In keeping with past practice, we at the Outlook have not prepared a voters’ guide.
We know that our readers in particular and Christians in general are listening to the candidates for signals that their election will enhance the moral, ethical and peacemaking actions of their city, district, state and nation.
We respect the fact that different Christians are listening for different defining signals — whether they be the kind that honor a woman’s right to choose or a preborn child’s right to life; protect traditional marriage or defend adults’ right to consecrate covenant love with whomever they wish; promote more oversight or less government control; seek peace through deterrence or through disarmament.
Our striving to live by godly principles amid this complex world makes it difficult to discern a ray of clarity amid a fog of ambiguity.
So, no, we’re not offering a voters’ guide.
But we are offering a voters’ questionnaire of sorts. We think it our duty to ask some tough questions, and to do so not in partisan ways, nor simply to claim to know the higher road of values that leads away from other, lower roads. Rather, we think it simply behooves us to invite thinking on topics that get little front-page coverage or careful analysis. We do want to encourage Christian thinking about a future built on ages-old faith priorities and practices.
To help us do this, we invite renewed reflection on the civil theology of Reinhold Niebuhr — the great theologian-ethicist for a nation in conflict. We reflect on the work of our own General Assembly as it asked, “What can Presbyterians do?” … to foster reconciliation and peace in the Middle East. And we consider proactive efforts at justice being carried out not in ballot boxes but in church outreach programs.
And, for this moment, we want to urge a recovery of table fellowship. Yes, breaking bread and drinking from the common cup around the dinner table.
In a 2007 Outlook interview, Sens. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., and Bill Nelson, D-Fla., told us how the loss of that table fellowship had caused civility to plummet in our nation’s capital. Back in the mid-1990s, Congress opted to trim its weekly meeting schedule from noon-Mondays-till-noon-Fridays to morning-Tuesdays-till-evening-Thursdays so that legislators could spend more time in their districts. The incumbents could now stump for votes and contributions year-round.
But the schedule change had the unintended consequence of canceling a weekly cycle of bipartisan Monday-evening dinners in legislators’ homes, with spouses and even children. In fact, the shorter workweek prompted some spouses and children to live year-round in their district-based home, visiting D.C. only on occasion. Cross-partisan friendships and shared outreach efforts also disappeared. The remaining mealtimes amid the three scheduled workdays turned into nothing but caucus meetings among partisans and aligned lobbyists.
Both senators lamented the loss of camaraderie and the attendant end to negotiation and compromise across the aisle.
The schedule has been stretched a bit since the 90s, but friendships remain strained. As another (former) Florida senator, Bob Graham, put it, Congress has been relegated to playing end-zone politics.
“I am a centrist,” said Graham, a Democrat. “I believe that you don’t set policy from the end zones; you set policy from the 50-yard line and build out until you have a majority.”
Here’s a thought: Given that some candidates have been cajoled into making pre-election vows to fight for one kind of legislation or another, I wonder if all of them — on both sides of the aisle — might also vow that whichever ones wind up in the House or Senate minority or the party that doesn’t win the White House will nonetheless share in the governance of the nation. That is, they will resolutely refuse to obfuscate, filibuster or work simply to dismantle the tenure of others elected to office.
Hard to imagine, isn’t it? But if any candidate listed on your ballot won’t make such a vow, then take this guidance from the Outlook editor: Don’t vote for them.
—JHH
