The Middle Way

I have been a fairly avid reader of my local newspaper all of my adult life. Except for the Washington Post, none of those I have read enjoy a national reputation, but all of them have adequately presented the local, national, and world news. However, I have observed that local newspapers also suffer the fate of prophets in Matthew 13:57 – that is, a newspaper is without honor in its own community, even when it wins awards outside of it.

When I was a young man, I read the newspaper backward, beginning with the comics and ending on the front page, and for some reason I still read it that way on Sundays. However, in recent years, I find myself turning first to the Forum page (other papers would call it the Commentary or Op-Ed page). I learn a great deal from the analysis that columnists put into their work. Like all readers, I have my favorites and non-favorites. My favorites are the Dynamic Duo of Middle Eastern reporting, Tom Friedman and Trudy Rubin. For political analysis, I like David Broder in Washington and Joe Hallett in Columbus. Among my least favorite: Maureen Dowd, whose style to me is downright irritating; Ellen Goodman (or as one of my friends called her “Ellen Feelgood”), who strikes me as a feminist with no substance; and Clarence Page, who seems unable to get beyond oldthink on civil rights (in contrast with William Raspberry, who writes on the same subject and is more liberal than I am, but whom I greatly respect).

To help you understand what influences my thinking, and why I think reading commentaries is valuable, I would like to share with you today’s reading from pages A8-A9 of today’s Columbus Dispatch, which includes some excellent articles by my B-list columnists.

Nicholas Kristof, who is mainly interested in foreign reporting, today shares one of my deepest concerns for the U.S. economy - that our dependence on Chinese money to finance our government is turning into a risk for national security. He notes that between 2000 and 2010, the U.S. national debt will have nearly doubled, from $5.7 trillion to an estimated $10.8 trillion. “America’s fiscal mess may be even harder to write about engagingly than Darfur [the genocide against Christians in Sudan, which has been the subject of a campaign by Mr. Kristof for U.S. action], because the victims of our fiscal recklessness aren’t weeping widows whose children were heaved onto bonfires. But if you need to visualize the victims, think of your child’s face, or your grandchild’s.” For they will be the victims of the hyperinflation if foreigners lose confidence in our government’s ability to repay the bonds it sells. And this ignores the fact that China is building up its military, possibly in preparation for a showdown over Taiwan. If that comes to pass, we could lose the war without firing a shot, because we will become too weak economically to fight back.

Gwynne Dyer is a pain in the rear. Which is his greatest asset. I imagine that most neoconservatives hate the man, because he is no cheerleader for U.S. foreign policy. His analysis is harshly realistic, and highly critical of our follies. In today’s column, he reviews the results of the Iranian presidential election. He writes, “The hard-line Islamists now control every branch of Iran’s government, appointed or elected, and for a while they will have their way… At some point [the Iranian people] may try nonviolent revolution that has succeeded in so many other places recently and they might win. The Islamist regime knows this. It also knows that the one thing that could now restore its credibility is an attack by the United States. It may be tempted to provoke Washington in the hope of getting some American bombs dropped on Iran.” In other words, beware of a trap.

Rowland Nethaway is another pain in the rear, and I again mean that as a compliment. He concentrates on domestic issues, particularly those affecting personal freedoms. Today, he cites the danger inherent in the proposed Constitutional amendment to prohibit flag burning, which was passed by a 286-130 majority in the House of Representative. Mr. Nethaway makes a pair of telling points, “A constitutional amendment that limits free speech rights is by definition a threat to Americans’ freedoms [my emphasis]. On the flip side, rare cases of flag burning are invariably counterproductive. The act is so repugnant that public opinion immediately rallies in opposition to the flag burner’s message.” Obviously it is a “nonissue… being exploited for short-term political gain.” Does anyone else grasp the irony in taking away a freedom for the purpose of protecting a symbol of freedom?

Michael Barone is an intelligent writer who studies partisan politics and has a gift for clarifying conservative positions. Today, he reports on a speech Presidential political advisor Karl Rove gave to the New York Conservative Party about how liberals and conservatives looked at 9/11. Mr. Barone believes that Mr. Rove has exposed a schism in the Democratic Party between “those who believe that this is a fundamentally good country and want to see success in Iraq” and “those who believe this is a fundamentally bad country and want more than anything else to see Bush fail.” Mr. Barone cites a poll taken by Scott Rasmussen last year that found that about two-thirds of Americans agreed that the United States is a fair and decent country. Voters for President Bush agreed with that statement almost unanimously, those for Senator Kerry split down the middle. His conclusion: “[A] party that happily allies itself with the likes of Moveon.org and many of whose leading members have lost the ability to distinguish between opposition to an incumbent administration and rooting for our nation’s enemies has got serious problems. Especially when it is called on again, as it will be sooner or later, to govern.” Something for reasonable Democrats to think about!

