Newt Gingrich’s Comic Repentance -- Sightings

Generally, Martin Marty stays clear of politics, but Newt Gingrich's recent story of repentance simply had to be addressed.  Newt is going to run for President as a champion of family values, though his own family values are suspect.  He's on wife #3.  He says he's repented, and that he's forgiven (I have no problem with that), but his rationale for his bad behavior is rather bizarre -- Marty calls it comic.  I'm going to leave the rest to you to consider Marty's analysis (including his interaction with Psalm 51).

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Sightings 3/14/2011

Newt Gingrich’s Comic Repentance

-- Martin E. Marty

After a week of tsunamis, earthquakes, Libyan horrors, Philadelphia clerical sex scandal news, National Public Radio disasters, and National Football League lock-out threats, we the people look for some comic relief. Celebrity politician Newt Gingrich provided this as he gave the Christian Broadcasting Network audience a rationale for his having committed a plethora of adulteries with, evidently inter alia, three wives. “[P]artially driven by how passionately I felt about this country. . . . I worked far too hard and things happened in my life that were not appropriate,” he said. Things didn’t “happen,” everyone but Mr. Gingrich knows; he “happened” them. The rationale, people across the spectrum agree, related to Mr. Gingrich’s political efforts to gain support for a probable—or, at least, once probable—presidential nomination candidacy.

“I felt compelled to seek God’s forgiveness. Not God’s understanding, but God’s forgiveness,” Gingrich said. Had he been talking to God in private repentance, what he said would have been no one’s business except God’s and his. Since he was talking publicly to the media and to the evangelicals he was courting, it is legitimate to note the comic dimensions of what he said. Remember what showman George M. Cohan once observed: “Many a bum show has been saved by the flag.” Mr. Gingrich, in his bum show, reached for the flag and pleaded the patriot excuse.

“Talk about a forgiving God?” he asked, or said, as he shifted into biblical mode. The template for politically-motivated repentance is the story of King David of old, who felt “passionately about his country,” enough to have something “happen in his life that was not appropriate.” That was having his general Uriah killed so that David’s adultery with Mrs. Uriah could be covered up. Serious evangelicals, and there are millions of them, are rightfully offended by this ploy. They may see similarities in the plot of David’s and Newt’s careers. Chapter headings in Steven L. McKenzie’s King David: A Biography include “Holy Terrorist: David and His Outlaw Band,” “Assassin,” “Like Father, Like Son: The Bathsheba Affair and Absalom’s Revolt.” Yes, many things in David’s case, though on a lesser scale, had also happened and were not appropriate.

McKenzie summarizes the record, including: “One of David’s wives is his best friend’s sister and his enemy’s daughter. . . . Some of his brides were new widows whose husbands had very recently died under suspicious circumstances.” We read that he’d “sent for Bathsheba and ‘lay’ with her.” (II. Sam. 11:4. Nothing is said of her feelings.) The King, “feeling passionate about [his] country,” had “worked too hard,” as evidenced when he brought Uriah on the scene. “All David could think to do was ask general questions about the welfare of the army and the war,” questions whose answer he knew.

Evangelicals believe that Psalm 51, a classic, the classic, of repentance literature was later written by David. They take their cue from an ancient subtitle, Psalm 51: “A Psalm of David, when the prophet Nathan came to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba.” The climactic Psalm line, to God: “Against you, you alone, have I sinned, and done what is evil in your sight.” The stakes were high, but no match for those today, when a possible candidate has to make his case before a more stern judge: a bloc of voters in an American election. That Mr. Gingrich tried to be forgiven while using the “patriotism” and “overworking” excuses is what leads many to see a usually serious act turning out to have been what we called “comic.” Now, back to the serious matters of the week.

References


Steven L. McKenzie, King David: A Biography (Oxford, 2000).

UPI, “Gingrich: Working Too ‘Hard’ Led to Affair,” March 9, 2011.

Maggie Haberman, “Newt Gingrich: ‘I Was Doing Things That Were Wrong',” Politico, March 8, 2011.

Matt Sullivan, “How Newt Gingrich Misplaced His Member,” Esquire, March 9, 2011.

Martin E. Marty's biography, current projects, publications, and contact information can be found at www.illuminos.com.

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This month’s Religion and Culture Web Forum is written by D. Max Moerman and entitled “The Death of the Dharma: Buddhist Sutra Burials in Early Medieval Japan.” In eleventh-century Japan, Buddhists fearing the arrival of the "Final Dharma"--an age of religious decline--began to bury sutras in sometimes-elaborate reliquaries. Why entomb a text, making it impossible for anyone to see or read it? And what do such practices teach us about the meaning and purpose of texts in Buddhism and other religions? Max Moerman of Barnard College takes up these questions with responses from Jeff Wilson (Renison University College), James W. Watts (Syracuse University) and Vincent Wimbush (Claremont Graduate University).

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Sightings comes from the Martin Marty Center at the University of Chicago Divinity School.

