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Talk of conservative turnout and division after US votes

by
11 November 2010

by Ed Thornton

CHURCH LEADERS in the United States are worried that the country is more divided after the mid-term elections last week, in which many voters expressed dissatisfaction with President Barack Obama.

On the eve of the elections, on Monday of last week, the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, Dr Katharine Jefferts Schori, with other church leaders, met President Obama at the White House, where she “expressed . . . concern for the divisive rhetoric so prevalent in our society today”.

The general secretary of the National Council of Churches, the Revd Peg Chemberlin, who was also present at the meeting, said: “We cannot stand by while people of goodwill are baselessly attacked for their faith, their political beliefs, or their identity. . .

“Today, tomorrow, and into this next Congress, our country needs to come together and reclaim our values of justice and equality.”

The day after the elections, which resulted in the Republican Party’s taking control of the House of Representatives, the Dean of Washington Cathedral, the Very Revd Dr Samuel Lloyd, said that the US “seems more deeply divided than ever”.

But he said that the election results, “which at first glance seem to cement the enormous divide between us, could instead offer hope and possibility for our nation and our faith in each other”.

“Despite the lingering taste of vitriol in many political mouths, it will be difficult now to accomplish anything in Washington and in many state capitols and local councils without simply talking — and listening — to each other.”

The Dean hoped that “conversion could be at hand, in which we recognize liberals and conservatives, Tea Partiers and socialists, liber­tarians and every one else, as fellow children of God”. He appealed to the example of Richard Hooker, who demonstrated “the power of calm reasoning and charity in the face of intractable controversy”.

A poll by Public Opinion Strategies, commissioned by the Faith and Freedom Coalition (FFC), found that 32 per cent of voters in its sample identified themselves “as part of the Christian conservative movement”.

Sixty-five per cent of those identified as Christian conservatives said that they had voted to send “a message opposing President Obama and his policies and programs”. Fifty-seven per cent of those surveyed said that “members of Congress and other political leaders are ignoring our religious heritage”.

In the survey sample, 78 per cent of “white Evangelicals” voted Republican, and 21 per cent voted Democrat; and 43 per cent of the Tea Party movement supporters were “white Evangelicals”.

Chuck Colson, an Evangelical political campaigner and former adviser to President Richard Nixon, said in a video posted on his website last week that the election was “the day of reckoning for the Democratic Party. . . The people’s message was … ‘we want our Government back’”.

He warned the Republicans to “celebrate quickly and then get to work”.

In a post-election analysis, Jim Wallis, president of Sojourners, the progressive Evangelical movement, wrote that “many seem to have lost faith” in President Obama.

“Obama’s legislative victories . . . have clearly not connected to the everyday lives of too many Americans or to their core values,” Mr Wallis wrote.

“Many families who are struggling and afraid don’t believe that Washington or Wall Street cares about them or is really with them. And they showed their anger at the polls, or their disillusionment by not even showing up.”

He continued: “The change promised in 2008 never came about in the minds of many across the political spectrum — on the left, the right, and the centre.”

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