Quite often, when I read columnists, I think they are reciting common sense (especially in today’s columns by Nethaway and Barone); but as Will Rogers said, “Common sense ain’t.” Perhaps we could argue that we don’t recognize common sense as such until it is presented to us in a way that touches our understanding. This may be the value of the writer’s art, pressed to the service of an everyday calling.

I also selectively read letters to the editor. Quite often, they are banal or simply reciting canned positions, but some can be nearly as good as a column. Four letters were published today. Walter N. Risko responds to a letter by Abubakr Farah in defense of Islam by reminding the reader that Islam permits its followers to deceive its enemies. Mr. Risko’s concluding point: “I will not weep for Farah and Islam until I hear loud and clear a condemnation of terrorism by these radicals from the entire Islamic community.” I confess myself that I am concerned about the very guarded nature of the very few condemnations of bin Laden I have heard from the Islamic community. The Muslims claim to be the religion of peace. It’s time they showed it.

Allen T. Shepard is disgusted with Garry Trudeau, the creator of the comic strip Doonesbury, for distorting activity of the Central Intelligence Agency to the extent that, in Mr. Shepard’s opinion, the strip gives aid and comfort to the enemy (meaning the Iraqi insurgency) and is therefore treasonous. Noting that while cruelty to prisoners is wrong, it is sometimes inevitable when keeping extremely dangerous people under control. I personally do not participate much in this kind of discussion about comics. They are creative exercises by the artist, to which the artist should be given free rein. That said, I do wish Mr. Trudeau would moderate the expression of some of his biases, including the one related to the CIA.

Randall Ripley comments on a recall election in Pataskala defending a councilman who is the subject of recall. He argues that the councilman is standing for sensible positions that some residents simply do not want to hear. I won’t quote him here, but the letter is exceptionally well-reasoned, and shows why newspapers need letters to the editor to clarify local issues, just as seasoned columnists clarify issues at higher levels.

Sometimes, strong points can be made in very few words, as with Evelyn Kinzel’s reply to an earlier letter about teaching the theory of evolution (about which I commented in an earlier blog). Her second and last sentence said it all: “I am appalled at [the earlier writer’s] presumption that all Christians side with intelligent design.”

Of course, anyone can read what I just reviewed in today’s paper, but I also know that editorials and commentary are often ignored pages; and that many people do not read newspapers. I suggest that such commentary is a good reason not to rely too much on broadcast news. Understanding does not always come from facts alone. Well-written commentary helps the reader gain perspective.

Finally, at the risk of inviting Wiley Miller’s Obviousman (in the editorial page comic Non Sequitur), I will state my hope that this blog serves the same purpose.

Copyright © 2005, Harold D. Thomas. All rights reserved. Permission is granted to use the material in this blog provided both conditions are met: (1) Credit is given to the author, and (2) the use is not for profit.

Book Review
Jim Wallis, Who Speaks for God? (New York: Delacorte Press), approx. 230 pages.

The next few postings on this blog will be reviews of two books, this one and Rod Parsley’s new book, Silent No More. I also plan to give the Evangelicals a break when Bishop Spong’s new book becomes available.

If you want a clear, articulate presentation of the Middle Way (other than mine, of course :-) ), read this book. Rev. Wallis is a Protestant minister who has long been involved in inner-city ministries in Washington, D.C. He is living the Christian mission to “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations.” (Matthew 28:19).

Concerned that the Religious Right, which he would view as an umbrella over such organizations as Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority and Pat Robertson’s Christian Coalition, has dominated the discussion of faith and values in the mainstream media; the entire book emphasizes that many religious or spiritual Christians do not feel represented by such organizations and need to be brought back in to the public discussion. On the other hand, he notes that such Christians are likewise repelled by the “mostly liberal secularists who want to keep any religious or spiritual concerns out of politics altogether.

Rev. Wallis agrees with the Right that we have a crisis of values, citing as symptoms the growth of crime, the poor quality of public education, children who are not loved or protected, bad television, broken political promises, and the widening economic gap between the rich and the rest of us; but he stresses that “a crisis of spiritual values cannot be solved by resorting to partisan political warfare.” So what is the Religious Right preaching in its political gospel? To Rev. Wallis, they are preaching fear not hope, holding down the poor (through repressive welfare policies) not lifting them up, tax cuts for the rich (often at the expense of the rest of us), and the increase in U.S. military firepower. Such hypocrisy reminds us of Jesus’ warning “For false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and miracles to deceive even the elect – if that were possible.” (Matthew 24:24).

