How A Campaign Season Can Suddenly Transform Politics And Religion Into Strange Bedfellows by Doug Wrenn

From Polarization To Prostitution: How A Campaign Season Can Suddenly Transform Politics And Religion Into Strange Bedfellows

By Doug Wrenn

November 12, 2007

"It has been said that politics is the second oldest profession. I have learned that it bears a striking resemblance to the first."

(Ronald Reagan)

During a meeting about an unrelated matter, my pastor and I digressed into a sidebar discussion about the impact of the September 11th attacks on matters of faith. I commented that shortly after our national tragedy occurred, churches enjoyed a sudden, albeit short-lived surge in attendance on Sunday mornings. "That is not faith," my pastor replied, as he shook his head, lowered his eyes, gritted his teeth and pursed his lips in conspicuous chagrin, adding, "Only coming to church when you're scared, that's not true faith." Perhaps not, but as I responded to his observation, despite the possibly shallow motivation of the formerly fallen away flock, getting them back into the pews is still a step in the right direction, and certainly better than the alternative. Ask almost any seasoned combat veteran, and he will tell you that many an atheist has suddenly found faith in a foxhole.

In the movie, "The Presidio," a depressed Army Colonel, played by Sean Connery gets drunk on his rooftop one night and confides to his retired Army buddy, played by the late Jack Warden, that he believes many ungrateful citizens view the military as a big, vicious watchdog. When the owner is asleep in his bed late at night, he is grateful to have man's best friend guarding the premises when he hears a strange noise outside, yet when his friends come over, he is embarrassed, wraps the dog on the snout with a rolled up newspaper, and locks him up out of sight until he is needed again. So it is with politicians and religion, and sadly in some cases, some religious leaders with politics, and for reasons far more shallow than a sudden and desperate, fear-driven epiphany regarding one's own precarious, but previously ignored chance of salvation.

Liberal hedonistic secularists, like so many who now occupy the newly radicalized Democrat Party, love to use the word "hypocrite," and have even mastered the art of doing so while their noses continue to point north and their fingers point to the most recently fallen conservative Republican or Evangelical Christian, caught up in the tryst du' jour. What these misguided miscreants often fail to realize is that all of us are fallible and all of us are sinners. To break it down into the basic, adversarial terms that they so love, the real difference between "us" and "them" is that despite our occasional failures and mortal character shortcomings, we really do believe the same values and principles we preach and try to practice, and that the self gratification crowd to our left vehemently opposes. Liberals so bristle at being judged, not just because they also succumb to such desires, but also because they aggressively seek to fulfill them and even advocate for their protection. Principled conservatives and Christians who succumb to sin are not hypocrites, as long as they oppose the sin itself and acknowledge that they have fallen, and have done so more out of personal weakness than premeditated will.

Once the terms and boundaries have been defined and clarified, true hypocrisy is much easier to spot, and yes, it does exist across partisan, ideological and even religious and secular lines. As time marches on and our cultural standards erode, crumble, and fall down, the number of conspicuous examples sadly only seems to grow.

Before the passing of the late Rev. Jerry Falwell, Presidential wannabe, Senator John McCain made nice-nice with the afore mentioned "agent of intolerance" and even showed up at a photo-op, uh... I mean a commencement ceremony at the Rev's Liberty University.

Then President Bill Clinton made oh-so sure that his Bible was present and highly visible when he was filmed exiting Sunday morning mass, kind of like how his chuckle suddenly turned into a crocodile tear at the televised funeral of the late Commerce Secretary, Ron Brown. Clinton never did share that joke with the rest of the class.

Connecticut Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro seems to be ever busy petitioning whenever Catholics and Democrats are invoked in the same sentence, once when many questioned how then presidential candidate, Senator John Kerry could receive Holy Communion as a Catholic who openly advocated for abortion (strictly forbidden according to Canon Law), and once again recently when Rosa and her convoluted Catholic Congressional cronies drew up a proclamation of their own personalized version of Catholic values. I guess that must be the Gospel according to Rosa, or "The Newer Testament." "Vatican II," meet "Washington III." Whatever.

