Religion And Politics In America From A Protestant Perspective

Presentation by Jim Winkler, general secretary of the United Methodist General Board of Church & Society, at the Ecumene Center in Velletri, Italy, December 7, 2008



American Protestantism has from the beginning been influenced by and lived under the theological and political mantle of Calvinism. The Puritan influence in American life is still so pervasive that it is in the very air we breathe, the way we are taught to think and act. And the irony is that most Americans have little knowledge of Puritanism and what it means. It’s just there.

The most famous Methodist preacher to come to America was George Whitfield. A tiny, little man with a booming voice and eyes so crossed that when he looked at you, you did not know if he was really seeing you, Whitfield traveled up and down the eastern seaboard, preaching, preaching, preaching. He organized the first orphanage in America, in Georgia when he was working there with another Methodist who became his theological enemy, a man named John Wesley. Of course, at that point in history neither man was yet a “Methodist.” They were still Anglican priest-missionaries.

Whitfield made three long preaching tours of America, preaching from a Calvinist perspective. Preaching that God’s freedom is paramount, that God chooses whom God chooses, that God’s will is done even when we are trying to thwart it, that human choice is in reality quite limited. John Wesley, of course, took a quite opposite view: he believed that God gives each person the gift of choice, the freedom to make decisions and that the Holy Spirit influences and guides us but does not determine what we do.

Whitfield was a great self-promoter, and when he went into the colonies on his second trip, he hired a Philadelphia printer named Benjamin Franklin to be his publicist. Franklin was so moved by Whitfield’s preaching that he gave generously when the offering plate was passed. He recorded one preaching day in which an estimated 10,000 people heard Whitfield—and without any amplification tools on which preachers rely these days.

That Calvinist, Puritan influence compels what is known in America as the Religious Right, those who believe that America has a special destiny as a “Christian nation.” And while they suffered massive defeats in the most recent two elections (the 2006 congressional races and the presidential campaign), their influence will continue unabated. They dominate the Republican Party, and Sarah Palin is their new heroine.

While the United Methodist Church is no longer the largest Protestant denomination in America, we continue to make our voice known in the halls of power. We are not Calvinist. We are Wesleyan. I grew up the son of a United Methodist minister who preached that God’s grace is freely available to all and that prevenient grace allows us to choose the salvation offered by God in Jesus Christ.

There are 35,000 UM congregations in the U.S. and 8 million members. 63 members of Congress are United Methodist. My agency’s headquarters building is located directly across the street from the U.S. Capitol and the Supreme Court.

Our staff meets regularly with Members of Congress and their staff and we now look forward to working with officials in the Obama Administration. We have established legislative priorities for 2009. Our major priorities are:

Increase levels of U.S. spending for international family planning – The Christian mandates to bring relief to all who suffer and to restore wholeness to all compel us to ensure access to the full range of health services for all. It is critical for women and men to have access to information and supplies that will prevent the spread of AIDS, allow the spacing of children and reduce child and maternal mortality. Currently, millions of women and men lack such access; therefore, advocacy to increase spending on family planning education and services is critical. This advocacy will include support for restoration of funding for the United Nations Population Fund.

Passage the International Violence Against Women’s Act (I-VAWA) and funding for the U.S. Violence Against Women’s Act

Passage of the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act

Ensure Highest Levels of Funding for Global and Domestic AIDS

Overcome Global Poverty--GBCS supports legislation that helps to end global poverty. Foreign aid reform, fair trade, debt cancellation, and major reform of international financial institutions – the World Bank and International Monetary - are instrumental ways the United States can lead to end poverty in God’s world.

Middle East Peace--Support legislative initiatives to end the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, to promote a peace agreement between Israel and Palestine, and diplomacy to avert war between U.S. and Iran.

Nuclear Weapons Free World--Support U.S. Senate passage of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and legislation to stop the spread and reduce the number of nuclear weapons in the world.

Reform the U.S. Health Care System—45 million people have no health insurance in the U.S.

Humane Immigration Reform—Scripture calls us as people of faith to welcome the sojourner. We seek a path to citizenship for all undocumented immigrants, protection of the rights of workers, and reunification of families.

Abolition of torture

Climate Change legislation—reduce global warming emissions and re-engage in international framework.

The United Methodist Church in the United States stands for peace and justice. We believe the church has a responsibility to speak to the state but we do not believe the church should control the state. When we meet with Members of Congress we do not offer campaign contributions to them. We do not threaten to defeat them in the next election if they do not support United Methodist public policy positions. We do not pray for the death or illness of Supreme Court justices. We offer a firm, polite, moral and ethical witness on behalf of the last, the least, and the lost.

I believe our advocacy for justice is biblically based. Moses was the first social justice lobbyist of the church, sent by God to demand freedom for his people from Pharaoh. Queen Esther made use of her position to save the Jewish people from genocide. Jesus announced in Nazareth that he was the one sent by God to free the oppressed.

In the United States, our great challenge has been to overcome the myths of white supremacy, male superiority, and American exceptionalism. We have made progress, but we have a long way yet to go.

