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Essay. Three times that I know of last year I got caught in the crossfire of America's so-called culture war by people who think they much know me better than I know myself. Three people responded to pieces I'd written be labeling me ‘liberal'—end of discussion. The epithet shut down any further thinking on their part about what I had been arguing for or against, like dragsters braking hard at the end of a quarter-mile run. (Back to Articles.)

Am I A Liberal? Confessions of an Irenic Iconoclast
by Charles Strohmer

Three times that I know of last year I got caught in the crossfire of America's so-called culture war by people who must think they know me better than I know myself. Three people responded to pieces I'd written by labeling me a "liberal"—end of discussion. Like dragsters braking hard at the end of a quarter mile run, it shut down any further thinking on their part about what I had been arguing for or against.

Fortunately I'm not Jim Wallis, the Sojourners' founder and president. Increasingly since Sojourners launched its "God is not a Republican or a Democrat" campaign last summer, which garnered more than 100,000 signatures from across the religious spectrum, being in the crossfire has become a way of life for Wallis. His recent book, God's Politics—a best-seller that challenges both the left and the right, politically and religiously—though it came across to me as leaning a bit leftward—has been carrying him around the country on book signings "disguised," he says, "as town meetings." His itinerary has also been filled every week with earnest discussions among disparate religious groups and political think tanks, as well as one-on-one conversations with leaders at the highest levels of government, e.g., George W. Bush, Tony Blair, and Hillary Clinton. The latter two, he told me recently during a phone conversation, being two of the latest. But, he quickly added, he catches flack from both sides of the political and theological divide.

On a recent conservative Christian radio program out of Los Angeles, he was labeled as a leader of the religious left because he cares about poverty. "But poverty," Wallis replied, "Is a biblical issue. It's not a left issue. There are three-thousand verses in the Bible about poverty. The first words out of Jesus, after he came into Nazareth [from the wilderness], were that the Spirit had anointed him to bring good news to the poor."

It can get quite heated, Wallis told me, recalling a speech he gave to a group of liberal Democrats. "I gave them a lot of Bible, Jesus, and faith, and a lot of them liked it. They're tired of this secular fundamentalism on the left. But then Kim Gandy, the leader of the National Organization of Women, stood up and just attacked me, saying: We don't want any kind of religion to shape our politics. And then she said: Abortion is our issue. Jim Wallis will sell us out on this issue. He wants to put out a sign that says No Jews or Gays Need Apply, Just White Aryan Christian Men. I mean, I was there," Walls said. "I heard this."

Wallis believes that Gandy's unfounded response was triggered by how receptive the crowd had been to a Christian message on poverty and the war about Iraq. "That was threatening to her. But two weeks before I was at the Heritage Foundation, on the right, and [someone] there did the same thing. He distorted what I was saying and attacked me. He said: Jim just thinks that the only answer to poverty is more federal spending. But I've written whole chapters that say the opposite to that. Then he said: Jim and his liberal friends think that we deserved bin Laden. But in my book I'm very critical of the left for not being tough enough on terrorists like bin Laden."

These are classic examples of the all too common way in which labels function as convenient ploys for intellectual mis-engagement or disengagement with important issues. They represent the widespread one-upmanship within America that militates against the civil and wise discourse across religious and political lines that should be occurring in order to reach consensus on crucial
issues.

For instance, "liberal" on the lips of some conservative Christians, if it is not labeling an enemy, has become a term of contempt. Is this grace-speech seasoned with salt? I have a hunch about how this mocking spirit got into Christian attitudes. First it worked its way into the broadcast studios within the vast and hugely popular network of politically conservative Talk Radio programs, which millions of conservative Christians listen to and absorb every day in America almost as if Jesus himself were behind the microphone. And like fire, which never says "Enough!", this mocking spirit is now applying for resident status in American Radioland's emerging political left programs, which are being funded and aired to ensure equal time for its own constituency. There is nothing redemptive, however, about a spirit that evokes exclusivist attitudes of "othering." Christians especially, of every sort, need to ask: is this an attitude consistent with the gospel?

