Nicholas F. Benton's White House Report:

Everyone was shocked to learn that it was a mobilization of evangelical Christians, the so-called “religious right,” that keyed President Bush’s re-election last week. It caught Democrats and media pundits off guard, and even Republican organizers were surprised at how much better the religious right networks’ “Get Out the Vote” effort was than their own. Many Catholic churches weighed in, as well, among other things impacting the Hispanic vote. Many priests did not hesitate to link a vote for Bush with the well-being of parishioner souls.As much as some may grouse about the way in which all this overstepped the separation of church and state, the fact is that 95% of Americans profess a belief in God or some higher power. It should be obvious, therefore, that a strong appeal to values derived from that belief would have an important impact at the ballot box. And it did.

But hold on. I am an active, church-going Christian. But like many other Christians, I am profoundly offended by the so-called “moral values” espoused by the religious right that focused, for this election, almost exclusively against women’s rights and gay rights. On the other hand, I share a lot of the values rooted in love and compassion that are espoused by most religious traditions.

My religious background and church practice are also rooted in “moral values,” too, but defined in different terms. They are linked to notions of peace, justice, service to the disadvantaged, equality and human rights. The problem is that my terms, defined as religious values, didn’t show up at the polls last week. I want to know why.

Where was the passionate, compassionate, prophetic voice of the Rev. Martin Luther King in this election? He was no proponent of a bigoted religious right. Nor was he a secularist. As a religious leader, as a Christian, he was perhaps the most powerful force for civil rights, justice and equality this nation has ever known. Why was the legacy of Martin Luther King simply not a factor, in “values” terms, in this election?

I believe the religious right hijacked “values” to win this election because the leaders of my church denomination, the United Church of Christ, and those of like-minded religious institutions, stood on their hands and let it happen. Of course, whining bureaucrats will protest. But they got their behinds kicked badly in this election.

How many times in the year leading up to the election did CNN or other news networks put the bloated, pasty face of Jerry Falwell up on a split screen to spew anti-gay bigotry, only to have the “other side” represented by a secular person? Why was my church not pounding down the doors of CNN insisting that Falwell does not speak for all Christians, that there is another way to interpret the Gospel and moral values, entirely?

Why was abortion allowed to stand alone for so many faithful as a presidential litmus test, but not a candidate’s culpability in launching an unprovoked war of conquest that has left over 100,000 Iraqis dead so far?

It didn’t used to be this way in the United Church of Christ which has 1.2 million members including the likes of Barak Obama, Howard Dean and Jim Jeffords. Born of a merger of the Congregational Church (of the original Pilgrims) and the Evangelical and Reformed Church in 1958, the UCC grew up in the spirit of ecumenicism with its leaders often marching at the head of civil rights and anti-war protests and marches.

I joined the UCC 40 years ago this month, subsequently enrolled after college and graduated with honors from a UCC-affiliated theological seminary. The civil rights and anti-war ferment of the 1960s and early 1970s was deeply intertwined with the activism of the UCC and other progressive denominations and religious institutions in the spirit of Martin Luther King, offering critical logistical and moral support.In those days, the moral “high ground” was clearly held by those who took to the streets on behalf of peace and social justice. They stood strong, in particular against the many sermons preached in conservative and reactionary churches insisting the Bible supported racism and war, and fiercely opposed integration and interracial marriage. They also stood against popular sentiment, which was against interracial marriage at that time by a wider margin than it is against gay marriage today.

One can only speculate about what caused the change since those days, but we know how dramatically things have reversed in the period between that point and this.

I have my theories, based on a lot of eye-witness observations over the interim, and I intend to say what I surmise about it all. Rampant covert domestic intelligence operations during the 1970s, some of which was publicly exposed but much of which was not, helped mute one social current and give force and voice to another. Little of it has been by accident.

It is time to ask tough questions, and I hereby join many others equally troubled to call my church, the United Church of Christ, and kindred groups, into some very serious soul-searching.

The particularly-painful irony regarding the UCC in this election was not only its dead silence in the face of a mobilization of the religious right, but the fact that its national headquarters is located right in the one place where a concerted effort could have made a major difference: Ohio.

Nicholas Benton may be emailed at nfbenton@fcnp.com