Five Things Faith Leaders Can Do to Show Moral Leadership Now
Let's start easy and move toward more challenging.
- Pray. In private and in public - pray for people to put the common good over personal and partisan interest. Pray for justice and peace. Pray for healing of our country. Pray for Christians who have been corrupted by political alliances. Pray for healing of our nation, our communities, our environment, our world. And pray for just, wise, and good leaders who are committed to the truth, who lead with the strength that comes from wisdom and kindness, and who fight against our original sins of racism and greed.
- Give your people a theology of voting and set a goal for 100% voter turnout of your members. Lay it out in one or more sermons, or present it in messages delivered by email or mail. If you need help, check out this guide: https://interfaith-power-light.myshopify.com/products/democracy-values-the-2020-election. If your job is to prepare people to live their faith in daily life, and if this the most important election in their lives so far, why would you fail to prepare them? That leads to number three.
- Promise your people through a pastoral letter that you will set an example by voting - and share with them the top concerns you have in this election because of your faith, values, and spiritual formation. For example, mine would be 1. Honest, trustworthy, exemplary, unselfish leadership (because without that, nothing will work), 2. Dedication to racial justice because of our nation's unacknowledged history and present practice of racism, 3. Commitment to the poor and vulnerable, especially because they are being hit so hard by COVID-19, 4. Commitment to the environment and to fight climate change - along with our opportunity to create a new economy that is cleaner both environmentally and morally, and 5. Commitment to the well-being of children - through better health care and pay for their parents, through better public education, and through the previous four commitments.
- Invite your board to pass the kind of resolution offered here -- https://www.votecommongood.com/resources-for-pastors/ -- so you and your board have clear freedom to speak more directly as an individual citizen using your own time, your own social media, your own equipment etc. In this way, you will become more transparent in setting an example for people in your congregation and in the community at large, fully in accordance with government regulations related to 501(c)3 status.
- Publicly endorse and support candidates, federal, state, and local, whom you believe will best fulfill the vision presented above. After all, if you believe people of faith should express their faith in public life, why wouldn't you set an example? Make these endorsements as an individual and not a representative of your organization, carefully following the law. To make these endorsements intelligently, bring together groups of your fellow faith leaders to have face-to-face meetings with local candidates (digitally, these days) so you can ask them questions, let them ask you questions, and build relationships. Remember: you are leaders in the community they would like to serve, so they should know you and you should know them. If you're interested in what I've done in this regard, here are two examples: for Barack Obama and for Joe Biden.
If you need help in doing this work, there are many excellent organizations who can help you, including Vote Common Good, Faith in Public Life, Pope Francis Voters, and many more.
If you are planning to play it safe and do nothing in the next 60 days, or if you're planning to take Step 1 and stop there ... I encourage you to prayerfully read this document.
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More on Why I Support Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in 2020 (and a suggestion if you can’t)
As I explained in an earlier post, I am an enthusiastic supporter of Joe Biden because I believe we need an honest leader with a good heart and proven competence to lead our nation at this dangerous time.
We need someone with decades of experience to challenge and undo the catastrophic damage done to our nation, its people, and its institutions by the current administration.
Joe is a man from working class roots who has suffered heartbreak and loss, and his suffering has made him more genuine, generous, and kind than so many politicians.
He is tested. He has made and admitted mistakes, and learned and grown from them.
As a committed Christian who grew up in Fundamentalist, Evangelical, and Charismatic circles, and who then served for twenty-four years as a church planter and pastor in a non-denominational congregation, I respect Joe as a man of faith and moral integrity. Joe is a Vatican-II, Pope-Francis Roman Catholic, and his immersion in Catholic Social Teaching prepares him to seek the common good of all Americans - Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Muslim, Sikh, Hindu, Buddhist, of any faith or no explicit faith.
His faith doesn't narrow his moral vision to one or two wedge issues. Instead, it gives him a broad and deep moral vision. He affirms the dignity of all people, no exceptions, with a special concern for the "least of these." He knows that we must become good and regenerative stewards of this beautiful, fragile earth. And he has the character and empathy to unite our nation that has been driving drunk for four years, intoxicated by lies and the manipulation of a malignant narcissist, its judgment clouded by racial and class divisiveness and misled by Trump and the toxic media who support him.
I had the honor of visiting Joe Biden's home as part of a large group of faith and justice leaders when he was Vice President. As he spoke to us, I felt both his sincerity and his intelligence.
