A Letter to the Religious Right

Dear Religious Right,

Hi. I am an evangelical Christian, and I vote conservative across the board. Yet, as far as I'm concerned, you suck. Well, not actually you, but your leaders. You know, the ones on TV that the media pays attention to. They suck. Unfortunately, when they speak the world reflects their feelings toward those people onto the entire group of people for whom they allegedly speak. If you happen to agree with those leaders and follow everything they say, and defend them when they say something stupid, then you suck, too.

Sound strange coming from a conservative, evangelical Christian? It should. If one were to overlap my views with the views expressed by many of your leaders, they would line up just about perfectly. Yet somehow, the existence of what is now identified as the "religious right" in America makes my life more difficult on a near-daily basis.

You suck not because of the issues on which you choose to focus. It's not because of your stance on those issues. It's not because of your demographics, your voting history, or even because of the influence you wield (after all, I want to achieve the many of the same ends as you). So why would a conservative, evangelical Christian be writing you a letter to tell you that you suck? Let's see...

You suck for the countless times you made me look stupid. Every time I hear about something the 700 Club said about politics or world events, it makes me look less intelligent. I end up having to distance myself from you, even though I am quite often in agreement with you ideologically.

You suck because the strategies you employ to implement your views are unsuccessful. You argue against gay marriage (a position upon which I happen to agree), but you do so largely on anti-intellectual lines. You say that God disapproves of this type of relationship. I agree. Problem is we live in an unbelieving world. Joe American, if the statistics are correct, is not an evangelical Christian. Appealing to the Bible, whether Leviticus or Romans or Ephesians, makes no difference to them. All it does is make us look like we have no line of argumentation outside of the Bible. That kind of thing is what has given the word "fundamentalist" a very negative connotation.

See, here's the thing: you make clear what you want, but you employ arguments that only cement the opposition against you. I sincerely wish that everyone in the world had a relationship with the living God. They don't. As such they don't share our morals or values. Since they don't share them, they are not only unresponsive, but are repulsed from your position when they hear that line of argumentation. Don't mishear me: I agree with most of your positions. What I loathe is how you go about advocating them.

Arguing that the government or the voters should take a position solely because of God's Word will only fuel anti-evangelical sentiment, and will add fuel to the already burning "America must fight against theocracy" movement. We must find good reasons to support our positions in addition to God's Word. And when we identify them, we must make those reasons our strongholds in the fight for the heart of America.

Finally, you suck because your make it appear that the Church cares more about politics than people. More about power than people. More about gay marriage and abortion than people. The sad thing is that the overall impression the Christian community has imparted on the rest of the world has not been sufficient to drown out these negative images.

Please hear me, Religious Right. I don't want you to change your positions. I want you to change your tactics. If you are compassionate, caring, intelligent, well-reasoned, loving, and thoughtful, you will see a world that wants to accept your faith, accept your worldview, share your values, and the world will be better for it.

Much better than if you just get the votes you want on abortion or gay marriage.


Sincerely,

k. randolph