A Bishop's Defense of Government -- Sightings

Is government the enemy?  In some places, like Libya it probably is, but can we honestly say that government is the enemy in the United States?  It may be inefficient and ineffective at times, but is government really the problem?  And as we answer that question it probably is good to remember that even in a representative democracy, ultimately "we the people" are the government. 

This is the question that Martin Marty raises in today's edition of Sightings.   He makes reference to a Lutheran Bishop in Minnesota who decided to stand up and defend the importance of government, including taxation, as an expression of our existence as a people in compact with each other.  I may not always agree with the government, but I'm not sure that anarchy is better.  I may not like every regulation or tax, but the FDA and EPA provide important services that enhance our lives.  But, I'd like to hear what you have to say in response to Marty's essay.

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Sightings 2/21/2011

A Bishop’s Defense of Government

-- Martin E. Marty

Belgian sociologist of religion Henri Desroche once observed three functions of religion in society. Religion normally attests a society when it is in the business of “affirming.” There and then it serves an integrating function. That’s normal: think “God bless America.” Next, in a society that is examining its own premises and reorganizing its constituencies, the function of religion is to be contending “within the limit of contesting the status quo.” Think Martin Luther King, Jr. “In a society that is denying, challenging and refusing its own right to exist, religion appears as a function of protesting, revolting and subverting,” writes Desroche. Think recent Egypt.

Beyond these three functions of attesting, contending and protesting are chaotic movements like anarchism, or, closer to home in today’s America, simple “anti-government” actions, expressions, and tantrums. Think of Ayn Rand’s shrugs and the many current declarations in praise of the selfish individual. Now and then religious leaders, themselves aware of the attesting, protesting, and even, though too rarely, the contending functions of faiths, will examine and take on selfish declarations. One whose words reached publics in the Minneapolis StarTribune and subsequently, of course, on the internet, is Peter Rogness, a bishop within the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and president of the Minnesota Council of Churches. He had the sense to speak of the obvious to multitudes and the courage to take on the anti-government folk, in a column entitled “Government is not the enemy.”

His question is clear: “Is government us or them?” a question which he follows up with the observation: “With no public announcement, we have changed from a people sharing a common life to several hundred million individuals who happen to live near one another, and we risk losing our soul in that change.” His “we” is “the people” who appear(ed) in so many of “our” founding and later public documents. He adds: “As people withdraw into greater concern for their private welfare, government as public enterprise fades; the ‘we’ becomes ‘they,’ common purpose becomes interference and the poor and vulnerable are left on the margins.”

Government, in our history and for Rogness, is not an “it” or a “them.” “Taxes aren’t theft; they’re the means by which we pool our resources, fairly and with order, to underwrite this common life.” Ready to take on an icon, he looks back to 1981 when an unnamed U.S. President announced, “Government is not a solution to our problem; government is the problem.” The bishop anticipates legitimate debate over his words “fairly and with order.” No party, no policy, has a monopoly on “fairness” and good “order.” Contesting policies and programs is a right and duty of “we the people.”

Rogness asks, “So why is a Lutheran bishop writing a social and historical critique?” He is not unique. Numbers of other bishops do so, among them Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams. They do it because at stake are “values rooted in the faith traditions of the people who make up this state and nation.” And: “A budget is a moral document.” Let debating over budgets continue, something that can’t happen in an “anti-government” moment, which one hopes will not become an era of potential destruction. It would be caused by the “I’s” who, Rogness writes, take care of themselves and do not notice or who do disdain the “others.” These others, the vulnerable and marginal, are prime in the faith traditions of which the bishop speaks.

References

Henri Desroche, Jacob and the Angel: An Essay in Sociologies of Religion (University of Massachusetts, 1973).

Peter Rogness, “Government is not the Enemy,” StarTribune.com, February 6, 2011.

Martin E. Marty's biography, current projects, publications, and contact information can be found at www.illuminos.com.

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In this month's Religion and Culture Web Forum, Jessica DeCou offers a comic interpretation of the theology of Karl Barth, bringing his work into a surprising and fruitful dialogue with the comedy of Craig Ferguson. Both men, she contends, “employ similar forms of humor in their efforts to unmask the absurdity and irrationality of our submission to arbitrary human powers.” The humor of Barth and Ferguson alike stresses human limitation against illusory deification. DeCou argues for understanding both the humor and the famous combativeness of Barth's theology as part of this single project, carried out against modern Neo-Protestant theology. The Religion and Culture Web Forum is at: http://divinity.uchicago.edu/martycenter/publications/webforum/

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Sightings comes from the Martin Marty Center at the University of Chicago Divinity School.

Split Ticket -- A Review

SPLIT TICKET: Independent Faith in a Time of Partisan Politics. Edited by Amy Gopp, Christian Piatt, and Brandon Gilvin. St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2010. viii + 184 pp.

If the reports are to be believed, young adults are leaving the church, either because it has become too politicized or because institutional religion has become corrupt and moribund. They are, for instance, turned off by their perception that churches tend to be anti-homosexual. And if truth be told, they’re probably correct in this perception, for at most, a majority of churches have followed the lead of the military and have instituted a policy of “don’t ask, don’t tell.” In other words, stay in the closet.

