Reflections on Faith and American Politics 2008

Personal Note: My last post was intended to help me gauge whether or not to continue this endeavor. While I received very little feedback online, I will continue on for at least a while.

The last act of the American presidential contest for 2008 is underway. The major players are no longer the 'presemptive' nominees; the ratification of Barack Obama and John McCain by their respective parties took place. Each has selected their running mate, and, now, the game is afoot.

Much of the buzz from the GOP convention revolved around the selection of Sarah Palin, Governor of Alaska, as the Vice-Presidential nominee. Experts from the right and the left have dealt with her religious background. The more conservative pundits are lavish in their praise of her religiosity; the more liberal ones issue warnings. While Governor Palin did not mention her religious views during her acceptance speech, it still seems that her religius principles and impulses will become a campaign issue, since she has spoken before of them.

Before I would address anything about Governor Palin, I want to go back to the Saddleback Valley Candidate Forum to consider one Q&A from it. Before that, however, a FULL DISCOSURE statement is in order. First, I have a lot of respect for Rick Warren and his wife for using much of the profits from his wildly successful book to help fund needful projects in third-world countries. Second, the fact that Reverend Warren acknowledges a broader agenda for people of faith beyond one or two hot button issues is a good thing. That said, I am not now, nor have I ever been, a fan of his book or his politics. Further, I regret the decision of both candidates to appear in that forum without making a similar appearance in a mainline Protestant church, a Catholic Church, a Jewish synagogue, a Buddhist Temple, and a Muslim masjid. This seems to put a great deal of power in the hands of one segment of American people of faith. Finally, I think I agree with an op-ed piece on the Saddleback Forum written by Martin Marty that appeared in the Washington Post in which Dr. Marty wrote, "It is almost impossible to stage events with a focus like this without falling into the trap of 'using' God." It seemed to me that the forum was designed to use God politically.

Now, on to the point.

During the forum Rick Warren asked: Does evil exist? And if it does, do we ignore it? Do we negotiate with it? Do we contain it? Do we defeat it?

Barack Obama's answer: Evil does exist. I mean, I think we see evil all the time. We see evil in Darfur. We see evil, sadly, on the streets of our cities. We see evil in parents who viciously abuse their children. I think it has to be confronted. It has to be confronted squarely, and one of the things that I strongly believe is that, now, we are not going to, as individuals, be able to erase evil from the world. That is God's task, but we can be soldiers in that process, and we can confront it when we see it. Now, the one thing that I think is very important is for to us have some humility in how we approach the issue of confronting evil, because a lot of evil's been perpetrated based on the claim that we were trying to confront evil. [WARREN: In the name of good.] In the name of good, and I think, you know, one thing that's very important is having some humility in recognizing that just because we think that our intentions are good, doesn't always mean that we're going to be doing good.

John McCain's answer: Defeat it. A couple of points. One, if I'm president of the United States, my friends, if I have to follow him to the gates of hell, I will get bin Laden and bring him to justice. I will do that. And I know how to do that. I will get that done. (APPLAUSE). No one, no one should be allowed to take thousands of American — innocent American lives. Of course, evil must be defeated. My friends, we are facing the transcendent challenge of the 21st century — radical Islamic extremism. Not long ago in Baghdad, al Qaeda took two young women who were mentally disabled, and put suicide vests on them, sent them into a marketplace and, by remote control, detonated those suicide vests. If that isn't evil, you have to tell me what is. And we're going to defeat this evil. And the central battleground according to David Petraeus and Osama bin Laden is the battle, is Baghdad, Mosul, Basra and Iraq and we are winning and succeeding and our troops will come home with honor and with victory and not in defeat. And that's what's happening. And we have — and we face this threat throughout the world. It's not just in Iraq. It's not just in Afghanistan. Our intelligence people tell us al Qaeda continues to try to establish cells here in the United States of America. My friends, we must face this challenge. We can face this challenge. And we must totally defeat it, and we're in a long struggle. But when I'm around, the young men and women who are serving this nation in uniform, I have no doubt, none.

I have always understood evil as a theological category. I have asked students in classes how they differentiate between something that is very, very bad and something that is evil. They have trouble responding to that and with good reason. That theological component comes in, and the students have difficulty in dealing with it. Typically, some act is seen as evil because of its scale. If a person kills one person, we know that is a bad thing, but we do not typically call the murderer 'evil'. A person kills 6 million people, and we call him evil.

Did you notice the differences in the responses of the two candidates to the question. Senator Obama recognized that evil occurs in many different ways in many different places - in Darfur, on the streets of our cities, and when parents abuse children. Yet, he recognizes that this is part of the human condition and that, as humans, we cannot presume to have the final answer to evil for that is God's province. Recognizing that does not excuse us from trying to right wrongs as we find them.

Senator McCain, on the other hand, identified one, and only one, source or example of evil in the world today - radical Islamic extremism, especially as embodied in Osama bin Laden. Further, he is confident that we - being the American people and specifically the American military - can face the challenge and defeat the evil.

While you may define evil as narrowly as Senator McCain does, I do not. I see evil impulses at work in human beings in myriad ways around the world. It is naive to think that, if bin Laden could be found and tried for his part in atrocities around the world, evil will be defeated and eliminated. Senator McCain may have scored points with the audience at Saddleback Valley with his answer as evidenced by the applause, but he failed miserably, in my opinion, in giving a thoughtful and reasoned answer to the question and in addressing all of the other instances of evil and what he would do to address them.