Open Letter to the Christian Coalition
by Matthew Baldwin

Dear Pat Roberston,

       Nobody can really fault you. You are a man of real integrity. Except for that little passage in your book, The
       New World Order, where you (or your ghostwriter, perhaps?) made a thinly veiled anti-Jewish comment, your
       record is spotless. And some of your work is very valuable... feeding poor people, distributing bibles, providing
       assistance in disasters; your organization even maintains a flying hospital, funded by your sucessful television
       evangelism program The 700 Club. Anybody who wants to can even go to the library or bookstore and read
       about you, your highly sucessful career, and your television empire, in such books as Alec Foege's The Empire
       God Built. And frankly, your selection of Ralph Reed as the frontman of your political organization, the
       Christian Coalition, was so stunningly right on that even Ralph's political enemies miss him now. You must miss
       him too. So, I don't fault you, even for a minute, for being just who you are.

       Nevertheless, as a Christian, I am upset by the Christian Coaltion's political success -- not out of envy, but
       because your name and stated goals drags me into your political agenda, and presumes to speak for me. In my
       opinion, you have made your success by selling an imaginary product to a gullible public. The imaginary product
       which you claim to possess is a "Christian Political Voice". Not that such a thing doesn't exist, for it may well,
       philosophically speaking. It just isn't in the bottles you are "selling". In fact, the only "Christian" thing which I
       have seen in the Christian Coalition is the first word in the name.

       Yes, we know that it is "grass roots" organizing in "local churches" which drives your organization. You have
       indeed tried to ground your work in living, local Christian communities. But your efforts were pre-destined to
       fail as "grass-roots" politics, since the political agendas your organization espouses, the alliances you make, and
       your legislative goals, have all been dreamt up by you and your Washington allies in the Republican party. The
       same people who once supported you as a Republican candidate for the presidency of the United States of
       America support you now. And they don't support you to be non-partisan or prophetically Christian, but for
       your ability to bring Christians into the Republican tent and on-board the right wing's agenda for social control
       and "reform".

       Your movement is not a "grass roots movement", so much as an inside-the-beltway movement. The Christian
       Coalition, of which you are the de-facto leader, was founded to be and is a Republican party organ. Its presence
       at the Republican Party Convention this year was prominent and noticeable. The leaders of the Christian
       Coalition, while not explicitly endorsing Republican candidates, have not been able to hide their Republicanism.
       Your "conservative" (actually authoritarian) politics are sucessful among many Christians not because they are
       particularly in line with the Gospel or with the teachings of Jesus, but because your own media empire has
       planted the seeds of a kind of reactionary conservativism and theological dominionism in the evangelical
       churches. You are a "grass roots" movement of grass you have grown yourself.

       You have used mass-mailings to raise funds. Your mailings are NOT grass-roots organizing. You have used T.V.
       pledge drives. Your T.V. call-in pledge drives are NOT grass-roots organizing. They are centralized ways of
       raising lots of money from people with no connection or community between them, and with only one shared
       interest: acceptance of your word that your policies are "Christian".

       One of the tools your organization uses are junk-mail opinion polls. You send them to Christians all over
       America, purporting to ask us what we think about public policy. Lord knows how you compile your mailing
       list, but I am on it. The questions are posed so that they only ask us "Christians" whether we support the policies
       you have already concocted. They do not ask us what we want to do or what we think God is saying to
       America. The opinion polls are worded in such a way that there can be no mistaking your own partisan
       connections.

       The surveys you send out are filled with terms that are designed to raise conservative hackles. Phrases that you
       use, like "open homosexuals", "immigrants with aids", "militant homosexuals", "radical feminists", "big
       Government liberals", and many others, are designed only for one purpose, that is, to mark enemies. They
       certainly do not communicate unbiased truth. They raise the specter of depersonalized, generalized "threats",
       which, in most cases, are actually minor if not actually non-existent.