Barack Obama’s Philadelphia speech after the controversy caused by his mainline Protestant pastor, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright is one of the most definitive statements about religion and politics ever articulated in our nation’s history. Mr. Obama stayed up most of the previous night writing and re-writing that magnificent speech. Of course, I will not recite the entire speech to you but I wish to share an excerpt:

“This was one of the tasks we set forth at the beginning of this campaign – to continue the long march of those who came before us, a march for a more just, more equal, more free, more caring and more prosperous America. I chose to run for the presidency at this moment in history because I believe deeply that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together – unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes; that we may not look the same and we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction – towards a better future for of children and our grandchildren. This belief comes from my unyielding faith in the decency and generosity of the American people. But it also comes from my own American story.”

Obama addressed the problems and history and legacy of racism in his speech but he also acknowledged the frustration felt by the white working class who have experienced stagnant wages and downward mobility in recent decades. He named the greed that has motivated the wealthy and the methods they have used to keep working people divided. He went on to say:

“…I have asserted a firm conviction – a conviction rooted in my faith in God and my faith in the American people – that working together we can move beyond some of our old racial wounds, and that in fact we have no choice is we are to continue on the path of a more perfect union."

“For the African-American community, that path means embracing the burdens of our past without becoming victims of our past. It means continuing to insist on a full measure of justice in every aspect of American life. But it also means binding our particular grievances – for better health care, and better schools, and better jobs - to the larger aspirations of all Americans – the white woman struggling to break the glass ceiling, the white man whose been laid off, the immigrant trying to feed his family. And it means taking full responsibility for own lives – by demanding more from our fathers, and spending more time with our children, and reading to them, and teaching them that while they may face challenges and discrimination in their own lives, they must never succumb to despair or cynicism; they must always believe that they can write their own destiny….America can change. That is true genius of this nation.”

Thanks to the First Amendment to our Constitution, religion and politics have a strange mix in America. The separation of church and state has been debated for over 200 years. And Thomas Jefferson’s declaration of “a wall” between church and state is still an issue.

H. Richard Niebuhr’s classic book, Christ and Culture, is still the definitive understanding that guides American politics and religion. Niebuhr’s asserts there are three ways that Christ and culture work are:

1. Christ against culture, that is to say, Christ is judging culture and stands over against it. This is the classic Puritan stance, the way the religious right understands the present situation—that the church must be preaching its doctrine and making sure that the state adheres to it.
2. Christ in Culture, that is to say Christ and culture are one and work together. If I understand it correctly, this is commonly understood in Italy and it is the way that you have lived for centuries. Church and state are one.
3. Christ changing culture, that is to say the mission of the church is to move within the culture, to stay true to its calling without becoming subsumed by the state.

There was a day when major U.S. Protestant denominations such as the UMC, the Presbyterians, the Episcopal Church (Anglicans), the UCC, and several others were pillars of the white Protestant establishment in America. Gradually, we have seen that change. These churches began to fundamentally question the direction in which the United States was moving and that has made them somewhat unpopular.

The slaughter of World Wars I and II, the nuclear arms race, racial injustice, the gap between the rich and the poor, environmental degradation—all of these and other problems forced the churches to speak up for social justice on behalf of Jesus Christ.

It has been a difficult struggle. Allow me to illustrate my point: The most important architect of U.S. foreign policy since the end of WWII was George Kennan. On Feb. 24, 1948, in his capacity as director of the policy planning staff he sent a memo to the Secretary of State regarding the world situation. Among other things, Kennan said,

“We have about 50% of the world's wealth but only 6.3% of its population. This disparity is particularly great as between ourselves and the peoples of Asia. In this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity without positive detriment to our national security. To do so, we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and day-dreaming; and our attention will have to be concentrated everywhere on our immediate national objectives. We need not deceive ourselves that we can afford today the luxury of altruism and world-benefaction.”

The United States has been remarkably successful at maintaining world dominance. That dominance has been based on control of natural resources, including oil, and has contributed hugely to climate change.

Nearly 20 years ago, the bishops of the UMC noted the earth is in the grip of three demonic systems of vast power and scope. They identified those as desert-making, war-making, and hunger-making systems. Unless we change our ways, the future will be bleak.

There have been many important influences on the thinking of Protestant churches in the United States in the 20th century. Mahatma Gandhi and his ‘soul-force’ teaching, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and his opposition to Hitler, and especially, Martin Luther King, Jr. In the last years of his brief life, he began to address the capitalism and materialism. Let me conclude with this quote from Dr. King:

Power properly understood is nothing but the ability to achieve purpose. And one of the great problems of history is that the concepts of love and power have usually been contrasted as opposites—polar opposites—so that love is identified with a resignation of power, and power with a denial of love. We’ve got to get this thing right. What is needed is a realization that power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love. It is precisely this collision of immoral power with powerless morality which constitute the major crisis of our time.

Jim Winkler and President of the Methodist Church in Italy talking during a break between sessions.