Cafeteria Christians

House Speaker John Boehner was the prime architect of the Pope’s historic address before the joint branches of Congress. He cherished that moment, anticipating the event with the passion of his own commitment to Catholicism. His teary-eyed presence at the Pope’s words, his obvious discomfort with some of the Pope’s mandates (especially over climate change and immigration), belied that he was about to tender his resignation, not just as speaker but as Congressman representing Ohio’s 8^th district, a post he has held continuously since 1991. He told the world that he wished to avoid the upcoming battle for the speaker’s position, the potential of another government shutdown, but one has to wonder whether his commitment to the Catholic faith finally had an emotional showdown with his perceived “conservative” values as a Republican.

The Boehner resignation came shortly after the confrontation in Rowan County, Kentucky as an elected county clerk, Kim Davis, endured jail time in her refusal to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, following a U.S. Supreme Court decision recognizing such unions. Having been blasted by the local Federal District Court, Judge David Bunning, sustained in a Sixth Circuit review, Davis was unrepentant in her continued opposition to “gay marriage on religious grounds,” claiming a higher order would never let her issue such licenses against her perception of the will of God.

In a government with a rather clear separation of church and state, it is rather stunning that the government itself can be paralyzed over politicians’ relying on religious beliefs to usurp their political commitments. OK, some religious beliefs that are congruent with their desired results… but not those aspects of faith that produce a result they do not want. A rising tide of Evangelical Christians is increasingly mandating that their elected representatives do just that. Religious beliefs – over same-sex marriages, abortions, school prayer, the teaching of creationism and the use of religious symbols (almost all Christian) in and on government buildings – are now core values of the GOP Base.

But the GOP’s Evangelical Base is also demanding immigration reform rather directly targeting Latinos, seeking out new exclusionary policies including a big bad wall between the United States and Mexico (nothing on the Canadian side), the potential of mass deportations, and a rather complete rejection of taking any measures against greenhouse gasses, many denying any connection between human actions and climate change based on their Biblical interpretations.

For those whose conservative leanings are clearly anti-abortion and support a notion that “marriage can only be a sacred union between a man and a woman,” the Pope’s words were comforting and confirming of their basic tenets. But in rejecting his proselytizing admonitions about aggressively tackling climate change and greater openness to accept immigrants seeking a better life, those who are Catholics are equally rejecting their faith. Half of the GOP candidates are self-declared Catholics. To elected Catholics in Congress and to state office, these papal positions were mere “political opinions” that lacked the religious underpinnings to constitute “infallible” papal dictates that must be followed by all Catholics. But in reading the basic encyclical, you come to a very different conclusion.

For anyone who has actually read the climate change mandates of the “ENCYCLICAL LETTER LAUDATO SI’ OF THE HOLY FATHER FRANCIS ON CARE FOR OUR COMMON HOME,” the notion that the Pope’s words as being a mere political opinion is so completely off-base as to be laughable. I recommend you read his own words – all 179 pages – if you don’t think this is a religious mandate. It is thick with religious reasoning and contemplation, heavily anchored in the Bible and religious history, particularly referencing the teachings and practices of Saint Francis of Assisi. It is as clear a religious document as our Bill of Rights is a political statement.

Likewise, there is the Pope’s separate reliance on the teachings of Jesus Christ on tolerance, charity and brotherly love – hardly values relegated to Catholics, one that you might think would resonate well with Evangelicals as well – to justify a rather different treatment of immigrants than contemplated as a basic tenet of Republican doctrine. Unfortunately, the vast majority of Evangelicals in the United States prefer to limit the applicability of tolerance, charity and brotherly love to exclude minorities they do not support. Is this hypocrisy the new American way?

It gets worse for fiscal conservatives as the Pope exhorts those who place earning money above social and environmental responsibility, a charge by God to mankind, he believes. Pretty much the opposite of the GOP mandate to keep taxes and regulations on the rich, falsely-attributed “job creators” (who forgot to create meaningful jobs), minimal. In his September 25^th U.N. address, the Pope warned “an annual gathering of world leaders at the United Nations that greed is destroying the Earth's resources and aggravating poverty… ‘A selfish and boundless thirst for power and material prosperity leads both to the misuse of available natural resources and to the exclusion of the weak and disadvantaged,’ he said.” Reuters.com, September 25. This may reflect the income inequalitysolutions (income reallocation through taxation) posited by the Democrats, so they must be grinning ear-to-ear, right?

But as Catholic Democrats may get smug at these papal observations and mandates, they likewise are four-squares against the Church’s most basic positions on abortion and gay marriage. While the Pope may have moderated his position on the humanity of homosexuality, the Church has not altered its position on the bigger issues of marriage and abortion. Those toe the conservative line, very much in synch with the strong beliefs of the GOP base.

The Kennedy clan wrestled with their Catholicism and secular political positions, walking an awkward line in vastly easier political times. Today, the battles are fierce, tearing apart at our most basic values – rural conservatives, mostly white traditionalists against more urban, modern secular values with mixed ethnicity. As Speaker Boehner’s withdrawal from politics suggests, middle ground has vaporized from our political system. And with religion being shoved into our political process, Ben Carson condemning Islam as incompatible with American democracy (to the delight of many in the Base), the balancing point between a secular democracy and religious mandates may have finally tilted to irreconcilable.

The idea of picking and choosing which religious dictates and which Biblical admonitions and interpretations are God’s word apply (and which do not) – cafeteria Christianity – would seem to be the new way many Americans view their commitments to faith. For Catholics, the path is even more treacherous. Democrats who embrace same-sex marriage and abortion rights are hardly true Catholics any more than are Republicans who favor deportation, immigration walls and not accepting our responsibility for climate change.

Evangelicals who abhor Biblical mandates of tolerance, charity and brotherly love as they apply to immigrants and others, who sit in judgment of others and have no problem casting the first stone, probably should ask themselves if in fact they even are Christians. And then there are the Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Taoists, Wiccans, Muslims, etc. (even atheists) who are loyal American citizens with rights to their faiths without being forced into the values of other religious teachings.

In families, irreconcilable differences often give rise to divorce. In nations, where the parties are not even willing to mediate (the equivalent of family counselling), what do “irreconcilable differences leading to divorce” actually look like. If John Boehner cannot take this divisiveness any more, what does that say about what’s next for our country? Do elected officials have to give up their religious mandates (but not their beliefs) as a condition to accepting an official position in a secular country with a constitution that protects all citizens of all faiths, without favoring one over the other? It would seem logical that their mere acceptance of a position under the constitution would require this result.

It is not possible to separate many of the Judeo-Christian tenets that lie beneath our constitution and our very legal system from our secular government. But constitutional architect Thomas Jefferson was deeply influenced by all manner of faith and philosophy as he and his partners drafted the template for a new world, including the best parts of the Bible as well as the teachings of ancient Greek and Roman thinkers. Our country faces a crisis of secular versus religious values today that threatens whether or not the United States can actually continue as a viable United nation, or whether those factures will ultimately tear us apart. How do we restore compromise and mutual respect to allow America to continue?

I’m Peter Dekom, and what do you think we each can do to make sure the nation continues in a new and positive direction?