And what is meant by "liberal"? My three responders did not say. Its use as an adjective before the word "theology," however, is dissimilar to its appearance before "democracy." That is, certain features (to be brief and general about it) surrounding the authority of Scripture and religious experience, the nature of revelation and miracles, and the purpose of the church are known as liberal theology to mark them off from how conservative theology handles those issues. "Liberal democracy" is quite another thing. That tag line, it should immediately be noted, is not a reference to the "liberal" wing of the Democratic party. Rather, liberal democracy is what America is. Representative government, constitutional law and rights, the balance of powers, individual freedoms, strong political parties, a free press, a free market economy, private associations, churches not controlled by the state..., for Americans who can answer, "Of course! Of Course! We wouldn't want to be without these!" then that is a rousing affirmation of liberal democracy.

For America is not just a "democracy." Democracies hold elections, but they may also ignore the constitutional limits on their power and deprive citizens of basic rights. These are what Fareed Zakaria calls "illiberal democracies." (Anyone wishing to understand the difference liberal and illiberal democracies would be well-informed by reading Zakaria's timely and important book The Future of Freedom.) So there seems to be a great deal, indeed, "liberal" that conservatives themselves would not only rue the loss of but also be willing to die for, and have died for on many battlefields. Further, where the freedoms and limits of liberal democracy are lacking in any democracy, or not adhered to, voting citizens could produce theocracies, which is what some political scientists fear in countries where radical Islam keeps gaining adherents.

Here it is worth pausing to note the words of David Walsh, a professor of politics at the Catholic University of America. Commenting on just one characteristic of the liberal democratic tradition, "rights," Walsh writes: "If we cannot explain to ourselves why a liberal order of rights is worth preserving, it will not be possible for us to persuade ourselves and our children to retain it much longer" (from his essay in Eerdman's Public Morality, Civic Virtue and the Problem of Modern Liberalism).

My gripe with the political and religious scene in America, and their media, is that it is driven by left-right polemics, which in our day has inflated the terms "liberal" and "conservative" far beyond their appreciative usages. They now serve as all-encompassing dismissal words, terms that say it all, designations justifying deafness to the other. No longer is it necessary to listen. "He's a conservative." "She's a liberal." Read: "I don't need to have the slightest concern for what she says. I'm right. She's a wacko. I've got the corner on the truth." Really? You have all the answers? I thought that was the purview of Someone else?

As for my three responders, I assume that when they heard certain points being made in what I had written, they assumed "liberal," which immediately red-flagged me in their minds: they decided that they knew where I was coming from, and so to reject it without further consideration. As a friend told me, "We're seeing a return of the old shibboleth mentality. If you have good relations with ‘the wrong tribe' you will be cut down at the bridge."

This attitude is costing America, big time—politically, religiously, socially, internationally. Fortunately, many Christians are wising up. And they are finding audiences hungry for their difference. There's Wallis's considerable influence (see his updates on sojo.org to get a feel for the growing number of people saying Amen to his approach). Another is Bruce McLaren, a senior leader in the so-called emerging church movement, who for years has been stimulating Christians to think with a fresh orthodoxy that can affirm points of view across a wide spectrum of religious and political thought. His recent book in this context, A Generous Orthodoxy, has gained widespread appeal. And, blessedly, one doesn't need to agree with everything these "third-way" representatives say in order to be counted as a kindred soul. In fact, they wouldn't want you to become a "Dittohead."

Significant others are taking notice, and some seem to be admiring. I've heard Wallis on two of American's top secular interview programs, NPR radio's "Fresh Air" and PBS televisions's "Charlie Rose." On both, the interviews progressed, each host seemed to get honestly interested in what Wallis was saying precisely because it was a well-thought-out rationale that wasn't polemical, wasn't the clichés of left or right, but an attempt to carve out a third-way approach on important issues. What seemed to fascinate both hosts was that here was an overt Christian point of view that could sensibly critique both political or religious sides.

Others are even applauding. Certainly New York Times op-ed columnist David Brooks is. He has identified a number of key Christians who are "trying to step out of the culture war so that they can accomplish more." Last year, Brooks, who's Jewish, chastised heavyweight media giants (in one column Tim Russert of "Meet the Press") as being a source for distorting American Evangelical Christianity. "There is a world of difference," Brooks wrote in his column, "between real- life people of faith and the made-for-TV, Elmer Gantry-style blowhards who are selected to represent them.... Meanwhile people like John Stott, who are actually important, get ignored.... If evangelicals could elect a pope, Stott is the person they would likely choose." He then spent the rest of that November 30 column praising Stott and commending him as a "humble," "self- critical," and "embracing" Evangelical who ought to be a go-to person for the media and for politicians, especially Democrats, who really want to understand that faith, as opposed to, he concluded, a Jerry Falwell.