       Every question in your 1996 State of the Nation Survey which you claim to have sent to 10 million Christian
       voters asked questions about whether we supported Bill Clinton's policies, and then completely misrepresented
       those policies in the most inflammatory ways possible. According to you, Bill Clinton's ONLY purposes as a
       President have been "to use your tax money to pay for abortions", to permit "open homosexuals to serve in the
       military", "to let immigrants [with HIV/AIDS] come to America", to increase taxes on Working families, to
       oppose prayer in schools, to pass out condoms to kids, to allow Government sanctioned homosexual marriages.
       Not only have none of these accusations proven true... they are simply ridiculous! One doesn't have to support
       Bill Clinton to see through the lies and distortions you pass off as unbiased survey questions.

       These tactics are nothing new. They have been used by American fundamentalists since the 1920's. Only the
       labels have changed: it used to be "communists" (always), "Catholics" and "Jews" (sometimes), and "modernists"
       (always); now it is "feminists" (usually), "liberals" (always), "humanists" (always), "homosexuals" (usually). You
       stir up hate and fear to mobilize political captial. But Jesus moved among the lepers, and was accused of dining
       with tax collectors and sinners. Nobody would accuse you of that.

       We know that you claim to support no particular political party. But your literature consistently ranks
       Republican candidates above Democratic ones, and of course never bothers to assume that Christians may have
       more political options than the major parties.

       Regardless of your inflammatory rhetoric, Bob Dole still lost the election. I think Americans were not motivated
       by Bob Dole's call for getting tough in the Drug War... in fact, two states voted in "medical marijuana" bills. Nor
       were Americans impressed with the Republican agenda on taxes, even if they know that taxes are too high. You
       must be asking yourself why. Americans don't support school prayer, rolling back abortion rights, forcing
       homosexuality into the closet, the male-dominant family model of the conservative Christians, or the Republican
       vision of a homogenous, immigrant free society.

       Many Christians may disagree with many of Clinton's policies, and with many methods and agendas of both
       Republicans and Democrats. But your surveys never stop to ask us Christians OUR opinon. You offers us your
       own ideas as if these were the only choice for conscientious people of faith. It just ain't so.

       So let us call a spade a spade, shall we, Pat? The Christian Coalition is really the Republican Christian
       Coalition. The goal of your organization, founded as it is by a major player in the Republican Party, is to
       mobilize Christians to support Republican legislative goals. And the way that you do this is to arouse
       simple-minded prejudice in your followers, by feeding them distorted interpretations of Democratic-party social
       policy.

       You argue and motivate people to support Republicans, on the basis of the idea that they are "pro-family". But
       there is no concern on your part, Pat, about what OTHER things Republicans have historically supported in this
       country. You have shown no concern whether the Republican political and legislative goals are ANY CLOSER
       to the will of Christ than are those of the Democrats.

       I don't believe there is any naivete in you, Pat. There may have been some in Ralph Reed, but I begin to doubt
       even this. But you promote a naive belief among your followers that Republicans are by nature simply more
       Family-friendly, Life-friendly, God-friendly, Morals-friendly, and in general Christian-friendly. But nothing
       could be further from the truth!

       Everybody is "pro-family", meaning, we all want families to be healthy, strong, and stable parts of the society we
       all live in together. But different political parties have different agendas for strengthening the family. There are
       merits to every approach! The Republicans, however, have made some serious blunders with respect to the
       family in American society!

       The Republicans do some double-speak about tax-relief and free-markets, which experience shows tends to mean
       increasing the tax burden on those who can least afford it, reducing the burden on the most well-off, and then
       offering taxpayer-funded incentives to corporations to make money off of publicly-held resources! This they call
       "free-market" economics, but it is really a burlesque of classical libertarian ideas.

       Ultimately, the Republicans offer authoritarianism in politics, and many believe, encourage a climate of
       intolerance, political oppression of minorities and the poor, international economic and military imperialism and
       careless profiteering and speculation (which leads to jobs being lost and/or shipped overseas... remember the
       1980's and "corporate raiders"?). These aspects of Republicanism actually encourage destabilization of our
       communities and neighborhoods and families.