The so-called Christian Coalition, founded in 1989 by Pat Robertson, and still led by him in 2000, endorsed George W. Bush, coincidentally the favorite to win (wink, wink, nod, nod) for President then. Bush said little if anything about pro-life and family views back then and was clearly far less zealous on those topics as less favorable Republican candidates such as John Ashcroft, Bob Smith, Gary Bauer, Alan Keyes and Howard Phillips of the Constitution Party. I twice wrote to the Christian Coalition, asking why that decision to endorse Bush was made. Both times they denied me a response. In turn, I denied them a renewal of my newly begun membership. Yes, indeed, seek and you shall find, but ignore, and you will be not renewed, at least when I'm the one being ignored and writing the check.

Pat Robertson seems to be a man of controversy and even contradiction, so this Evangelical so-called leader's recent endorsement of Rudy Giuliani for Prez this time is no real shocker, contrary to all the media hype. Not that anyone could really notice, but Alan Keyes is again running for President. He announced this past September, but was apparently trumped (for better or worse) by the over-dramatized announcement of "Not Quite Ready Freddy" Thompson (AKA: "The Great Right Mope") that same month. Businessman John Cox is also a conservative Republican presidential candidate running on a pro-life record, but apparently out of the Beltway translates into off the radar screen nowadays. Kansas Senator Sam Brownback, who just recently dropped out of the race, ran on being 100% pro-life. Congressmen Duncan Hunter, Tom Tancredo and Ron Paul have similar platforms and records, as does former Arkansas Governor, Mike Huckabee, and predictably, pretty much whoever will be eventually nominated by the Constitution Party. So why does this alleged Christian mover and shaker instead endorse a twice-divorced Catholic champion of gay rights and abortion while so many other quality pro-life/pro-family candidates are still running? Follow the money. Robertson's political virtues are quite obviously centered around power, victory and limelight, and much less toward principle, as demonstrated in 2000 and again now. Robertson as a Christian mentor is an abysmal farce, much like the now seemingly impotent organization that he founded and has since left.

Likewise, I question the motives of Senator Brownback, now out of the race, who has recently endorsed John McCain, and in so doing praised McCain for his pro-life record, while forgetting (I hope) that McCain favors life destroying embryonic stem cell research. For that matter, McCain also opposes a federal ban on gay marriage. Like with Mr. Robertson, it appears that Senator Brownback may have a more vested interest in victory than virtue. While McCain's pro-life/pro-family record may not be as squeaky clean as that of some of his Republican primary opponents, McCain is still considered a "top tier" candidate, although barely. McCain's campaign is practically on life support, and while some predict a possible bump for him in frigid, finicky Yankee New Hampshire, the Iowa showdown may shuck more than just corn.

A few weeks back, we saw the current slate of secular Democrats suddenly find that old time religion. Obama, Clinton, Edwards, et al each spun their "spirituality" via a precarious tiptoe dance that broke no eggshells underneath. And when the smoke cleared and the spin stopped, it was still difficult to ascertain what exactly they said. Not to worry, though. Just put up a few publicly displayed Nativity scenes and tablets listing the Ten Commandments, call for the reversal of Roe vs. Wade, and for the reinstitution of prayer in public schools (which is to say Judeo/Christian prayer besides Muslim prayer) and those rascally political varmints should be flushed out and again showing their true colors in no time. While we're at it, I would really like to see some founts containing holy water put up next to a few of those new, trendy and politically correct foot baths, now popping up in and adorning various airports and universities. Unless I'm mistaken, the same 1st Amendment that guarantees the right of Muslims to have clean feet also guarantees the right of Catholics to have blessed foreheads. Of course, none of this is to in any way portray the Democrats as being anti-religion. In fact, I believe some of them might very well be disciples of Christ and be truly blessed with miraculous powers. What other possible explanation could there be for these strident separation of church and state advocates to so frequently and freely speak in southern black churches without the ministers of those same houses of worship ever having to fear losing their cherished tax exempt status?