In his May 26 column of this year, he argued that liberals and conservatives should join forces in fighting, for instance, a war on poverty instead of a culture war. Indeed, he already sees them working together. He cites Bono, "a serious if nonsectarian Christian," who is "at the nexus of a vast alliance between socially conservative evangelicals and socially liberal N.G.O.'s.... I see [the evangelical community] in the midst of a transformation— branching out beyond traditional issues of abortion and gay marriages, and getting more involved in programs to help the needy. I see Rick Warren, who through his new Peace initiative is sending thousands of people to Rwanda and other African nations to fight poverty and disease. I see Chuck Colson deeply involved in Sudan.... Most of all, I see a new sort of evangelical leader emerging." It is leaders like these, he concludes, who will provide new ways and opportunities for "millions of evangelicals" who are "embarrassed by the people held up by the news media as their spokesmen."

But Brooks is not naive. He recognizes that serious differences over life issues are not going to go away. Nevertheless, "more liberals and evangelicals are realizing that you don't have to convert people; sometimes you can just work with them. The world is suddenly crowded with people like Rick Warren and Bono who are trying to step out of the logic of the culture war so that they can accomplish more in the poverty war."

Christians need to ask: isn't this way ahead at least part of what the gospel of Jesus is all about? I don't know what fresh, fleshed-out gospel-shaped influences on many of our domestic ills and international relations would look like; but I'm trying to get there, discovering that it takes concerted experimentation and the resultant misunderstandings of an ideologically entrenched status quo who are prone to shut down just when they ought to be refueling for a give-and-take of ideas alongside the "other."

I'm increasingly distressed because I can no longer buy into much of what political and religious conservatism and liberalism have on offer. It's not that both are in my mind complete write-offs; yet. The contributions each has made to historical and contemporary America are many and varied, and who knows what their futures will hold out to the nation. Meantime, our changed, post-9/11 world presents us with landscapes of domestic and international sharp curves and turning points that I don't see conservatism or liberalism very able to negotiate, unless they themselves "get with it." If that puts these isms near their "sell by" date, then let today's buyers beware. In an insightful piece of writing about what he calls "the prophetic canon" of the Old Testament, scholar Walter Brueggmann, was writing apropos of our day when he said:

    "The prophets appear when the old consensus is at the brink of     failure. They assert that the old structures of human reason and human management are obsolete because of the new things wrought by God.... [The prophets] did not accept the presumptive world of the dominant culture. They refused to have their knowledge or perception or imagination limited or controlled by such social constraints.... The imaginations of the prophets left them open to experiences, discernments, and disruptions that were denied in principle by convention.... [Their task is to] create a new arena for Israel's imagination and derivatively for Israel's political actions. They seek to form an alternative context for humanness by creating a different presumptive world which is bouyed by different promises, served by different resources, sobered by different threats, and which permits different decisions. That is the visible result of the liberated imagination which goes public in Israel.... It [therefore] becomes clear that the intent of the prophetic canon is essentially to disrupt the old consensus. The community had probed, shaped and stabilized the precarious disclosure from the tradition. Over a period of time even the radical revelation [at Sinai] of the tradition became fixed and settled and administered. It became stable enough that any adult knew the right answer to the question of a child. There is a quality of 'you have heard it said of old.' The problem is that what was said of old had become settled formula to define and legitimate a closed, settled world. So the Torah, taken by itself, had its radicality domesticated. Therefore there was need for an explosive, disruptive, 'But I say unto you" that both derived from and moved against the old tradition'." (The Creative Word, his emphases.)

What is it going to take to achieve that kind of "prophetic" leadership today? I believe, among many other things, that it is going to mean being like Jesus among curious crowds, who responded, "What manner of teaching is this?" It is easier to be numbered among the backslapping camaraderie of ologies and isms that, knowing everything, are basking in the light of their own glory singing congratulatory hymns to their exalted selves for being right and dismissing as clueless voices those who seek to offer individuals, society, and the world a future substantially better than the present. (From Openings 21, Jul-Oct, 05. Edited for the Web. Published also online at OldSpeak.)

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