The Cry for Renewal" brought together
conservative evangelicals and pentecostals, black church leaders,
Catholic bishops and women religious, and the heads of most of
the Protestant churches. As Wes Granberg-Michaelson said at the
press conference, "This is a real Christian coalition."
Representatives of the Renewal network met together at the end
of the day to plan the continuing dialogue with political leaders,
and to discuss the possibility of a fall retreat for all the statement
signers to talk about next steps. We also committed ourselves
to foster a "progressive evangelical" presence at national
Christian gatherings, to work to encourage a new religious student
movement of volunteers for the nation's cities, and to stimulate
and support the kind of community-based politics that we were
advocating all day. Many feel it is time to mobilize our own constituencies.
We agree with the Religious Right that the crisis we face is a
spiritual one. Most of the social and political issues we face
have a moral core. That is why the solutions of partisan politics
won't be enough. We also said in Washington that the alternative
to the Religious Right is not the Religious Left. It's time to
transcend the old polarities of our public life. It's time to
call for an ideological cease-fire for the sake of our children.
We need something deeper now-a politics more prophetic than partisan
and more spiritual than ideological.
Like the prophet Nehemiah, we stand ready to help "rebuild
the wall" (Nehemiah 2:17) that has crumbled in so many of
our communities. But for that to work, the political will, moral
resolve, and human and economic resources must be there to do
the job. No one from the private or public sector can be allowed
to opt out. In Washington, on a sunny spring day, we said, "Let
the building begin."
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