       Republicans, instead of standing for the traditional freedoms which America holds dear, tend to support a vision
       of a society where elites decide what is and isn't good for Americans and their families. They would rather
       advocate censorship, flag-burning ammendments, and other "protections" of the mental health of America than
       allow "negative influences" in society. They advocate "zero tolerance" drug war policies which result in massive
       lock-ups of non-violent drug offenders (600,000 arrests for Marijuana alone in 1995 -- breaking up families and
       communities all over this country over a drug which never killed anybody). And their behavior in declaring a
       "cultural war" where feminists, immigrants, liberals, intellectuals, and homosexuals are the favorite targets, far
       from being a Christian agenda, is actually a divisive and destabilizing politics of fear, exclusion, and scapegoating.

       Surely the Democrats have not pursued policies that have been 100% good for the American family, nor have
       the Republicans. Not every social initiative to help the family can come from the Government. There has to be a
       broad, society wide commitment to the quality of our shared life. And at a minimum, if we as a society care
       about American families, some things ought to be obvious:

           1.We must free middle-income families from excessive taxation, so that they can take care of their families.
           2.We must maximize availability of ADEQUATE health-care benefits to all Americans, at all levels of
              employment, and halt the trend which rewards doctors for denying care and places insurance bureucrats
              in charge of individual care.
           3.Our Children must have access to schools where they can learn the skills they need to contribute to our
              civil society and economy.
           4.Our workers must be respected as human beings, which means, paid enough money to provide for their
              families, given adequate vacation and leave time to spend important time with their families without fear
              of losing their job, and given healthy and safe places to work.
           5.We will have a concern about the welfare of Children.
           6.We will be very concerned that there is clean water, clean air, and safe food for our families.
           7.We will be concerned about the way we treat the elderly and retired.
           8.A broad spectrum of family planning options, would be supported both in education and as a part of
              health care, so that Americans would be well educated and prepared to make the moral and medical
              decisions which are a part of forming families.

       Republicans are notorious either for denoucing such progressive ideas, or of treating them as secondary
       concerns.

       Their primary concerns, on the other hand, have been only peripherially related to American family life! The
       only thing that Republicans have to offer Christians by way of pro-family stances is reactionary,
       fear-mongering, anti-homosexual, anti-abortion, and anti-drug rhetoric. These issues work well for organizing
       people who are afraid, but focusing on them does little or nothing to help change things for the better for the
       American Family. Furthermore, it is far from clear, as I try to demonstrate at this site, that any of these stances
       has anything to do with True Christian Piety.

       Republicans have declared and made known their opposition to abortion. And, I am proud to shock liberals by
       saying that I am, on the basis of my faith in the idea that God values all human beings equally, personally also
       opposed to abortion. But that is my religious faith, which I will not seek to impose on others through the
       coercion of Law. Imposing written codes on others is not my calling! (2 Corinthians 3:6). In our country, the
       pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness has and must continue to take place in an environment of religious freedom.
       To be truly pro-life, with respect to abortion policy, the conscientious Christian must also be pro-choice, and
       leave this moral choice to the individuals who are making it and their own religious values. You can read my on
       line essay on this point for a fuller discussion of it.

       If the issue of Abortion were all there was to the "pro-life" position, then Republicans, if they embraced a more
       libertarian point of view, would perhaps qualify as "pro-life". But that's not all there is to the issue of being
       "pro-life". There is far more evidence which suggests that Republicans are anything BUT "pro-life". To be sure,
       this is increasingly true of the Democrats as well. The policies of the political establishment in Washington
       demonstrate that it views human life to be expendable for political ends.

       A consistent pro-life policy stance would involve the following points:

           1.Opposition to War.
           2.Opposition to the Death Penalty.
           3.Opposition to police brutality and correctional system abuses.
           4.Opposition to desecration of the natural environment, the cradle of all life, and the possession of our
              Divine Creator!

