‘Value voting’ changes political landscape for churches Dec. 21, 2004  A UMNS Feature
By Tamie Ross* For
millions of American voters, the 2004 presidential election wasn’t
decided primarily on the state of the economy or the war on terror, but
on a combination of issues that fell under the general heading of “moral
values.” Values
were a driving force in getting many Christians to the polls – and
helping produce a record voter turnout for a U.S. presidential election.
Churches,
special-interest organizations and political parties appealed to people
of faith on an unprecedented scale, motivating many dormant or
first-time voters around issues such as abortion, stem-cell research and
gay marriage. Beyond the issues, many voters quoted in news reports
said they simply wanted to support a “godly” candidate. The
United Methodist Church had the denominational distinction of having
three of four of the candidates for the nation’s highest offices among
its ranks: Republican President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick
Cheney and Democratic vice presidential nominee Sen. John Edwards. Like
those candidates, United Methodists spanned the political spectrum.
Regardless of their political parties, many of them based their votes on
values informed by their faith. In the weeks since the election,
however, analysts who were caught by surprise by the “values” factor
have typecast the Christian voter as a conservative aligned with an
outspokenly Christian president. Where
do most United Methodists stand? On both sides and in the middle, said
the Rev. Scot Ocke, pastor of First United Methodist Church in
Marysville, Ohio. “We are a very divided denomination theologically.
Diverse values motivated diverse voting.” Those positions don’t necessarily translate politically into right and left.
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Bishop G. Lindsey Davis |
“I don’t think you
can divide America into conservative and liberal any more,” said Bishop
Lindsey Davis, who leads the church’s North Georgia Area. “I think
people have wide ranges of perspectives on many different issues.” Registering church members The
Rev. John Ed Mathison, senior minister at Frazer Memorial United
Methodist Church in Montgomery, Ala., acknowledges that he’s known as a
conservative voice in the church, but that doesn’t mean he’s vocally
conservative about political issues. Quite the contrary, he said. “I
just want people, Christians, to be responsible citizens,” Mathison
told United Methodist News Service. “I have a strong conviction that
every church member should be registered and should vote.” Frazer
conducted a strong voter-registration drive this year, Mathison said.
While he doesn’t know how many new voters the church recruited, he said
he was proud of the work that his church and other faith-based and
secular groups did this year. Mathison
said he was surprised during the campaign when the war on terror and
economic policy consistently received more attention than other issues –
issues such as stem-cell research, abortion and gay marriage, which he
knew were important to many members of his church. “I
remember wondering how accurate these pollsters were,” he said,
laughing. “Let’s just say I didn’t, and still don’t, place a lot of
faith on them.” Of
those responding to exit questions after balloting on Nov. 2, a
resounding number, 64 percent, said they ranked “moral values” ahead of
all other issues when casting their ballots. In an August poll, 86
percent of the people who ranked values first also supported President
Bush. Terrorism ranked second in that poll, commissioned by the Pew
Forum on Religion and Public Life. Sexuality, social justice In
11 states, those who went to the polls voted for a president, but they
also made a statement on a different kind of policy. Where
constitutional amendments defining marriage as a union between one man
and one woman were on the ballot, they were ratified by a large margin. Mathison
said that millions of American voters echoed the delegates to the 2004
General Conference on the subject of marriage. In May, the delegates
added a sentence to the denomination’s Social Principles, reading: “We
support laws in civil society that define marriage as the union of one
man and one woman.” “I
would assume that voters chose the candidate they felt best represented
them on every issue,” Mathison said. “The United Methodist Church’s
stance was very clear on a lot of issues at the last General Conference.
That stance was reflected in this election.” Some in the church wonder if sexuality issues superseded matters of social justice.
