I asked them to
DO speak openly and passionately about both your faith and your party affiliation.
DO speak clearly about how your faith is expressed in your political views and affiliation.
DO NOT talk at all about "the other party."
DO NOT talk about a specific candidate for office.
My goal is to demonstrate what has been my personal experience ... which is that while both parties have at times claimed a corner on faithfulness, neither has it. This is about showing that people can be faithful Republicans and faithful Democrats ... and that the Episcopal Church (I hope) is big enough to hold both.
I will be posting the responses here -- two a day until the election (or until they stop coming in). PLEASE continue the conversation in the comments but also abide by the DOs and DONTs above and use "I statements."
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Mark Klamer -- A Faithful Republican
Helping the poor is nonnegotiable for Christians. How best to help them is the tougher issue. Those in desperate need should be protected by a robust safety net, certainly, but the far better result is for the poor to earn their own living. Why? Some reasons are obvious. Almost every job confers dignity and self worth, and the self-sufficiency of some allows us to help more people. Welfare, on the other hand, risks creating a culture of dependency and having unintended adverse consequences (for example by damaging family structures). But perhaps the most important reason to favor jobs over welfare is that God created humans to do work; we participate in His creative nature when we do our jobs imbued with Christian principles. Human being’s deepest and best nature is to honor God with the work we do. The Republican Party, at its best, fundamentally embraces the primary importance of jobs and the health of the economy.
"If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us". This applies to every single business person and every single person who works for the government. It applies to every single person, period. Although businesses are run by sinners, market forces provide checks on their behavior. A business with shoddy products, for example, loses its reputation and can go broke; competitors will seek by their self interest to do better. The problem with government is there are no natural forces to check the sinful nature of its workers. Bureaucracies, for example, have no competitors to run them out of business. Therefore, at their best, bureaucracies tend to inefficiency and wasteful activity. At their worst, they get corrupted to favor the rich, the powerful and the connected. I don’t argue for a moment in favor of the straw man of laissez-faire economics, but the larger the government, the more resources that are wasted, and the larger unchecked power that is created. The Republican party, at its best, recognizes the societal implications of our sinful nature, and seeks to restrain the size, scope and nature of government accordingly.
Celeste Smith -- A Faithful Democrat
I am a Christian. I believe that our responsibility on earth is to learn about God's love though our relationships with others. I believe this means that my relationship with my parents teaches me about aspects of God's love, my relationship with my husband teaches me about aspects of God's love, and my relationship with my daughter another mirror of God's love for us. But my Christianity is not just personal, it is political. I believe that God expects us to build our communities based on love, too. I believe it is our responsibility to make decisions focused on compassion, mutuality, and speaking up for those who need our support. I am a Democrat because our party stands up for these values on a political level. Our party wants a government that balances corporate and individual interests, invested in maintaining a safety net, and truly respects diversity.
Tomorrow -- two more faithful people (one Republican/one Democrat) share how their faith informs their politics.
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