Of course, not all young adults are leaving the church. Neither are all young adults rejecting what some would call political agendas (definitions are important here, because many consider social justice advocacy/action to be political, while others see it as a proper extension of the gospel). As is true of people of every generation, today’s young adults are not of one mind when it comes to the question of politics and religion. Things are complex!

Split Ticket, the book that is under review here, is the second book in Chalice Press’s WTF (Where’s the Faith?) Series, a series that is edited by, authored by, and intended for young adults. The first book in the series, provocatively titled O God! O God! O God!, (reviewed here) looked at the issue of sex, and this book will be just as provocative as the first. Focusing here on the relationship between faith and politics, we are presented with a series of nineteen essays that range from anarchist to prophetic to politically engaged. The theology evidenced by the writers runs from evangelical to liberationist. Authors are gay and straight, male and female, clergy and laity, and from most every ethnic community. As is true in the first volume in this series, the essays are extremely personal. These volumes are designed to start a conversation, which is why each chapter ends with three discussion questions.

This volume is divided into three sections – “From Awakenings to Activism”; “God in the Voting Booth”; and “We’ve Got Issues.” To give a flavor of the essays comprising each section, consider that the first section includes essays about connecting faith to activism, including an essay by David Ball entitled “Thy Revolution Come: An Invitation to Radical Discipleship.” Ball frames his essay with the Lord’s Prayer, and suggests that radical discipleship is best expressed through “Christian Anarchism.” Christian anarchism, as the phrase suggests, calls for radical, even revolutionary action, even against one’s own government. Amy Gopp, one of the three co-editors, on the other hand reflects back to her time spent in Bosnia, and speaks of building bridges between groups and peoples in the pursuit of peace.

In the second section the essays range from the provocative essay by John Edgerton and Vince Amlin that charges that voting itself is an act of violence and coercion, and thus as Christians they have decided not to vote. They suggest that a better way of making decisions is one of consensus-building. As one who has long believed that voting is a national responsibility, this essay was disturbing to say the least, and yet it is a view that many are considering in our day. On the other hand, others see the value of one’s faith in influencing not just voting, but political action. If there is a consensus here is that, as Gabriel Saguero writes, “the Gospel challenges all political ideologies and denounces any obedience to any Lord but Christ” (p. 113).

In the final section, the essayists reflect on the leading issues of our time, from abortion to health care reform, and the way that we deal with them from a perspective of faith. What is clear from the essays is that this isn’t a clear-cut process. There is gray area to be considered, and the role of the church needs to be weighed carefully. Christian Piatt writes an intriguing and extremely personal essay about his own struggle with the pro-life/pro-choice debate in the context of the births of his own two children. Being strongly pro-choice, he found himself equally pro-life, as he fell in love with the “it” that was the fetus being carried by his wife. Christian reminds us that personal experience is a powerful contributor to the way we look at issues. Things become much less cut and dry, once one is personally engaged. As Christian puts it:

I’m not ready to jump the pro-choice ship, but the experiences of parenthood have had a permanent change on my understanding of life, the human soul, and our responsibility as joint stewards of those lives. . . . I may wrestle with this subject until the end of my days, but one thing is for sure: I love my kids, both of them. Even if one of them had never been able to join us in the world, and had never had the opportunity of loving and being loved, I would still love “It” all the same (p. 134).

So, are young adults calling for the church to be apolitical? No, however, they want the church to deal honestly with issues such as homosexuality, abortion, justice, the environment. They decry hypocrisy and want issues to be dealt with in light of faith and not just politics as usual being baptized into the church. They are passionate, but they also seem to want to keep the bridges standing (unless you’re an anarchist and the bridges lead to injustice). Perhaps Earle Fisher states it best:

Political truths may be something we’re willing to fight for, campaign for, or give money to. But a personal, spiritual truth, truly embraced as a foundational tenet of our identity as God-created beings, is something to which we’re willing to give our entire lives to, and perhaps die for (p. 148).

In other words, for these young adults, faith is the foundation, the guide, for their political engagement, even if that means deciding not to participate in the political process, because to do so would be to participate in a coercive, and therefore violent, system.

I heartily recommend this book to anyone wishing to understand the relationship of faith and politics. These essays may be written by and for young adults, but the issues they raise, and the solutions they suggest, are as pertinent to those who are well into their retirement years as those who are just entering the adult world.

While my recommendation of this book would not be any different, I should note that the editors, all members of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) are people whom I know and have worked with in the past (and in the present). I have high regards for all of them as individuals and for the work that they do in the church and outside it. Two of them, Amy Gopp and Brandon Gilvin, are Disciples clergy, while the third, Christian Piatt, is married to one. They are all committed to the church and to social justice (Gopp and Gilvin are in leadership at Week of Compassion, the relief and development arm of the Disciples).

As for the authors, many of the contributors are unknown to me, and while I agree with some and not with others, each of them offered insightful and challenging words that demand my attention, and the attention of any reader. If we’re to accept the premise that young adults are tired of politicized churches, then we must first understand what they mean by their critique, and this is a good place to start!