Longtime Oregon Senator Mark O. Hatfield died this week, as much as statesman and example for Christians in public service as John Stott, who died last month, was for Christians in both academia and everyday life.
Let me go back a few years, back to the 1970s, when Watergate fouled the nation’s political consciousness. My father, furious at the warmongering and later criminality of the Nixon White House, answered the phone during those days with, “Hello, impeach the bastard!” I’d like to think that’s why I didn’t date much then; surely Brett in Chemistry would’ve been put off by that, although I suspect there were myriad other reasons I was a romantic only in heart as a teen.
I was also an activist, starting from pre-adolescence when we would picket the Air Base during the Vietnam War, collect petitions for the United Farm Workers (I didn’t eat grapes or lettuce, and my parents didn’t drink Gallo wine, for years), hold get-out-the-vote drives in our house, and host meetings with NAACP members, anti-war activists, and, once, a couple of members of La Raza Unida. You likely have concluded we were Democrats, and while our religious views were way off — Jesus is NOT the embodiment of The Consummate Liberal Democrat — our politics were straight down the line.
But there was one Republican my parents admired, and that was Mark Hatfield.
Hatfield, a deeply committed Baptist, made his own way in public life, guided not by polls and party allegiances but by his Spirit-guided understanding of how best to serve Christ by serving his country. He was a World War II veteran who became vehemently opposed to the Vietnam War. While other Republicans and far too many Christians were cheering on the horrors of the war, Hatfield stood opposed, calling it an evil that “must be condemned by all mankind.” He was, predictably, a staunch pro-lifer, but unlike the “pro-life” movement today, he hated both abortion and capital punishment — a consistent life-affirming ethic virtually absent from today’s pro-life ideology. An avowed opponent of racism, he sponsored legislation to ban racial segregation in Oregon public facilities and modeled a spirit of civic republicanism — which, unlike the Republicanism of today — has at its core a community-building belief in both people and process. Hatfield dared to anger his religious constituents and Congressional peers with is early backing of civil rights for gays and lesbians. He was more conservative than my parents were in fiscal issues, and more Libertarian than I would have liked, but Mark Hatfield was a good man who stood out while in the Senate for his humility, his conscience, his intelligence, and his integrity.
Look at the GOP field today. We’ve got serial adulterer Newt Gingrich, who’s seemingly written a book on virtually every subject under the sun, including one on character. Herman Cain, who’s entire platform involves hating Barack Obama — a platform he shares with all the others except John Huntsman. We’ve endured Tim Pawlenty, who apparently has to check his driver’s license every morning to remind himself who he really is, and the vapid, vacuous Beauty King Mitt Romney, conspicuously silent during the debt ceiling debate — perhaps frantically hiding during the distraction to finally figure out a way to describe his Massachusetts healthcare plan as somehow radically different from Obama’s. Then there’s Ron Paul, a very nice man who’s made a career of increasing his irrelevance. Individually, I’m sure these are all the sort of fellow who would make great neighbors, but my prayer and hope is that they stay in their respective neighborhoods and not have cause to move into the White House.
It’s early in the morning, and so it pains me to discuss Michelle Bachmann, whose entrance into the race has garnered a comedy CD’s worth of gaffes, groaners, and garbled responses to the most basic political questions. Texas Governor Rick Perry already has a foot and a half in the ring; he’ll remind us often, as he did earlier this month, that he “believes in this country because he believes in America,” or, alternately, he “believes in America because he believes in this country.” This razor-sharp grasp of the issues makes the inimitable and irredeemingly dense, pandering, shrieking, and grasping Sarah Palin look like a reasonable adult — until she opens her mouth.
Why am I so hard on the Bachmann, Perry, and Palin?
It’s because they share the essentials of Hatfield’s Christian faith — Jesus as the Way of salvation, the Bible as God’s Word, and the Gospel as a message to be taken to the world. But Palin, Bachmann, and Perry have both constricted the Gospel and artificially inflated it with what the Word can never countenance. Their opposition to social programs, peace, justice, and a foreign policy based on honest humility, moral strength, and mutual respect indicates that they’ve distilled the Gospel message down to the Four Spiritual Laws of salvation, and that only. On the other hand, they deny Jesus by ignoring both His model of true servanthood and His message of reconciliation, and instead call “Christianity” their power-seeking, hierarchical, and damaging Dominionism — a philosophy that adopts the very things hated by Christ and attempts to shove Him into its gaseous message and toxic methodology. As the most public proclaimers of Christian faith, they ought to be rebuked because they have traded their Christianity for a vile ChristiAmericanism whose power-hungry Dominionism will ultimately be shown impotent, absent as it is from the Power and Presence of the Holy Spirit of God.
Hatfield’s soul is rejoicing with his Savior. I pray he sees no more what Christians have done to both the GOP and to this country.