Dr. Rodney Plunket

Your worship bulletins this morning give the title of the sermon as “Christian Unity in a Polarized World.”  That is the wrong title, and it’s my fault.  This sermon should be entitled “Christian Unity in a Polarized Nation.”

You see, for years I’ve complained about the polarization of America.  I remember a time when whomever was elected as president was given at least a year to demonstrate who he was and what the actual effects of his administration were before people engaged in much criticism.  In the present day the critics are looking for something to attack before the person is even inaugurated, and campaigns are brutal affairs characterized by bitter criticism from start-to-finish.  Bill Starcher and I have commiserated many times about this national reality, so he forwarded to me a couple of relevant articles that he came across.

Just two days ago, on Friday, July 2, 2004, Bill forwarded me the Internet link to an article by E. J. Dionne.  Dionne’s article begins with a question:

Will either George W. Bush or John Kerry be able to govern after this election is over?

Rep. Jim Leach, a moderate Republican from Iowa, is not optimistic.  “If there is a certitude about this election,” says Leach, “it is that both presidential candidates are going to be attacked personally.  That’s going to undercut the presidential deference that should be given to anyone who wins the next presidential election.”

The intense polarization of politics, . . . , should require Bush and Kerry to explain not only what they will do for the next four years but also how, in the current climate, they propose to get it done.

The article refers back to 1981 when Tip O’Neill and his fellow Democrats controlled the United States House of Representatives; and a Republican, Ronald Reagan, was in the White House.  Dionne quotes a current Senate Republican aide who refers to that time and says, “‘Reagan dealt with a Democratic majority in the House, but there wasn’t the same dynamic we have today,’ . . . .  ‘This house is far more partisan, far more polarized, far more bitter . . . .’”  The article again quotes Iowa Republican Representative Jim Leach.  He says, “People to the right and people to the left personally don’t like each other.”

On May 30, 2004, an article by a news correspondent named Bill Bishop caught Bill Starcher’s eye.  That article is entitled, “A Steady Slide Toward a More Partisan Union.”  Bishop’s article, like Dionne’s, also gives primary focus to the polarization of the American Congress.  Please follow along as I read some excerpts from his article:

Fifty years ago, U. S. House Speaker Sam Rayburn, a Texas Democrat, served drinks at the end of the day to his Republican opponents.  When they were young congressmen, Republican leader Robert Michel and powerful Democratic Rep. Dan Rostenkowski shared a car on the long ride back to Illinois.

Power was a club then, and most legislators did not let ideology get in the way of membership.

But today in Congress, good old boy coziness has been replaced by political divisiveness unseen in this country for nearly 100 years.  And it’s personal.

A great divide has formed between the two parties.  They don’t agree, and they can’t get along.

“When you look at these people, it’s not show,” says University of Houston political scientist Keith Poole.  “They hate one other.  That’s what’s scary about this.”

Bishop refers to “a grinding certainty that the newest members of Congress on average will be more partisan and extreme than the people they replace.”  He also refers to “a cycle of intemperance.”

In the final section of Bishop’s article he refers to Mickey Edwards.  Edwards was “a Republican congressman from Oklahoma from 1976 to 1992.”  He presently “teaches political science at Princeton University.”

Edwards says he visited Washington, D.C., recently and stopped at the barbershop in the Rayburn Building.  “And the barber told me, he said, ‘It’s so different, it’s so different.  People don’t like each other; they don’t talk to each other,’” Edwards recalls.

“Now, when the barber in the Rayburn Building sees this,”  Edwards says, “it’s very real.”

Edwards also notes:

People who run for office “have always been more ideological than the norm,” he says, but the new members of Congress are “much less centrist, much more committed to a liberal or conservative view of how the world ought to be.”

Over the past two generations, Edwards says, “The moderates (in Congress) have been washed out of both parties.  There’s just a homogeneity there . . .  and I think it’s driven by who (the members) are and who they represent.”

Notice that Edwards refers to the washing out of moderates, and to liberals and conservatives forming two homogenous groups of extremes.  He says that he thinks this phenomenon is “driven,” not only “by who (the members) are” but also by “who they represent.”

This statement leads me to the middle section of Bishop’s article, which I found most telling.  It is entitled, “A more divided union.”  In it we find this very telling analysis:

The polarization of American politics is a national phenomenon . . . . analysis of voting results in the last 14 presidential elections shows that every region of the country has become more partisan.  Legislators draw one-party districts, but people are also congregating in one-party communities.

“The conventional wisdom is that it’s all how you draw the maps,” says Jonathan Katz, a redistricting specialist and professor at the California Institute of Technology.  “But if people are segregating by their political preference, then they are doing the politicians’ job for them.”

In other words, not only is the Congress of these United States becoming more polarized; America’s citizens are as well.  Americans are choosing to live where everyone agrees with their political philosophy, and the two prevailing philoso­phies are moving further and further away from each other.  We are becoming a geographically polarized nation, polarized and separated because our political views are miles apart and each side sees the other as the enemy.

Now I will try to be as candid about my personal state in this current climate as I have time to be.  I do not feel represented by either party.  I cannot join nor have I ever been a member of either party.  Even though both President Bush and leading Democrats regularly send me letters thanking me for my past financial support, I am fairly certain that I have never contributed to either party nor do I plan to do so this time around.  So I do have an axe to grind, and I know it.  I feel left out.  I hear with a certain measure of approval the statement by Iowa Representative Leach when he says, “There is no more underrepresented group in America today than moderates in both parties.”  I agree with that statement except that I think that moderates who find it impossible to be affiliated with either party are even more underrepresented.  And I am in that group.

