So the national conventions of our two major political parties are now, mercifully, history, and we, the American people, can begin in earnest the race towards Election Day, which we are wont to do with obsequious Facebook memes and spirited arguments over holiday dinners with our oddball survivalist uncles who blame everything on the government.
In the midst of those conventions, and given the uber-partisanship of the day, you’d be hard-pressed to find any similarities between either of the two conventions beyond recitations of the Pledge of Allegiance. (I’d like to point out, for the record, that the Democrats tapped Gabby Douglas to lead the Pledge. The Republicans had an meandering, mumbling actor talking to an empty chair as their biggest celebrity guest. We had the immensely endearing reigning Olympic gold medalist in the women’s all-around. I’m just sayin’.)
There was one other notable, and perhaps surprising, similarity: both parties invited Timothy Cardinal Dolan, archbishop of New York City, to deliver the benediction on the final days of their respective conventions.
Perhaps more so than any other pastor in recent memory aside from maybe Saddleback Church’s Rick Warren—who successfully and admirably invited candidates Obama and McCain to an open forum discussion at Saddleback in 2008, and gave the invocation at President Obama’s 2009 inauguration—Cardinal Dolan has been newly elevated to (I believe) the unofficial role of “America’s Pastor” that Billy Graham trailblazed by holding prayer meetings with every American President since, I believe, Dwight Eisenhower.
I’m not too surprised that America’s Pastor has become Cardinal Dolan, either, though honestly for some kinda disappointing reasons. I think it is fantastic to see a Roman Catholic cleric get this kind of attention in a largely Protestant-influenced nation, but in almost every other respect, he is a carbon copy of Billy Graham: a white, Anglo-Saxon male adept at utilizing mass media and whose theology and politics both tilt noticeably right of center.
So I guess the more things change, the more they stay the same. I'm hoping that by the time America has a female president, we will also have a female pastor.
But I want to hone in a bit on Cardinal Dolan’s role as the benedictor-in-chief at both the Republican and Democratic national conventions. Cardinal Dolan included this bit in his benediction to the Dems—and the bolded part was not in his address to the GOP: “Show us anew that happiness is found only in respecting the laws of nature and of nature's God. Empower us with your grace, so that we might resist the temptation to replace the moral law with idols of our own making, or to remake those institutions you have given us for the nurturing of life and community.”
A number of folks have interpreted this—the “remake those institutions” part—as a not-so-subtle swipe at the Democratic platform’s endorsement of marriage equality. And really, it is hard not to see it as exactly that.
I applaud President Obama and the Democrats for inviting pastors with whom they have profound disagreements to preside over prayers at functions as prominent as conventions and inaugurations. We are so, so enriched when we refuse to turn our religious rituals, ceremonies, and temples into ideological echo chambers--I believe this firmly.
But if a pastor in the limelight is striving to take over the unofficial mantle of “America’s Pastor,” as it is pretty clear that Cardinal Dolan has been doing, I’m not sure how you can be America’s Pastor when you’re only affirming the Americans who are heterosexual.
I can’t divide my own flock upon arbitrary lines—I can’t only welcome and affirm those who are of a certain age, gender, or race. It’s unethical.
The same standard should be held to our most prominent and famous spiritual leaders as well.
Sadly, we have not always done a very good job at doing this, whether for the politics of optics—of having an up-and-coming Catholic cardinal at your event—or simply because we lack the prophetic courage to do so.
Yours in Christ,
Eric
No comments:
Post a Comment