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Bishop Ann B. Sherer |
Bishop Ann Sherer of the Nebraska Annual Conference said talk of values and voters that emphasizes Christianity concerns her. “I
worry that now we’ve almost made a limiting view of Christian values,”
Sherer said. While the debate about human sexuality is important, other
critical values shouldn’t suffer as a result, she said. “All the issues
that we find discussed in the New Testament, from nonviolence to justice
and diversity and value for all persons, those are extremely important
too.” What are values? The
outcome of the election provided a new label: “Values voters.” Some say
the moniker represents a social and political return to old-fashioned
morals. Others wonder whose values are being represented. Shocking
to some may be hearing that morals and values are not the same, said
the Rev. Steve Ross, pastor of McMinnville (Ore.) United Methodist
Church. The difference is key to understanding why some voted this year
as they did. “Values
are sort of basic assumptions about what’s right and wrong,” Ross said.
“Morals are the specific, acted-out, visible evidences of those
values.” For
instance, he said, a value may be “life is sacred and should be
protected.” A moral in this scenario might be “abortion should be
against the law and that those who have them should be prosecuted.” “It
wasn’t really clear until this election how this word (values) has been
captured by such a narrow range of issues,” Ross said. “This election
was a wakeup call, and many people underestimated the breadth of this
movement. “A
lot of people are insulted to hear publicly that they don’t have
values, even as we talk about economic justice, personal freedoms and
environmental care,” he said. He predicted a broader debate about values
and morals in future elections. “We’ll still have the same issues as
this year, but there will be others.” Whether
or not the values movement will be as strong in 2008 or how it will
affect local and state elections is difficult to say. On Nov. 25,
abortion opponents claimed legislative victory when a federal spending
bill of $388 billion was passed with a clause that allowed hospitals to
refuse to perform abortions. In light of this bill and those to come, Davis hopes the talk – and resulting action – will shift from “values” to “virtues.” “A
lot of people have certain values, certain attitudes about issues,”
Davis said, “but it doesn’t really impact very much how they live their
lives from day to day. Virtues, from my perspective, are lived out on a
daily basis. “There
are a lot of people who value honesty, but aren’t very honest
themselves. For those who have honesty as a deep virtue in their lives,
it shows as they live it.” ‘Lens of faith’
Diversity
is a national theme, but drawing out shared interests is key for
political campaigns to succeed in electing a candidate. James
Matthew Wilson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist
University in Dallas and an expert on church-state issues, said
Democrats and Republicans are moving further apart, not closer together,
on issues at the core of the values debate. President Bush’s campaign
was most successful at drawing attention to this area. “There
were stark differences between Bush and Kerry on abortion,
homosexuality, stem cell research and the whole role of faith in
personal and public life,” Wilson said. “The gay marriage issue is one
that can work powerfully for Republicans and could be deadly for
Democrats if they get on the wrong side of it.” Republican
strategist Karl Rove was the key figure credited with courting
faith-driven voters this year. Undoubtedly, experts say, both Democrats
and Republicans will make Christian voters a priority in 2008 and in
other races before then. The
Rev. Deanna Stickley-Miner, director of connectional mission and
justice for the denomination’s West Ohio Annual (regional) Conference,
warned against thinking that partisanship has a place in the church’s
collective pew. Even as values converge and diverge, she said, faith
remains a constant force that binds believers. “(United)
Methodists have always been values voters,” she said. “But the
Methodists’ understanding of morality is much broader than that
presented in the last campaign.” Stickley-Miner’s
work takes her to low-income neighborhoods, where she helps feed hungry
children. Her top priority is taking care of the hungry, the poor and
those who cannot fight for themselves. “We
need to be able to expand our perception of morality to include social
justice,” she said. “In the United Methodist Church, we have such a
broad, historical understanding of what it means to be moral people in
the world. It does include sexual morality, but it also includes the way
we use our money, our influence, the way we care for the environment.” Stickley-Miner
said seeing life through a “lens of faith” enables her to disengage
from a political viewpoint and instead focus on the people involved. “We’re
getting ready to celebrate Christmas, the birth of the Prince of
Peace,” she said. “What better time to address the growing interest, the
desire to say, ‘Let’s talk about issues from a place of faith, not
politics.’ ”
*Ross is a freelance journalist based in Dallas. News media contact: Linda Green or Tim Tanton, (615) 742-5470 or newsdesk@umcom.org.
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