Who speaks for God, then? Rev. Wallis gives us a clear guideline: When the voice of God is invoked on behalf of those who have no voice, it is time to listen (for example, in the witness of Rev. Martin Luther King or Bishop Desmond Tutu). But when the name of God is used to benefit the interests of those who are speaking, it is time to be very careful.

The Religious Right’s platform exposes some serious flaws, when viewed from a spiritual Christian perspective:
• It’s position on the value of life is inconsistent, on the one hand protecting the life of the child from conception to birth; on the other, promoting war, the death penalty, and not helping the poor.
• They use race as a “wedge issue” in the affirmative action debate, but do not speak for Christ in seeing continued racism as an offense demanding repentance and reparation.
• Contrary to their ranting, the separation of church and state does not prohibit a positive influence of religious values on the nation’s political climate; and the Religious Right does not have a monopoly on concern for values, as evidenced by the work of the Roman Catholic Church in family life, and values held in common by all Christians, Jews, Muslims, and even many atheists.

So how should Christians participate in the political process? Rev. Wallis suggests three tests, which he calls compassion, community, and civility.

Compassion. How do we as a society treat “the least of these”? Do we “let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a flowing stream” (Amos 5:24)? He notes that compassion does not replace the need for individual responsibility – the welfare system must still offer incentives to work and to hold the two-parent family together, a failing of liberal Democrats whose constituencies are supported by irresponsible policies.

A social vision requires participation from all sectors of society. Government cannot do it alone, as the liberals argue; nor can it be excluded, as the Religious Right would desire. The problem is, the very people who are doing what all Christians say needs to be done are fighting to find the resources to continue their work. To simply add Federal unfounded mandates on local governments and organizations is simply cynical and cruel.

Community. “Like the spirit of compassion,” Rev. Wallis writes, “the bonds of community nurture and protect us all.” Community provides a sense of belonging that all people need, it supplies the emotional and physicial necessities of life, and provides the context for economic livelihood and stability.

In particular, we need to restore a sense of the common good (sometimes called the public interest). Both the Evangelicals and the Liberals have aggravated the polarization that the nation experiences today, at a time when we need to deal with racial division, culture wars, and the economic gaps between rich and poor citizens. To speak of the economic gap is not Marxist “class warfare,” because the free market is a good thing, but needs some regulation for the benefit of all. (One period in American history in which the Federal Government most energetically pursued regulatory reform was during the administration of Theodore Roosevelt – a Republican!).

As to “family values,” we certainly need to rebuild strong and healthy two-parent families with strong and positive masculine and feminine role models, but we also must protect and support those who do not fit the traditional family pattern. This means specifically that we must as Christians protect the civil rights of homosexuals part of building a healthy and just society.

Civility. Our society desperately needs moral leadership. We do not have anyone like Mohandas Gandhi, who once called off India’s independence movement for several years because he found his people unprepared socially, economically, or spiritually ready for the next step. Civility is about fostering this moral leadership. It is also about raising the quality and integrity of our political discussions and the depth of our participation in the political process. All of these things are deeply connected.

To engage in endless blaming and scapegoating results, as we all know, in citizen cynicism and withdrawal. The excessive influence of money is also a civility issue because it blocks access and influence for ordinary people in decisions that affect their lives. To rebuild citizen confidence in the system will require that the people again believe in the integrity of the system, or at least that it can be made fairer.

“There is an alarming depth of cynicism in every region toward politics as usual,” Rev. Wallis writes. “People are literally sick of politics defined by style, hype, spin, power, and most of all, attack. But there is a palpable hunger for a politics of vision, values, integrity, and credible leadership; and a longing to recover the moral heart of our public debate and the ‘soul of politics’.” In other words, people need answers, not ideology. The first task for Christians, then, if religious values are to enter the public square, is to improve the quality and integrity of our political discussion.


Rev. Wallis’ book also includes a manifesto, called a “Cry for Renewal,” to call moderate Christians back to political participation. He was a cofounder of an organization called the Sojourners, to work toward the goals he cited in his book. Their website is http://www.sojourners.com .

One final comment. It is customary when making a bibliographic reference to include the year a book has been published, a fact I intentionally omitted from the citation at the beginning of this post. Sadly, the situation that Rev. Wallis urgently wanted to correct has become much worse in the nine years since the book was published in 1996. It should be very clear that the national elections of 2000 and 2004 have further damaged the hopes and confidence of the American people. We have a lot of work to do, and it’s past time that we got started!

Copyright © 2005, Harold D. Thomas. All rights reserved. Permission is granted to use the material in this blog provided both conditions are met: (1) Credit is given to the author, and (2) the use is not for profit.