The Brack Report

By Andy Brack

South Carolina politicians seem to continue to use religion to push partisan political positions, but a new book reminds people that God is neither a Democrat nor a Republican.

Recently, Statehouse Republicans pushed two social moral issues to the forefront: a constitutional amendment against same-sex marriage and a measure that would allow the posting of the Ten Commandments on public property. Both essentially are ways for fundamentalist Republicans to gin up their political base and keep dividing people with wedge issues.

What’s alarming is that lawmakers are spending so much time on these issues when thousands of South Carolina’s children go to school hungry, tens of thousands of families live in poverty, the state’s education system is ranked near the bottom of the 50 states, infant mortality rates are among the nation’s highest and the state has the third highest unemployment rate in America.

Instead of working diligently and seriously to solve these problems, they fiddle-faddle with fringe issues to push their version of social engineering on a sleepy electorate. All the while, they know both issues likely will stay in the headlines because both will face constitutional challenges if they become law.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is South Carolina politics as usual.

But progressive evangelical leader Jim Wallis says this kind of politics doesn’t have to be played out every day in legislatures across the country.

“The religious and political Right gets the public meaning of religion mostly wrong—preferring to focus only on sexual and cultural issues while ignoring the weightier matters of justice,” Wallis writes in Italic: “God’s Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get It.”

“And the secular Left doesn’t seem to get the meaning and promise of faith for politics at all, mistakenly dismissing spirituality as irrelevant to social change.”

He says when either political party tries to use God for political purposes, it makes a bad political mistake. He writes that his book is a challenge to the Right and the Left to shape up and allow the voice of religion to be heard to challenge the typical way of doing business.

“God’s politics challenges narrow national, ethnic, economic or cultural self-interest, reminding us of a much wider world and the creative human diversity of all those made in the image of the creator.”

Wallis’ argument, when boiled down, is that politicians shouldn’t invoke the name of God or use religion to endorse their political positions. Instead, they should worry whether their positions are on God’s side. In other words, they should look at issues and ask, “Is this what God would want?” or “Is this what Jesus would do?”

By shifting to this perspective, it’s interesting to look at some current hot issues before the General Assembly:

• Income tax cut. Wallis says budgets are moral documents because they highlight true priorities. The new $5.8 billion state budget, for example, currently includes an income tax cut for small businesses that will take $130 million out of the state revenue stream. With so many kids going to school hungry, is this what Jesus would want?

• Same-sex marriage. A measure that calls for a constitutional amendment to “protect” traditional marriage also would institutionalize discrimination against gays and lesbians who want to be in recognized committed relationships. While the measure is moot because same-sex marriage already is illegal in South Carolina, Wallis’ challenge reminds us that one of religion’s fundamental responsibilities is to care and protect the vulnerable. So is this amendment what God would really want?

• Hog bill. Development-backed legislators want to keep cities and counties from enacting tougher environmental rules than required by the state. But protecting God’s earth can be considered a religious issue. Is damaging the earth by more development really what Buddha or the God of Mohammed or Jesus would want?

• School funding. Is it fair to fund two kinds of school systems, districts in urban and suburban areas with solid tax bases and good facilities vs. poor, rural school districts with some third-world conditions? Does it reward those who are better off and fail to show compassion for those who live in poorer areas by denying similar educational services to them? Would God approve of this?

Regardless of your religion, Wallis’ God’s Politics makes you think about how politicians and governments set fiscal responsibilities.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize quickly that everybody could do better.

Andy Brack is edition and publisher of S.C. Statehouse Report (www.statehousereport.com) a business forecast of developments in the South Carolina Legislature and state government. You can reach him at brack@statehousereport.com.

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