What Does the Lord Require of Republicans?

“With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?” He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?
-Micah 6:6-8 (New Revised Standard Version)

For some of you who don’t know it, I am an ordained minister, and I am the Associate Pastor of a congregation in Minneapolis focusing on mission and outreach. That’s a churchy way of saying I am focused on getting the church involved in projects that help those in need.

Helping those in need has been a part of life since I was young. It stems from my Christian faith which I learned calls on us to help those in need.

Somewhere along the way, I also became interested in conservatism and the GOP. Now on the surface, many wonder how I can be both a Republican and someone who is interested in social justice. But I don’t think that these two values have to be opposed to each other. It was Thomas Dewey who believed in a government that helped the less fortunate and is also efficient:

Dewey said in his first gubernatorial address, “There has never been a responsible government which did not have the welfare of its people at heart… anybody who thinks that an attack on the fundamental idea of security and welfare is appealing to people generally is living in the Middle Ages.” As governor, he put forward social programs that included unemployment insurance, sickness and disability benefits, old age pensions, slum clearance, state aid to education (including the creation of the State University of New York), infrastructure projects (particularly highway construction), and pathbreaking anti-discrimination legislation. Dewey attempted to distinguish his programs from similar Democratic programs by running a government that was acknowledged to be clean, honest, and efficient. His was pay-as-you-go liberalism, as he managed to implement his social programs while cutting taxes, reducing the state debt by over $100 million, and still achieving budget surpluses. He also argued that while Republicans and Democrats might agree on social ends, the parties would differ in their means, with moderate Republicans emphasizing individual freedom and economic incentive over collectivization. However, this relatively sophisticated position inevitably opened Dewey to conservative gripes of “me-tooism” and Democratic claims that he was offering a lesser version of the genuine article.

Now, there is nothing here that talks about faith, but it does speak of a Republicanism at one time care about the poor and aged.

These days, there is a lot of religiosity that comes from Republicans, but when it comes to caring for our fellow sisters and brothers there is very little. E.D. Kain makes the case that many in the base of the GOP are not acting that “Christian:”

I think fiscal conservatism and Christianity are compatible, but I don’t think that reconciling them is particularly easy – especially when socialism has taken on such pervasive meaning in today’s world, and all of it reactionary and negative. Undoubtedly, actual socialism – Stalinism or Maoism – is very bad for humanity. But welfare liberalism, or the sort of welfare state erected in the Nordic European states is a far, far cry from Stalinist Russia. And it’s simply nonsense to keep comparing healthcare reform to fascism or communism or any of these other ludicrous “isms” and then – at the same time – invoke the Bible.

Let’s take a look at the early Christians. Here’s Acts IV – when the earliest believers were still following the original apostles about Jerusalem and the surrounding countryside:

32All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had. 33With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and much grace was upon them all. 34There were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales 35and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone as he had need.

Now this is not an endorsement of out-and-out socialism, but neither is it at all reminiscent of the sort of language one hears surrounding the education debate or the healthcare debate, or any debate wherein conservatives decide that any and all government involvement is bad and unwarranted. I think the Nordic models – which encourage free trade, very low intervention into the economy by the state, and a strong social safety net, are a far more Christian model than the one we’ve erected here, where every man fends for himself (at least theoretically).

Anyone who doesn’t know about ED Kain, should know that he tends to lean center-right. He is not some starry-eyed liberal, but is concerned about how we treat those who are less well off.

That has also been my concern as well. But when it comes to the GOP and religion, there seems to be an emphasis only on saving fetuses and preventing gay people from marrying. But Christian faith talks a lot about caring for our neighbor. That doesn’t mean that God endorses large government programs like single payer health care, but I also don’t think God is asking us to ignore those who have not health care, or live in substandard housing or go to horrible schools.

Of course, there have been people within the GOP who have cared about the poor and have sought to use conservative ideas to achieve liberal ends. The late Jack Kemp was a tireless promoter for helping poor blacks in the inner city make it out of poverty by using free market principles. When George Bush campaigned for President in 2000, he supported the idea of “compassionate conservatism,” and spoke of finding ways for government to work to achieve social justice.

Writing for the new conservative jounral National Affairs, Steven Teles writes about the concept of compassionate conservativism and why it has not been embraced by the GOP. He ends with this sad note:

Compassionate conservatism could also return to prominence if the idea proves its mettle in the real world of electoral politics. In the United Kingdom, Conservative party leader David Cameron has staked his challenge to the Labour government on a “modern, compassionate conservatism.” In New Jersey, Republican gubernatorial nominee Christopher Christie has actively campaigned in poor neighborhoods in the state and — with the support of a wide range of racial minority groups — made an aggressive school-voucher program a key part of his challenge to incumbent governor Jon Corzine. If Cameron and Christie were to win at a time when conservatives seem desperate for a way out of the political wilderness, other Republicans might seek to replicate their ideological formula.

The most likely pathway back to influence for compassionate conservatism, however, may not run through party politics at all. Rather than attempt to use the Republican party as a battering ram to reform the welfare state, compassionate conservatism might return to its more ideologically ambiguous roots, seeking to advance itself through strange bedfellows rather than party-line coalitions. Compassionate conservatives could rebuild their linkages with reformist Democrats, changing policy slowly by reshaping the conventional wisdom in both parties. The future of compassionate conservatism may, like progressivism before it, depend on attracting “respectable people” across the political spectrum through a slow process of experimenting, organization-building, and seeking out allies. History suggests that this will be a more durable strategy for compassionate conservatism than capturing the Republican party, which has at best been its fair-weather friend.

I do think there is hope for the GOP to really take compassionate conservatism on in the same way that the Conservatives in the UK have. But I also think it is an uphill climb. The party is captured by the Teabaggers and the Religious right which as Teles notes sees compassion as a private virture and not a political philosphy.

I also think it will have to take a movement of Republicans, from black pastors to white policy wonks to young evangelicals to come together as a coalition to frame a new GOP that can fashion something like the Shoestring Manifesto that has come to fore in the United Kingdom among Conservatives or Christian Democracy, which is found in Germany, the Nordic Countries and Latin America.

What does the Lord require of Republicans? We know the answer: but we Republicans just have to give a damn.

Crossposted at Republicans United