Sunday, December 4, 1994

Christian right needs a lesson in humility
By Steve Blow

Like almost everyone with an interest in politics and/or religion, I’ve been struggling to sort out my thoughts about the rise of the religious right. To be more accurate, I guess I should say I have struggled to sort out my misgivings about this phenomenon.

Let me start with a few disclaimers. My distress has nothing to do with conservatism as a political philosophy. And neither do I quibble with Christians getting involved in issues of the day.

So what’s my concern? Well, that’s the hard part.

To begin, let me tell you a little bit about the church I grew up in. As l’ve said before, it was tiny. And old-timey, too.

We still observed something known as “foot-washing services,” which will probably sound as bizarre as snake handling to many of you.

But it was a solemn ceremony for us— and particularly powerful for me as an adolescent boy coming to grips with grown-up spirituality.

The preacher would start with a little history lesson, about how folks in Bible days walked everywhere in open sandals and how they shared those dusty, dirty streets with camels and donkeys and goats. It was a pretty vivid picture.

A lowly Job

He would explain that when visitors entered a household, the lowliest servant would get the nasty job of washing the guests’ feet.

Then the preacher would open the Gospel of John and read from the passage in which Jesus knelt at the feet of his disciples and, one by one, washed their feet in a dramatic demonstration of humility and forgiveness.

The preacher then would turn to other verses that make clear the awesome Christian contradiction—that we bring greatest glory to ourselves through the lowest servanthood to the poor and despised.

“For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted,” says the Gospel of Luke.

Then we would rise from the pews, the men and women heading into separate rooms. (We certainly didn’t believe in coed foot-washing in our church.)

Using shallow pans of water and small towels, we would take turns washing each other’s feet. And I’m telling you, washing another fella’s foot is an experience you don’t soon forget.

For better or worse, that little church left me indelibly stamped with a certain view of Christianity. And I guess that’s the heart of my misgivings today.

I have a hard time seeing humble servitude reflected in the religious right.

Something missing

I don’t know about you, but I can’t see Jerry Falwell washing anybody’s feet. Selling videotapes in the temple, maybe. But not kneeling to wash a Democratic tax-collector’s feet.

I know that most conservative Christians have good, caring hearts. But I don’t think their leaders have represented them well—or our faith.

When they talk about welfare reform, I don’t get the idea that it’s motivated by deep compassion for the poor. I hear contempt for welfare bums and cheats.

When they talk about Bill Clinton, I don’t hear respectful disagreement with a Christian brother. I hear ridicule and a jumbo load of judgment.

When they talk about drug addicts and teen-age mothers and juvenile gangsters, I don’t hear heartache for people caught in self destructive ways. I hear disgust for those not playing by the rules of “traditional values.”

Most critics of the religious right have worried about what these Christian politicians might do to democracy.

But my greatest concern is what these political Christians might do to Christianity.

I don’t want my faith dragged down to the level of a quasi-political party. I don’t want my spirituality turned into some politician’s strange bedfellow.

Please, Christian Coalition, don’t sell our faith short.

Government is ultimately about rules and regulations. Christianity is about a relationship.

Government is about changing behavior. Christianity is about changing the human heart.

To those outside the faith watching and wondering, 1 would simply say: Don’t judge Christianity by all those who call themselves Christian. Me included.

If you wonder, open one of the Gospels and listen to the founder.

April 1995