WASHINGTON -- In the mass of
commentary published following the mid-October slaying of a 21-year-old
Wyoming student, a professed gay, at least two journalists identifying
themselves as Christians got caught in running debates with both
sides of the political spectrum, seemingly on different sides.
Deborah Mathis, who covers the White House for Gannett News Service,
and whose column is syndicated by Tribune Media Service, wrote
a blistering criticism of the "anti-homosexual crowd,"
charging them with complicity in the student's murder.
She listed among her targets the Christian Coalition and several
conservative organizations associated with right-wing Christianity,
as well as Republican congressional leaders Jesse Helms, Trent
Lott and Dick Armey, each of whom has been linked with the religious
right.
Though not guilty "per se" of the young man's death,
Mathis wrote, they "poisoned the air which poisoned the minds
which connived to attract, deceive and destroy a young man who
deserved, in the least, to be left alone."
In the days following publication of her "complicity"
column, Gannett News Service and Tribune Media Service fielded
up to 500 calls per hour, most of them complaining about Mathis's
attack, according to a report in Editor & Publisher, the newspaper
trade journal.
Many of the anti-Mathis calls
came as a result of a campaign by the conservative Dr. James Dobson,
host of the "Focus on the Family" radio ministry. Dobson
urged listeners to call, among others, Tribune Media Service to
complain about Mathis's column. Dobson included Mathis among attackers
who portend "an era of oppression and intolerance of all
things Christian."
Responding to callers, Mathis took umbrage.
The daughter of a Baptist minister, Mathis countered those calling
her "anti-Christian," saying, "I am a Christian
and have said so many times in my column. ... There's a Bible
on my desk at work. My son attends a Christian school. I know
what Christianity is supposed to be about."
Meanwhile, a second clash was played out on the pages of the Washington
Post between its octogenarian, liberal cartoonist Herblock and
one of the newspaper's editorial writers, Colbert I. King.
Following the Wyoming slaying, Herblock published a cartoon depicting
the young man's grave and a woman who addresses two other caricatures
of Sen. Lott and "Christian" politics: "Would you
explain again how a young man like this might have cured himself
of his 'sin'?"
This time, it was a Christian journalist, King, charging that
Herblock painted the anti-homosexual crowd with "too broad
a brush."
King wrote in an op-ed piece
in the Post, "I am one of many Christians whose 'politics'
don't include treating homosexuality as a 'curable sin.' The same
goes for the church I attend and the denomination to which it
belongs."
Herblock responded with an op-ed piece of his own. The Pulitzer-Prize-winning
cartoonist countered King's charge by saying his attack was "mild
compared with Mark Twain's sulfurous views on many self-styled
Christians and politicos."
I find myself sympathetic to the Christian commentator's voices
in both these clashes. Close analysis reveals both Mathis and
King, while aiming at different targets, attempted to put great
distance between their Christian faith and the right-wing Christianity
that has hogged headlines and captured much of the Republican
Party.
Insight into this distancing phenomenon comes in a recent column
written by Jim Wallis, founder of the Washington-based Christian
activist group, Sojourners.
Wallis, who also edits the organization's
magazine by the same name, and whose columns are also posted on
the MSNBC web site, suggests the politics cloaked in right-wing
Christianity that propelled Messrs. Lott, Armey and resigning
Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich into prominence seems to be
fading.
Right-wing religious "attack politics" is on the wane,
Wallis suggests, but "a new form of religious activism is
ready to take its place."
Faith and
Action
The new activism recognizes,
Wallis writes, that "faith is tested by action," and
this action is taking form as Christians of varying political
stripe accept the challenge of welfare reform.
With conviction I think both Mathis and King would share, Wallis
chides the religious right by asserting, "Christians are
again reading what the Bible says about God's concern for the
poor, almost entirely missed in the rancorous debates of Christian
politics these last two decades.
"The next version of Christian politics may advocate strong
families," Wallis writes, "but won't attack homosexuals;
it may abhor abortion, but won't support a constitutional amendment
to ban it."
Wallis makes clear, however, this new activism should not be construed
as a "religious left." He scolds the media for its tendency
to put issues into superficial categories, and claims that political,
racial and sectarian boundaries fade in the new activism.
The new activists are "as
alarmed about the nation's abortion rate" as are the radical
right, Wallis says, but instead of attacking and berating the
victims of abortion and homosexuality as if they are the problem,
the new religious political consciousness is rooted in reconciliation
and reform.
It takes its model, Wallis notes, from an older evangelical tradition
that worked to secure an end to slavery, the reformation of child
labor laws, and the right of women to vote.
King and Mathis should find encouragement in Wallis's conclusion:
"Newt," he writes, "may not be the only one on
the way out."
Allan R. Andrews can be contacted
at allan.andrews@reporters.net
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