It's no secret, Joe was not my first choice during the primaries. But I am enthusiastically on board in supporting him now, especially since he chose Kamala Harris as his running mate. A vote for Joe and Kamala is a vote for honesty, decency, fairness, compassion, and the Constitution. It's a vote against racism, corruption, nepotism, and deception.
It's a vote for democracy over authoritarianism.
It's a vote for a better future for my adult kids and their kids.
I hope you'll consider joining me in supporting Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in 2020.
If you are one of those Republicans who can't bring yourself to vote for a Democrat, no matter how good and decent and qualified, I understand that party loyalty and political identity run very deep for a lot of people. I invite you to reconsider, but at the very least, I urge you not to cast your vote for Donald Trump.
Here's why.
I was in Charlottesville August 11-12, 2017, part of a multi-faith clergy witness for justice and peace for all people. I saw hundreds of young white men (and a few women, along with some older white guys my age) marching with Nazi and Confederate flags that weekend, chanting Nazi slogans and carrying baseball bats, and promising to "take back" America for white supremacy. I was there in the crowd after a young woman was killed (and many others injured) by a white supremacist using his car as his murder weapon. In the days after, I was given access to screenshots of the secret communications among the white supremacist neo-Nazis who organized the event. I may have thought I was "woke" before, but that experience woke me up in a whole new way.
Then I heard Donald Trump refuse to unequivocally condemn them.
Before that, I knew that our president lacked honesty and basic human kindness. He had built a reputation for decades of being sleazy and self-seeking. Before the Access Hollywood tape, I heard about him bragging to Howard Stern or someone similar about how many women he had bedded, etc. I had known that he was happy to use racist dog whistles as soon as he started his birther hoax. (Is it any surprise he likes to accuse others of what he routinely does?)
But since Charlottesville, I knew in my bones that he is more than just dangerous. He poses a threat to our hard-won democracy.
Like so many authoritarians in history, he has a con artist's ability to get inside of certain people's heads, to make them believe any lie he says, to make them defend him at all costs. He has won over large sectors of white Evangelical, Mainline Protestant, and Catholic Christianity, remaking them in his own tawdry image. Many bow the knee to him overtly; others support him by their complicit silence, perfectly following the script condemned by Dr. King in his Letter from a Birmingham Jail.
So of course I will publicly do all I can to oppose Donald Trump. And of course I will publicly support all candidates who provide a better alternative, starting with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
But again, if you can't bring yourself to vote for Biden/Harris for whatever reason, I urge you to consider voting for Mark Charles. Mark is a personal friend, a gifted teacher, a good man, a member of the Navajo nation and a committed Christian who is running a campaign you should know about. I have learned so much from him and I respect him for running in 2020. Although I'm an enthusiastic supporter of Biden/Harris, I hope Mark's candidacy influences our entire nation to learn our history and to build common memory in a quest for lasting truth and conciliation.
Note: I offer this endorsement as an individual American citizen, and not as a representative of any organization. I am using my time and my equipment on my property to make this endorsement. If you are a religious leader or non-profit employee, and wonder what is permissible for you to do in an election season, I encourage you to check out this helpful resource.
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What Every Communicator/Teacher Needs to Know
All my adult life I've been a communicator - a college teacher, a pastor, an author, an activist.
I feel like I'm only learning now, in my sixties, what I wish I had known when I was in my twenties.
Two understandings rise to the top these days.
First, an understanding of authoritarianism. In less than four minutes, this video gives a good overview:
Second, an understanding of bias. I wrote this short e-book to summarize what I've learned:
Why Don't They Get It: Overcoming Bias in Others (and Yourself)
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Your Three Key Steps to Help Heal our Planet
The single most important thing any of us can do to address climate change and help restore this beautiful fragile earth is to vote for candidates who put the long-term health of the planet over the short term wealth of their super-rich donors. For Americans in 2020, that means voting out Trump and every Republican, since at this moment, not a single one is standing up to oppose Trump in his anti-science climate change denial. Here's a link to the Joe Biden and Kamala Harris plan to convert to a clean energy economy:
https://joebiden.com/9-key-elements-of-joe-bidens-plan-for-a-clean-energy-revolution/#
The next most important thing we can do - reduce our carbon footprint. This is a site I've been using to track my carbon footprint - and then offset my contribution to greenhouse gases.
https://www.carbonfootprint.com/
If you take the time to use this site, you'll learn a lot - about your own behavior, about global norms, and about what's necessary to get human civilization more in line with our planetary limits. Because of catastrophic political failure, aided by religious failure, we're already too late to avoid very serious consequences for our inaction, and the longer we wait, the more serious the consequences will be. Our children and grandchildren will live in a far worse environment - ecological, social, economic, and political - if we do our part now.
