Brad Hirschfield: October 2008 Archives

I was asked by the folks over at the Newsweek-Washington Post On Faith project if there were religious reasons to vote for or against Barack Obama or John McCain. My response: there is always a religious reason to pick a candidate, at least if one is genuinely religious.

If one is religious, then there is always a religious reason to pick a candidate. At least if your religion cares about this world and the importance of political engagement as a means to improving it. The fact that such impulses are abused by people who arrogantly assume that theirs is the only way to hear God's voice or honor His/Her call is no excuse for segregating politics and faith.

As a fellow respondent to this question, Professor Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite, stated so well, "Religion is not a hat that you can take off or put on at will". I caution however against confusing having a religious reason for choosing a candidate with being certain that the God in whom one believes is necessarily in 100% agreement with the choice you have made.

We should do our best to use the traditions we love most to reach the conclusions we deem best. For atheists, that probably leaves religion out. Though it would be interesting to see how the wisdom found in various traditions could contribute to better politics even for those who have no interest in the supernatural beings in whom most religious people believe.

But for those who follow a particular faith, I sure hope that it helps them to think about who should be our next president. If it doesn't, I might start shopping for a new faith. I also hope we see a quick end to religious folks on both sides explaining why theirs "really reflects" the "true values" of their faith.

There are many understandings of dying well but few extol the value of loneliness. And the hospice chaplains described in this article know that, beyond all else. It's powerful stuff which transcends any particular faith or ideology. In, fact, many of the people doing chaplaincy are not clergy at all. Perhaps that is why they are so good at what they do? Perhaps. But they are definitely people who are a great deal like God, at least the one (the One?) who reveals Him- or Herself to Moses at their first meeting.

These chaplains serve all comers and do so by starting with the needs of the person in front of them, not the ideology inside of them. They are Buddhists who work with atheists, former priests who pray Hebrew prayers with Jews, etc.

In each case they privilege presence over dogma, not unlike the God who says to Moses when asked how to answer the question about who sent him to free the Israelites. "Tell them", God says, "I will be what I will be". As the future unfolds God will be as needed. Who better than these hospice chaplains lives that message every day?

And if it's good enough for God, shouldn't that approach be good enough for all religious leaders too? Of course, theology, philosophy and doctrine matter too. But as we die, which will we really want, the person who puts us first, or the one who puts their particular practice first?

New York's Cardinal, Edward M. Egan, criticized Fordham University for honoring Supreme Court Justice Stephen G. Breyer with the Fordham-Stein Ethics Prize. Why? Apparently because they were pressured to do so by the Cardinal Newman Society, which sponsored a petition inveighing against honoring the jurist who wrote the decision overturning the ban on partial birth abortions.

Why should that issue be the only determining factor in the appropriateness of honoring Breyer? We need to stop litmus testing each other over single issues. It never helps and in the case of the Cardinal Newman Society, it's making them less than honest about their mission. Despite claiming to be about Catholic identity, their own President, Patrick J. Reilly declared that their "only issue is life, the right to life". Well which is it? Identity or pro-life activism? Why does their website market them in one way, but their leader speak in another?

Why should an organization that is "dedicated to renewing and strengthening Catholic identity at America's 224 Catholic colleges and universities" limit its definition of a strong Catholic identity to maintaining fidelity to a single Catholic teaching? Does it really make sense to reduce a two thousand year old story to a single doctrine? Does that make sense for any tradition or community?

I admit that as a Jew, even a traditional Jew, my tradition accords me greater latitude on the issue of abortion.

When I received the following link to hard right Israeli broadcaster Arutz 7, being circulated by pro-McCain people, I was tempted to ignore it. Claiming that Hamas is supporting Obama in the presidential election, they suggest that supporting Obama is somehow supporting Hamas. The claim itself is beneath contempt. But when the left uses the same grotesque methods, it's time to notice the twisted irony and speak out.

Edith Rapp tried to sue her stepson, a member of Jews for Jesus, for defamation, over an article he wrote which claimed that she was a bad Jew who had denounced her faith. The Florida Supreme Court has ruled that her claim of being portrayed in a "false light" was not sufficient cause for her suit. And I couldn't agree more.

It's not that I believe that her stepson is correct. I get nervous when anyone starts with the "good Jew" stuff, especially when earning the title is synonymous with being a Jew who upholds the divinity of Jesus! But I also get worried when civil courts see it as their place to adjudicate competing theological claims made by the members of different religious organizations. A ruling in mom's favor would hinge on the courts being empowered to rule on a matter of theology i.e. what constitutes "real Judaism" -- somethings our courts should not be deciding.

How can a statement about one's religious beliefs be anything other than a theological statement? That she interpreted it as a slur, is because of her theology. That he did not is a function of his. Even for someone like me, who is comfortable with a relationship between faith and politics, this seems like more than a breach in the wall between church and state. It seems like representatives of the state becoming state theologians. Welcome to the middle ages!

As much as some might like to see Ms. Rapp vindicated, doing so would endanger religious freedom for all of us.