The Left Behind series makes it plain that American believers will predominate among the saved and will be key allies of Christ in the battle with the Anti-Christ. Conservative Christians believe that America is the obvious site for the 1000 years of peace and glory that Revelations says will follow Christ’s victory.
In Revelations, as in Exodus, America is where the Bible is said to play out in our times. All anyone has to do to be saved is read the Bible to find God’s will (or listen to preachers eager to find it for them)—and then carry out His mandates. Tens of millions of Americans have held this belief for almost 400 years, and it won’t disappear anytime soon. And now it’s the source of enormous political power.
3. Not all conservative Christians are on the Christian Far Right, and Democrats should stop lumping them together. Tens of millions of Americans revere the Bible as the Word of God, even if they don’t take every passage as literally true, or insist that all others must share their views. Conservative Christianity provides hope, comfort, support and guidance to many people. My mother was a conservative Catholic, and she died with a broad smile across her face, as she prepared to meet her Maker. Her Christian faith sustained her until the end, as it does for many.
When Democrats lump all religious conservatives together, and then, worse, are contemptuous of them as an undifferentiated lot, many conservative Christians see this as ignorant and prejudiced at best. At worst, they become easier targets for the Christian Far Right preachers who tell them that political opposition to Christian-favored policies is the work of the devil. Lumping all religious conservatives together can drive otherwise reasonable people into the arms of the unreasonable.
Democrats will never get the votes of the Christian Far Right. But they can and must get the votes of many conservative Christians by making them increasingly aware and uncomfortable with the company they are keeping. A key aim of Democrats must be to create a message and a vision powerful enough to drive a wedge between conservative Christians and the far-right leaders who now presume to speak for them.
4. Democratic candidates need to get more comfortable with God. Both the Republican Party and its Far Right Christian allies want to discredit Democrats as “Godless”—the Republicans because it increases their credibility with the Christians, and the Christians because they really believe it.
Democrats as a whole may go to Church less often than Republicans, but that’s not the problem. The problem is that too many Democratic candidates look stiff and insincere if and when they do talk about their faith. Republicans tend to be much better at God-talk, and it wins them votes.
I’m not saying that Democrats must thump a book of scripture. Nor should they change their beliefs or fake them. But Democratic candidates need to get more relaxed in talking about issues of God and faith or, if they are non-believers, about the ethical frameworks that guide their lives.
That ease in talking about issues of faith, that kind of honest and personal reflection, will blunt negative knee-jerk reactions among conservative Christians and help make many of them at least comfortable enough with Democratic candidates so they can hear and evaluate a political message.
In Virginia, Democrat Tim Kaine this fall was candid about his faith and won the Governorship of a conservative state.
This year I spoke on the theme of moral leadership to the cadets at the Air Force Academy and to the Midshipmen at the Naval Academy. I told them that courage and discipline were not enough, that successful leaders had to have a moral context for their lives, a pole star connected to something bigger than they are. If they chose to call this something God, I told them, then it had to be a God they found themselves, not one they’d inherited or had shoved down their throats. These young future officers stood and cheered. During the Q&A, one cadet at the Air Force Academy—which has been notoriously connected to the Christian Far Right—asked me if I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. I told him that I did not, and then explained my personal spirituality with as much candor and completeness as I could. The next cadet’s question was, “When are you going to run for President?” (continue)