       Republicans are the party which, under the leadership of Ronald Reagan, helped to finance the largest military
       build-up in the nation's history. They are the party which, on principle, refuses to aid socialist countries, and yet,
       against all principle, sponsors campaigns of domestic terrorism around the world in order to help pro-corporate
       "freedom fighters" rise to power by force (Iran-Contra anyone?). Republicans are the party which has
       traditionally supported such anti-freedom and anti-life domestic policies as Cointellpro, an ongoing FBI infiltration
       into progressive groups, done in the name of National Security. Republicans have steadfastly defended the
       secrecy of the intelligence budget and expenditures, allowing "black ops" to undermine human rights of
       self-determination around the globe. The Republicans are the party which fought aggressively for the return of
       "get-tough" crime policies which include the expansion of the death penalty (although Clinton is also guilty of
       this policy stance), which aside from being morally reprehensible, is also racially biased according to every major
       study of its application in this country.

       Furthermore, how pro-life is it to defend the sale of assault weapons and advocate unrestricted access to
       handguns, as many Republicans have done? Certainly responsible gun ownership is an American tradition; I do
       not support bans on gun ownership. But Republicans have consistently opposed EVERY form of Gun control,
       even the most sensible measures, which could occasionally prevent or help solve murders.

       Republicans are also the party which has advocated the rights of corporations to destroy the environment which
       we all inhabit. Republicans are the captives of the so-called "wise use" movement, which seeks to maximize
       exploitation of natural resources for the profits of corporations, without concern for environmental
       consequences. The world is the Lord's,(Psalms 24:1), and we must steward its resources, which means standing
       up for the rights of our society to limit destructive exploitation of natural resources for the purposes of private
       profit. We must protect the environment, something which the Republican party has refused to do, because they
       believe that it places an undue burden on business, and because they have chosen to close their eyes to the
       evidence of human destruction of the natural world and its effects on health and quality of life. This is just
       another way that they seem to serve mammon, not God (Matthew 6:24).

       In short, the Republican party has an abysmal record on human rights, the environment, and other REAL
       pro-life issues; by focusing on abortion, which is really a policy issue that appeals to the male instinct to dominate
       the female for the sake of his own offspring, rather than being about supporting "life", Republicans have applied
       a pro-life varnish to their authoritarian and aristocratic tendencies. Republican ideas of "family values" are
       definitely in line with American Family Values but not Christian family values.

       This goes without saying. We know people by their fruits, and nothing else (Matthew 7:16). Simply being
       "pro-life" doesn't make Republicans Christian. Being "conservative" does not make Republicans Christians.
       Being "pro-family" doesn't make Republicans Christian. Neither does a public claim to the name "Christian"
       signify anything.

       Only internal faith in Christ makes someone a Christian, and the only evidence we have of this is: does that
       person love, does that person heal, does that person feed the hungry, clothe the naked, defend the fatherless,
       support the widow (Psalm 146), will that person take up the cross (Mark 8:34) every day in order to declare the
       forgiveness which is given to every single human being in spite of and regardless of their sins? That is the
       meaning of the term "Christian", and simply claiming that your agenda is "Christian" doesn't make your
       coalition any more "Christian" than does a Pharisee washing his hands makes him a true child of Abraham.

       "Political" Christians have a calling at this time to be a part of the public debate. But you and I disagree, in short,
       on the ends we should be working for. While you strive to mobilize support for a worldly, highly imperfect, and
       strongly authoritarian political party, I, and Christians like me, will strive for a higher goal. We will work to
       educate Christians to make the practical decisions they must make in political life, to do so from a consistent and
       affirmative faith perspective, and to be sensitive to the calling we all have in Christ. For we are not to make
       enemies, exploit fears, or to take control of the world by force, but to give hope in the Good news that God's
       grace is open to all, and is calling us all to care for one another in love.

       Sincerely,
 

       Rev. Matthew C. Baldwin, editor of Dirty Hippy's Liberal Christian Home Journal

 

Back to Opinions Index

Email: [email protected]