Along with reducing our carbon footprint, we can divest from and boycott the world's dirtiest companies and invest in and patronize cleaner alternatives. For more in divest/invest, check out:
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Why I Endorse Joe Biden and Kamala Harris
I am honored to publicly endorse Joe Biden and Kamala Harris for 2020. I believe the Biden/Harris team has the character, vision, and competence to guide our nation through this difficult and dangerous passage in our history. I was an enthusiastic supporter for Obama/Biden in 2008 and 2012, and I am thrilled to support Biden/Harris in 2020.
I have two main reasons for offering this public endorsement.
First, I believe Donald Trump is a terrible president. He has shown himself to be dishonest and corrupt in character, vengeful, arrogant, mean-spirited, and small. He is incompetent in discharging his duty of public service, in large part because he is so focused on his own personal and family advantage. He shows that he neither understands nor upholds the Constitution. He seeks to win by dividing Americans from one another. He is not trustworthy to hold nuclear codes that could wreak havoc on the world, nor is he trustworthy to build alliances of trust for a more peaceful world. He puts the love of money over the well-being of the earth upon which both our health and wealth ultimately depend. He has brought out the worst in our national character, not the best.
I believe he is not just a bad president, but a president with authoritarian tendencies who threatens our democracy. I believe these things because of the evidence I've seen through his whole public life, and especially over these last four years. Even growing numbers of life-long Republicans are coming forward to express their rejection of Trump and their support for Biden/Harris.
Second, I believe Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are truly excellent candidates. They are people of honest character, people of sincere faith and values, people of extraordinary competence, people who understand and respect the Constitution, and people who want to rebuild America to be better than our past and present. They have the capacity to help us face the worst and bring out the best of our national character.
They care about the growing gap in wealth and power between the super-ultra-rich and the rest of us. They support policies that will help poor and middle class people move ahead.
They care about racial justice and will not coddle white supremacists, neo-nazis, and conspiracy theorists as our current president does. They represent the equality and teamwork among races and religions that we need for our future.
They understand that the climate crisis is real, and they will promote policies to help heal our planet rather than continue plundering it.
I cannot trust Donald Trump to address the current pandemic, our ingrained white supremacy, our deep economic problems, our need for updated infrastructure and green energy, corruption and nepotism in government, international relations, or any of the other problems we face. But I do trust Biden and Harris.
Because I am a committed progressive Christian, I appreciate their commitment to work for the well-being and equality of all people of all faiths and no explicit faith, rather than seeking to privilege one faith over others.
Of course I'm sure that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, like the rest of us, are far from perfect. But unlike our current president, I can trust them to admit their mistakes. I will do everything I can to help them be elected, in hopes that the tide of corruption, division, and incompetence that Donald Trump represents can be turned around.
I'm offering this public endorsement as an individual and citizen, on my own time, using my own equipment and social media, and not as the representative of any organization, and I encourage you to do the same, especially if you are a spiritual leader.
I was a local church pastor for 24 years, and I believe that leaders in the faith community have a special obligation to set an example -- not just in their preaching, teaching, and other public religious duties -- but also, to the greatest degree possible, in their private lives: how they care for their families, how they treat their neighbors, how they respect the environment, how they participate in their civic duties -- and how they treat those who vote differently. We don't have the right to tell other people how to vote, but we do have the privilege of expressing ourselves appropriately as private citizens and seeking to set a positive example of citizenship, rooted in our faith. That doesn't mean that I believe faith leaders should always go public with their personal commitments and values as voters, but in times of special emergency and danger, I think that is a wise option and can be done appropriately.
I will be writing frequently about my vote and the values behind it in the coming days because I believe so much is at stake in this election -- for the future my wife and I face, for my adult children and their children, for our nation, and for the world. As I speak out, I will do my best to abide by the Six Commitments of Common Good Communication. and I encourage you to do the same.
Once more: I will enthusiastically cast my vote for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris for 2020, and I encourage you to consider joining me!
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