There is yet another all-too frequent example of the manipulative, if not prostituting relationship between those with a foot in each camp of politics and religion. On several occasions, I have seen members of my own faith, Democrat as well as Republican, who would ordinarily have the church roof fall in on them if they ever planted their seldom seen posteriors into a pew, yet come election time, there they are, every Sunday morning, "religiously" (sorry, I just couldn't resist) smiling, waving, slapping backs and glad-handing, just hoping to be seen by very voter in the congregation. Then after Election Day, poof! Epiphany over, and they're gone until the next campaign. (Kind of like what the GOP, particularly in the northeast, often does to conservatives, "Thanks…bye!") I don't know who these charlatans think they are fooling, because during many such times I have heard fellow parishioners comment, "Oh, look, there he (or she) is, coming back to mass again. It must be an election year." (I also hear people make similar comments when all of a sudden their street gets repaved!) I was once approached by a Protestant friend to be her running mate for a municipal election. She didn't even blush when she looked me straight in the eye and told me that she really needed a "Catholic" on the ticket! Sigh. Just like on the bus, no "token," no ride! One local candidate once needed an in to attend a popular event at a local Congregational Church. She found someone of that faith and of that specific church, and then suddenly dubbed this 20 year old still wet behind the ears kid "Campaign Manager" (obviously for her many and well seasoned years of political campaign management experience and expertise), and brazenly strong-armed her to introduce Her Majesty at this well attended event, just about a week before the election. (I can't help but wonder how this candidate managed without a campaign manager for so long into the campaign before then!) I know of another candidate, who found his epiphany conveniently after Labor Day, but a week or two before the election, when it seemed things were in the bag, he stopped showing up at mass. He didn't even wait until Election Day. His wife, apparently more devout than him, sternly admonished him and encouraged him to continue attending mass. He said he was too busy campaigning; after all, his chances of winning looked pretty good this time and just couldn't risk losing ground now by wasting precious time in church. He lost by less than 50 votes. God does have a sense of humor. As my prophetic pastor recently also noted in a Homily, "Jesus is neither a conservative nor a liberal. He's just always right (as in opposite of wrong)." In Catholic Engaged Encounter, we tell the couples that to have a successful marriage, they must first have three, not two components in this lifelong commitment; husband, wife, and God. In the same kind of way, this seasonally church going politician lost sight of who his real running mate was. If George Washington could supposedly find the time to kneel in prayer on the ground at Valley Forge, how much busier or otherwise legitimately pre-occupied can anyone else be?

Much like with Sean Connery's hypothetical vicious watchdog, religion seems to be the arch-nemesis of many Democrat politicians who despise it, and the tedious annoyance of even many Republican politicians who ignore it, but come campaign season, both sides jump through hoops to change into their charismatic chameleon colors and show everyone how little separation there really is between church and state. Many Democrat Congressional candidates suddenly shifted to the ideological middle, and even slightly right of center, and also openly spoke about faith in the 2006 mid-term elections. Ironically, many Democrats ridiculed Republicans for wining on faith-related matters in 2004. But two years later, the Dems knew the secret recipe when juxtaposed against the floundering corrupt and inept Republican politicians who had been in power for too long and adhered to their party's platform and ideals too little. The dirty little secret is that most of America in fly-over country, that vast majority of land between the two fringes of both geography and ideology, is composed of Americans who are traditional, are moral, are prudent, are conservative, are patriotic, and yes, are even religious, not seasonally, always, and not in front of banks of cameras, lights and microphones, but quietly and discreetly, yet genuinely and devoutly in their homes and churches. That is a fact that these out of touch, double-talking, baby kissing, snake oil selling political hacks will never grasp. You can't fake faith and morality. Either you have it or you don't. When a pubescent boy teases and torments a girl to get her attention because he has a crush on her and is too embarrassed, inexperienced and immature to know how to display his feelings any other way, it's normal, given the circumstances. But when an adult politician starts putting on a theatrical religious façade and uses or feigns his faith to acquire the seasonal attention of the voters, or when a preacher abandons his principles for the sake of acquiring alluring but fleeting earthly political power, it's as abjectly dishonest and abusive as it is utterly insidious and even dysfunctional.

As the good Padre would say, that's just not true faith.

"Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles? So, every sound tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears evil fruit."

(Matthew, Chapter 7, verses 15-18)

Doug Wrenn