“Becoming an Informed Electorate”

Remarks on the responsibility of the faith community to educate members about issues and values

Presented at Fairfield University , Fairfield , Connecticut

Thursday, February 7, 2008

The Rev. Dr. Brian Schofield-Bodt, 

President and Chief Executive Officer

The Council of Churches of Greater Bridgeport, Inc.

 To address in ten minutes the responsibility of the faith community to educate its members about issues and values was expected to be an impossible task when our Bridge Building Ministry proposed this breakfast last spring.  But I wasn’t worried because I didn’t expect to be one of the speakers.  Now I am.  As a Protestant clergyman in the family called “United Methodist,” it might suffice to say that both George W. Bush and Hillary Rodham Clinton are active United Methodists.  I should then just sit down, and let you wonder just what do we stand for!

The genesis of this forum is broader than denominationalism and its implications wider than Christianity.  Anticipating this electoral cycle, our Bridge Building Ministry had three major concerns.  First, we were concerned that the rich complexity of Christianity is at times represented—sometimes by the media and sometimes by groups within Christianity—as a monolithic bloc that claims authority it does not have and speaks of political and social matters in ways inconsistent with the message of Jesus Christ.  Further, some Christians are uninformed about the social and political teachings of their own traditions.

Second, we wondered about media coverage.  How and why are decisions made of what and what not to cover about candidates, their platforms and the relationship of faith to these?   Third, and of greatest importance, we lamented the general nationwide decline in the percentage of eligible registered voters, registered voters who vote, and participation in politics and government.  What could and should be done to reinvigorate participation in, in Churchill’s inimitable phrase, “the worst form of government ever invented—except for all the others?”

This morning addresses the first two concerns.  The three presenters recognize the religious and political diversity of the constituencies we represent and the audience we address.  Three middle-aged white men are not a diverse panel by several definitions.  To the extent that that requires a mea culpa, I offer it in the expectation that we yet seek with you the e pluribus unum of our nation’s creed; and that our work this morning will lead to our planned evening forum on April 15 addressing citizen registration, voting and political participation, keynoted by a diverse group of under-30 adults from area political and cultural organizations.

The strength of a political system depends upon full and willing citizen participation.  People of faith should exert strong ethical influence on the state, supporting policies and programs deemed to be just and opposing policies and programs that are unjust. (Social Principles, Par. 164B, paraphrased).  Charlie, an acquaintance, approached me last Saturday.  Not knowing of this presentation but with Tuesday’s primaries on his mind he exhorted, “Don’t forget you can’t tell them who to vote for!”  I wouldn’t say who to vote for, but I certainly can and do critique issues from a faith perspective.  Becoming an informed electorate is a continual process not dependent on any particular candidate or election cycle. Earlier this week a friend teased, “What is this scheduling?  You wait until after the election to have a forum on ‘becoming an informed electorate?’”  We chose today to provide meaningful discussion at a time of high interest but after the primary to avoid partisanship.  My biggest regret is today’s conflict with “Swim Across the Sound!”

The Council of Churches is 85 congregations and eight affiliated agencies representing Protestant, Roman Catholic and Orthodox faith communions.  Yet I have chosen to speak this morning from my own tradition as a United Methodist.  I know it, and I do not risk speaking errantly on behalf of others.  A brief primer, then.  We are a world-wide church of over 12 million members, two-thirds of whom are American.  Our origin is shared with 75 million Christians world-wide who trace their roots to the Methodist movement.  In the mid-18th century, Church of England priest John Wesley sought a “practical Christianity” combining personal and social holiness.  “Methodist” was a term of ridicule because of “methodical” adherence to habits of devotion and service to others.  Followers sought to conform their lives in thought and action to the life of Christ and to address urgent human needs.  Mr. Wesley wrote an early home health book, “The Primitive Physik;” promoted medical advances and changes in health care; worked to abolish the slave trade; and promoted changes in a criminal justice system that imprisoned debtors.  (What’s in your wallet?)  When not allowed to speak in church pulpits because of the perceived revolutionary tone of his message, Mr. Wesley—a lifelong Tory and ardent opponent of the American Revolution—took his Oxford-educated preaching to open fields.  In his words, he “suffered to be more vile” with his message of a heart-warmed love of God and neighbor.  As Methodism spread by sending itinerant preachers to America in the 1760’s, Wesley gave them the simple, manageable task “to reform the continent, and spread scriptural holiness throughout the land.”

