Jay Rosen, of The Revealer, asked his readers to think about what might happen if the population of the journalistic campaign bus included not only the seasoned political reporters, but also journalists on the religion beat: “If a religion writer covered the presidential campaign, how would campaign coverage be different?”
As a theologically-interested observer, this is how I’d answer Jay’s question:
First, Jay, may I rephrase your question? I hate to fulfill a destiny to become increasingly pedantic as I get older, but you asked “If Religion Writers Rode the Campaign Bus... what would be different?” That’s one I can’t answer, not only because of deficient mantic capacities, but because the term “religion” covers so much terrain that I can’t presume to address its range. Each of us speaks from a particular location within a particular tradition of construing reality’s texture; we all do better to acknowledge the horizons of our claims rather than pretending to privileged access to some presumably universal vantage point.
Instead, what if we asked what might happen? That permits me to imagine myself (or a like-minded journalist) on the trail, and that option better fits my capacities.
Among the first things that might happen could be articles, interviews if possible, actually probing the candidates’ theology. Sound-bite answers that identify denominational allegiances, favorite philosophers, or attitude to church-state issues don’t get at the substance of a person’s convictions about God, the human condition, and the ways in which a candidate’s understandings of God and humanity issue in judgments about social and political behavior. Why could not a congenial, fair-minded interviewer plumb the souls of these candidates to learn not simply what they say about God and faith, but also how they think about such topics? One might learn about the formative influences, authorities, practices, and ultimate convictions that shape the candidate’s behavior; and one might ascertain the depth of understanding with which the candidate speaks about these topics.
Another difference might derive from such a journalist’s alertness to inconsistencies and ironies relative to the political scene’s construction of religious topics. For instance, although the press tuned in to questions about whether the conquest and occupation of Iraq constituted a justified war, I have observed no attention to whether subsequent developments (relative to the presence or absence of WMDs, the international consensus or lack thereof, and the effects of the invasion) bear out or undermine the case for having regarded this as a justified war. I haven’t seen stories that analyze the divergent approaches to evaluating war as an instrument for foreign policy that have characterized Christians from the Catholic tradition (itself internally contested and heterogeneous), which has explicitly pursued and articulated the grounds for regarding war as justified, to the historic small-“b” baptist tradition (including Mennonites, Hutterites, and Church of the Brethren), within which a great proportion of Christian pacifists have found their home — let alone the manifold ways that Hindu, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, and other traditions of reflection have treated these topics. Where political journalists often treat “religion” or “Christianity” or “The Church” as essentially homogeneous, a more religiously-alert writer might focus on the widely-divergent specific traditions that constitute the Big Category Names, enriching her or his material not only with awareness of the differences among and within theological traditions, but also with the themes that distinct religions share, albeit in different ways. When politicians deploy Big Vacuous Terms such as “religion,” or “the Church,” or “Judaeo-Christian values” to plaster over the constitutive theological disagreements among American citizens, the religiously-attuned journalist could be in a position to identify the narrower positions slant to which the politician is appealing.
Of course, it’s hard to see politicians offering any great detail on these topics when vagueness fits so well into the privatization and trivialization of religion. Any detail, any specific point to which a politician confesses adherence risks alienating votes. The religion reporter on the campaign bus who probes for ambitious answers to searching questions expends precious time and goodwill in an endeavor that stands to embarrass her or his source; better, perhaps, for all concerned to settle for anodyne rote responses to superficial religious questions.
A campaign journalist whose religious roots run deep could be in a position to explore the candidates’ positions on “life” positions such as abortion, war, stem cell research, health care, physician-assisted death, and the death penalty. On what basis would a “pro-life” candidate abolish legal abortion, but send troops to war and execute convicts? On what basis would someone who supports abortion rights hesitate to condone euthanasia or capital punishment? Moreover, deeply-held theological beliefs ought to shape our responses not simply to obvious questions of life or death, but to questions on the conduct of life in all it spheres. Numerous observers were surprised when Susan Pace Hamill's masters thesis on the Alabama Tax Code excoriated the laws enacted by legislators who make hay of their Christian commitments, but hers was only an isolated example of the application of theological reason to political process.
A religiously-informed journalist might know enough of religious history to be able readily to cite ways that the terms and practices of particular groups have changed over the years, to note that dogmas and rites inform their traditions in different ways under different conditions. Such a journalist might spot, and address on-the-spot oversimplifications, distortions, and blind spots that impoverish politicians’ statements and reporters’ coverage thereof.
Finally, a religiously-grounded journalist could be in a position to hold in suspension the primacy that virtually all culturally-prominent voices ascribe to pragmatic considerations, to political premises indigenous to American liberal democracy, to the postulate that “citizenship” (with its obligations and benefits) is an unproblematic characteristic for Christians, to the confinement of religion to the category of private sentiment rather than reflective discernment, and to the cornucopia of incoherent rituals, dogmas, offices, and rhetorical flourishes that the American political system substitutes for an explicitly theological account of life, the universe, and everything.
Thanks for asking --
Grace and peace,
AKMA
I think you have just blown your chances for an interview with any serious politician, but what a wonderful thing it would be to have you interview the candidates, reflectively, with religious discernment. Problematize the very concept of citizenship. You really should write for publication about religion in American politics. You have the prose for it. If this writing is postmodern, I am converting. Wish I could write that subtly on any topic. What I like best is your well-mannered intransigence. Subtle and sinuous but unyielding on matters of deepest importance.
Posted by: Phil at July 19, 2004 02:57 PM