From Indiana: Carry Your Faith-Based Values into The Voting Booth
By the Rev. Dr. Richard L. Hamm
Former General Minister and President of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)
For many decades now, the American media has made far-right white evangelicals, especially some highly visible televangelists, their go-to source for comments about what American Christians and other people of faith think about this or that issue. In so doing, they have taken what are often the thinnest expressions of religious thought, usually based on some kind of personal agenda, and reported these as important expressions of Christian conviction.
In point of fact there are millions upon millions of Americans today who cannot understand how Franklin Graham (so unlike his father), Jerry Falwell Jr. (oops, guess he’s off the go-to list), or a host of other highly visible televangelists and fundamentalist mega-church preachers can support the idea of another four years of our current President—or, for that matter, how they could have supported the first four years of this President!
I’m not just trying to promote Christians or other people of faith who identify as Democrats. I have many Christian Republicanfriends who also have deep and legitimate concerns about our current President and what he is doing to the United States’ political system, the U.S. position in the world, and our relationships with our allies and enemies; how he has drawn on and fanned fear and anxiety, racism, and misogyny, while denying science, aiding and abetting environmental degradation, and allowing COVID-19 to kill over 196,000 precious children of God. The last four years have been a deadly disaster in which unchecked narcissism has, in the person of our President, wed itself destructively to strongly authoritarian tendencies and complete inconsistency in decision-making, and at a time when we so much need sane and stable leadership.
I live in Indiana, a state that brought forth the excellent Senator Richard Lugar, and that is currently governed by a Republican Governor who has genuinely tried to lead in positive ways in the time of COVID-19; a state that is served mostly by Republicans in Congress, most of whom have sought to moderate the Trump-effect and to govern in a way that meets the needs of all of our citizens rather than pitting us over against each other. I don’t always agree with their policies or approaches, but I do think most are trying to do what they think is right. They are, by and large, transparent and truthful. Likewise, we have faithful, decent, and hard-working Democratic leaders who are, like so many of their authentic Republican colleagues, absolutely appalled at what almost daily comes out of the White House.
The constant lying and misrepresentation has to stop. Setting Americans over against each other has to stop. Befriending dictators while alienating our democratic allies has to stop. Demonizing and dehumanizing whole groups of people has to stop. We need leaders we can trust, leaders who will seek to bring us together with each other and with our allies, leaders who will provide sane and stable political leadership to our country. And we desperately need a President who will unite our diverse national community, and who will, with his clear ethical vision and strong moral example, inspire us always to do better and better as a nation.
Whether you are Republican or Democrat or Independent, if you are a faithful Christian or devoted person of another faith, or nonreligious person of strong conscience, I ask you to seek and vote for candidates who are truthful, who are uncompromisingly committed to the common good, and who actually believe in and actively promote “liberty and justice for all.”
For nonpartisan information about voting: iwillvote.com. To endorse this letter as a religious leader: http://www.pofpol.us