I know that it would be far better if the person speaking to you this morning were a conservative Republican.  It would be easier to hear what I am going to say if the person saying it was someone who had a political perspective more like the one to which most of you adhere.  So I apologize for being a flawed spokesman.  Please try to sift what I say based on the force of the content and not on the appropriateness of the speaker.

Last Sunday we looked together at Romans 14:1-15:7.  From that passage I exhorted us to be a people who cherish Christian unity to such an extent that we handle our disagreements with love and do not divide.  Paul tells us in that passage not to judge those who feel free to do something that seems wrong to us but is not at the core of what the kingdom of God is about.  Paul also tells us not to despise those who do not feel free to do something that we feel all Christians are perfectly free to do.  In other words, Paul tells us how to disagree within the Body without carving up the Body.

What I want to suggest this morning is that what we learn from Christian unity in the Body of Christ should affect the way we handle polarization in our nation, state, and community.  Today more and more Americans are simply choosing to live segregated lives.  Conservative Republicans choose to live in Republican enclaves; liberal Democrats live in Democratic enclaves; and I keep praying, “Lord, come quickly and take me home.”  Americans are simply isolating themselves from those with whom they disagree.

Paul doesn’t give the Christians in Rome that option.  Paul tells them to live together in spite of those disagreements.

I know that our relationship with our brothers and sisters in Christ is quite different from our relationship with those outside the Christian family.  Our relationship with one another is much deeper.  However, in spite of the fact that it is fairly clear that the majority position here at Broadway is conservative Republican in orientation, there are Democrats within this church as well.  If we isolate ourselves from those outside the Body due to their support of a particular political party, how do we make those feel within the Body who have those same viewpoints?  And if we treat those within the Body according to the teachings of Romans 14:1-15:7, how can we isolate ourselves from those outside the Body who have that same political persuasion?

I want now to read some biblical passages that I think are relevant to this entire issue.  I hope you will reflect upon them now and later.  I think they can help us be salt and light in our world instead of acid and venom.  Jesus says, in Matthew (Mt) 19:19, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”  In Mt 7:12 He says, “In everything do to others as you would have them do to you.”  Paul in Col 4:5-6 writes, “Conduct yourselves wisely toward outsiders, making the most of the time.  Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer everyone.”

In 1 Peter 3:15b-16a we read, “Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and reverence.”  Peter here is talking about making a defense of the gospel, something far truer than any political ideology.  Since we are instructed to defend the gospel with gentleness and reverence, what should our manner and tone be when talking to others about politics?

Here at Broadway, and in Lubbock generally, I have many opportunities to hear strong statements of Republican partisanship.  However, I do, occasionally, have the opportunity to hear equally strong statements of Democratic partisanship.  The tone of these opposing statements is often strikingly similar.  So often they are expressed in such a confident tone that the speaker seems to believe that any right-thinking person will just have to agree.  And what disturbs me the most is that these statements are often made without the speaker even knowing whether the person to whom they are speaking agrees or not.

Now please look with me at another New Testament (NT) passage.  In 1 Peter 2:13-17 we read:

For the Lord’s sake accept the authority of every human institution, whether of the emperor as supreme, or of governors, as sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to praise those who do right.  For it is God’s will that by doing right you should silence the ignorance of the foolish.  As servants of God, live as free people, yet do not use your freedom as a pretext for evil.  Honor everyone.  Love the family of believers.  Fear God.  Honor the emperor.

I would like to remind you that none of the Roman emperors during the NT period were Christians.  The attitudes and behaviors which characterized their lives would not get them elected for dogcatcher today.  Yet Peter calls upon his readers to “[h]onor the emperor.”

Now look with me at one final and well-known passage.  In Galatian 5:16-26 Paul writes:

Live by the Spirit, I say, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh.  For what the flesh desires is opposed to the Spirit, and what the Spirit desires is opposed to the flesh; for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you want.  But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not subject to the law.  Now the works of the flesh are obvious:  fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these.  I am warning you, as I warned you before:  those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.  There is no law against such things.  And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.  If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit.  Let us not become conceited, competing against one another, envying one another.

Discuss and apply.

Now confession time.  Even though I am neither Republican nor Democrat, I have very strong political views.  I have often expressed them with the kind of arrogant confidence that I am so offended by in others.  If anyone here has been on the receiving end of my ire, I apologize.  Please forgive me.  I am seeking the power of God in my life to outgrow that sinful behavior because I know that I am as guilty of trying to move others into my position as partisan Democrats and Republicans are.  I believe we can show forth the Spirit of Christ out in the world even in the way we express our political views, even in the way we disagree with others about politics.  We can be gentle and reverent.  We can display the fruit of the Spirit by the power of the Spirit.  We can be salt and light in our nation.  We can reveal through our speech and tone a spiritual power that makes clear that people do not have to polarize when they disagree.

In verse 9 of the little book of Jude the writer is countering some hyper­critical folks.  He says, “But when the archangel Michael contended with the devil and disputed about the body of Moses, he did not dare to bring a condemnation of slander against him, but said, ‘The Lord rebuke you!’”  His point is that we should be very cautious before making critical or condemning statements.  Look how temperate the speech of this archangel was even when “contending with the devil.”  Let’s follow the example of Michael when talking with anyone about political disagreements.

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