One historian has described us as “the most American of churches.”  Our government, founded in 1784 as a separate church in America, has executive, legislative and judicial branches, just as the U.S. government formed five years later.  Our faith family includes the historically Black Methodist churches—African Methodist Episcopal, AME Zion and Christian Methodist Episcopal—reflecting the legacy of our church’s institutional racism and racism in the national culture.  We are the spiritual forebears of other denominations, among them the Salvation Army, the Wesleyan Church and the Church of the Nazarene, all of which were born because they felt the Methodists were not “Methodist-enough” in pursing social holiness and the needs of the poor and outcast.

This pursuit is encoded in our Social Principles, “a prayerful and thoughtful effort on the part of our General Conference” (that’s our legislative branch) “to speak to human issues in the contemporary world from a sound biblical and theological foundation.  They are intended to be instructive and persuasive in the best of the prophetic spirit;” but they are not church law.  In this, as with nearly all Protestants, we differ from our Roman Catholic sisters and brothers where such moral teaching is church law.  For Methodists and the vast majority of Protestants, it is only when social issues are encoded with specific statutes (for us, in the ominous-sounding Book of Discipline) that such ethical principles have the weight of law.

Two examples illustrate.  Our current Social Principles affirm human rights and civil liberties for all persons, including homosexuals, stating our need to protect “the lawful claims typically attendant to contractual relationships.”  Yet church law forbids me from conducting a same-sex union; forbids such unions in our churches; and forbids ordination of “self-avowed practicing homosexuals.”  So our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters may live together and draw up the instruments that leave bequests to the church but not be married.  Historically, the church divided into northern and southern branches over 15 years before the Civil War rather than universally prohibit Methodists from owning slaves, an organizational schism not healed until 1939, nearly 75 years after the Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery.

At the height of the Civil War President Lincoln said, “God bless the Methodist Church.”  Well, he actually said “God bless the Methodist Church - bless all the churches - and blessed be God, Who, in this our great trial, giveth us the churches."  Would that such could be said of faith communions today!

 We sometimes focus on hot button issues and neglect teaching less publicized ones.  The Council’s “CO-OP Center” provides transition services for ex-offenders starting a new life.  How many United Methodists know that our Social Principles call for a new system of restorative rather than retributive criminal justice, seeking both the righting of the wrong and bringing healing to all involved?  Do Methodists know that we reject capital punishment?  Do our people know we reject policies of enforced military service as incompatible with the Gospel?  That we support conscientious objection to all war or any particular war?  That we respect those who support the use of war but only in extreme situations, when the need is beyond reasonable doubt, and through appropriate international organizations?

 These are not rhetorical musings.  Religious leaders are responsible for teaching from and arguing with tradition; and resisting it if compelled by experience, reason and scripture to do so.  As the ancient Greeks observed: “Know Thyself.”

 I close with a literal word of good news.  The word “evangel” means “good news,” and to be “evangelical” is, in its oldest form, to be in agreement with the Christian gospel of Jesus Christ.  Since the rise of the Moral Majority in the late 1970’s, the term “evangelical” has been used to mean a particular faith and political agenda.  The older and broader definition is one I wish to reclaim.  I am an evangelical Christian.  But ask me what that means, and where I stand on caring for people with HIV/AIDS, the right to health care, collective bargaining or gambling before presuming to know.  Be informed of one’s own faith, the faiths of others, and the ethical and civic imperatives for the democratic experiment we cherish.