As 2015 draws to a close, we seem to be having trouble reconciling the two “big stories” of the time: the recent terrorist attacks in Paris, and the 2016 general election. Roles are reversed, and individuals are apparently unsure which side they’re supposed to be taking.
The Democratic president, Barak Obama, is being held responsible for overseeing the rise of ISIL, the so-called “Islamic State in Iraq and Levant,” which claimed responsibility for the dramatic and coordinated attacks. (We can’t even seem to figure out what their organization is called. Is it the Islamic State (IS), ISIL, ISIS, or Daesh?) He says we must join European nations in providing safe, new homes for the tens of thousands of refugees fleeing Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and other involved countries. And of course he argues that government enforcement agencies need extraordinary powers of surveillance to detect and thwart terrorists before they bring harm to our people. A significant portion of Americans identify with (or at least vote for) the Democratic party. In fact, Americans have elected a Democratic president in the last two elections.
The Republican candidates for President in 2016 claim that Obama’s policies in the Middle East created ISIL, even though it is historically clear that what really got things rolling for ISIL was the destruction of Saddam Hussain’s government in Iraq, a project of the Republican Bush administration. They say that any of the refugees from the war could be terrorists in disguise, and that the Democratic administration can’t be trusted to keep us safe. Candidates Donald Trump and Senator Ted Cruz say that we shouldn’t be accepting any Islamic refugees. (But perhaps the Christian refugees might be safe?) Trump, the leader in the polls, even says we shouldn’t allow any Muslims in our country. They seem to want us to think that this is about Christianity vs. Islamic terrorism, though of course the attacks in Paris and the war in Syria and Iraq are more about Islamic fundamentalists vs. the Islamic mainstream. A significant portion of Americans identify with (or at least vote for) the Republican party. Americans have elected a Republican majority in the national congress (the body that makes federal laws) and more than half of the fifty states’ governors are currently Republicans.
The Republican party has been strongly identified in the past several decades–thanks to intentional alliances in the right wing of the party–with the “religious right:” conservative Christian values, like opposition to same-sex marriage, abortion, and gay rights, casting doubt on the study of the Theory of Evolution in public schools, limiting and reducing civil rights, and opposing other secular government actions or policies that contradict the conservative Christian message. (This has often included the freedom of business owners to employ persons without any minimum wage or healthcare, or at least healthcare for things they don’t approve of, such as birth control and abortions.) Democrats, on the other hand, have been identified with secularism, academia, and liberal ideas like birth control, women’s health and rights, gay rights, raising the national minimum wage, expanding government services for the poor, and the rights of minority groups, including the recent “Black Lives Matter” (civil rights) movement.
The religious right is credited with the catch phrase, “What would Jesus do?” or “WWJD?” In this case, the answer seems to be quite clear! When asked what the most important commandment was, Jesus replied that we must love our neighbors as ourselves. When asked what that meant in practice (“Who is my neighbor?”), Jesus told the parable of the Good Samaritan, in which an unfortunate Jew (Jesus’s people) is robbed, beaten, and left injured by the road. Other Jews come by and refuse to help him, but a Samaritan (the enemies of the Jews) has pity and helps him reach safety and gives him food and shelter. The obvious lesson is that it doesn’t matter what “tribe” you belong to: it’s how you treat the poor and helpless that matters. But wait a minute, isn’t that 100% contradictory to the position voiced by the Republican presidential candidates and their many supporters? How are we to explain this? What’s a good conservative Christian to do? If Jesus were to come to us today, would he be a Democrat or a Republican? How can we be certain that we’re running with the right crowd now? If the past is any indication, one would assume that the Republican response would be an enthusiastic, “Why, of course Jesus would be a Republican!” And most non-religious Democrats (and more than a few religious ones), raised in this climate for the past 30-40 years, would likely agree.
My response is that Jesus would be neither a Democrat nor a Republican. He’d be a Syrian or Iraqi refugee. Jesus would as likely be an American now as he would have been a Roman citizen then, which he clearly was not. WWJD? He’d look for the person offering him food, clothing, and a safe place to sleep while he preached his message: the urgent, pressing, joyous drive to love and care for our neighbors. And the equally urgent need for us to give up our obsession with powers and principalities, the Kings and Princes of this world, the constant gladiatorial “Who’s who, and who’s on top?” of our news feeds and social media services, and instead focus on the people right here, all around us, now. Jesus wouldn’t care who was President or in control of Congress next year. Jesus wouldn’t care if we called ourselves Democrats or Republicans. Jesus would care only what we do about the poor, the powerless, the threatened, the “at risk,” in our communities and our world, right now.