Top Down or Bottom Up?

I'm having a hard time understanding the desire by some Christians to engage in a fight over judicial nominations in the name of religious expression and freedom. What, exactly, is the point? Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council lists four reasons why this isn't just political but religious as well, and why it is incumbent upon all Christians to join this distinctly religous struggle.

1. The Legalization of Abortion

This is a tough one. For pro-lifers, abortion isn't just about curtailing the rights of women, it's about protecting the lives of unborn children. More than a religious issue, it's a question of justice. But it's also an issue that resonates with more than just the religiously minded. So the question is why Christians are drawing the wagons so close. If abortion is an issue of life and death that should alarm all Americans, the debate shouldn't be about people of faith. Wouldn't it make more sense to rally all Americans, both religious and non-religious, to fight for a more just society?

Even more troubling is that when you paint the problem of abortion in religious terms, you give liberals more fodder for the cannons. Nothing is more dangerous to healthy debate than empty rhetoric. It means the speaker isn't thinking and it gives the listener an excuse to be dismissive. The challenge is whether pro-lifers can argue against abortion on terms everyone can accept. Christians must never paint abortion as a religious issue if they intend to change the minds of the pro-choice community.

2. The Banning of School Prayer

This isn't as tough of an issue. What's traumatic about school prayer isn't that we don't have it, it's that it was taken away. School prayer isn't about saving the souls of children, it's about what how we conceive of our country. At root, are we a Christian nation, where we separate the state from the church for the good of the church? Or are we a pluralistic nation, where we separate the church from the state for the good of the state? And does this even matter?

I'm inclined to think it doesn't matter. For Christians, and more particularly Evangelicals, the big point in life is telling people about the love of God. So the thought surely must be that by preserving our Christian heritage, we are allowing the gospel to fluorish, thereby opening up the gates of heaven. But that can't be right. Revival, and its evil twin spiritual decay, can never work from the top down. The changes in our nation's laws hasn't pushed this nation away from Christianity but rather has merely been the reflection of a changing nation. And if modifying our laws was never the problem, then it can't be the solution. Spiritual change must come from the bottom up.

3. The Expulsion of the 10 Commandments from Public Spaces

This really mystifies me. Again, I'm forced to ask, so what? What benefit is there to a public display of the 10 commandments? When people shuffle in and out of courtrooms that display the 10 commandments, they don't stop to ponder the wonderful Judeo-Christian heritage this nation enjoys. And if a courtroom doesn't have the 10 commandments on display, people don't fret over whether our laws are built on a firm foundation.

The fight, of course, is once again over the way we conceive of our nation. But at what price do we pay for such a debate? The more Christians fight over religious expression in the public sphere, the more tempting it is to water down such expression. And there is no point for more exposure to this nation's Christian heritage when all you eventually get is a civic religion that doesn't really represent anyone.

4. The Starvation of Terri Schiavo

Finally, we see that the Family Research Council has launched this campaign, in part, over the cause of a single woman. Here, I am left to wonder if our priorities are woefully mixed up. There is much wrong with our country and our world, and it strikes we as unfortunate that some Christians have put so much emphasis on a single tragic choice. Figuring out the right thing to do in end-of-life scenarios is not a simple task and what the courts did may or may not have been the wise choice. But at the least, the charitable interpretation of what happened with Terri Schiavo is to say that it was a murky debate over a difficult issue, and not another example of a nation gone awry. I am fearful, however, that Terri Schiavo has instead been enlisted in a fight against what some people perceive is religious bigotry.

These four issues strike me as a mix of legitimate topics for public debate, and senseless hand-wringing over the place of Christianity in public life. What is common to all of these issues is that they are dangerous when mixed with the rhetoric of religious persecution. First, if Christians try to monopolize the abortion debate, then the cause is lost. If Christians expect to make progress in how this nation conceives of abortion, then it must enlist the non-religious. Second, if Christians remain convinced that this nation should change its laws to save its soul, then we are in deep trouble. What is the point of the 10 commandments on display if you had to alienate a nation of non-Christians to get it there?

And so I'm left wondering about the fight against religious bigotry. There has got to be a better way. I just don't know what that is.

UPDATE: Here here and here are some links to other organizations who stand opposed to abortion but yet have no part in a Republican struggle against the judiciary. I'm curious as to what they think of all this.