Last Saturday evening Andy and I took a walk through the Short North looking for gifts for our respective sisters-in-law and checking out a very cool vintage/antique store I’ve had my eye on for a while. As we walked in silence holding hands and taking in the local color, Andy suddenly turned to me and said, “So what do you think of this whole financial crisis business?” We’ve had discussions about bail out on a few different occasions but being a Democrat married to a pretty hard-core Libertarian, our political discussions generally go the way of the downward spiral pretty quickly. The questions that revolve around government involvement generally hit bottom first. It’s really ugly. Usually ends in mild bloodshed. Being someone who has a strong opinion about virtually everything, my answer surprised even me. “You know, I think I’m just pretending like it’s not happening.” I’ve been trying my best to stay informed despite the fact that economics in general makes my brain start to fold in on itself. Money games have never been my thing. I’m happy if I have twenty bucks in pocket and my bank account is missing that pesky minus sign in front of the balance. But I think the real source of my flight response is rooted in my greater political frustration. I think I have hit politico overload.

I grew up in a decidedly Red community. “Vote the Bible” bumper stickers adorned every other car and it was not at all uncommon for the American flag to be employed in a church worship service to accompany a nice round of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” I’m pretty sure if my mother were asked to draw a picture of what she thought Jesus looked like, he would be wearing a badge adorned with a giant red elephant. So imagine my parents’ surprise when I grew up to be what my Dad describes as “More liberal than Kennedy.”

For those of you who are not aware exactly where Kennedy falls on the liberal continuum, in the mind of Rex Newbanks, the answer is TOO DAMN LIBERAL. Who knows why I turned out the way I did. But here I am, a registered Democrat (or as an email I received earlier this month termed us: The Party of Baby-Killers), believing in evolution, supporting gay marriage, with nary a trace of the ten commandments on display in my home.

Do I think we all came from monkeys? Not necessarily. Do I think that homosexuality was God’s original intent for human sexuality? I doubt it. Do I hate babies and all that they stand for? No (I rather like babies, actually). Is this post about my particular political beliefs? No. But over the course of the last eight years my growing disillusionment with the Bush administration has pushed to the surface a tension that was always there but I was previously too afraid to deal with. “Voting the Bible” has broadened in definition for me to include issues beyond gay marriage, abortion, and the inscription of the Ten Commandments in courthouses. That is not to say that those issues are not important, they are, but for the longest time it felt like voting for a member of the Republican Party was THE ONLY choice because of those issues and now I feel differently. Make sense? For the longest time differing in political opinion from the mainstream Evangelical church equaled BAD CHRISTIAN in my mind. I think that internal accusation was way harder to deal with than the disapproving emails and the parental scoldings I received along the way. I have a different opinion now, however, and over the last eight years I have felt my conviction deepening as the GOP has brought to us delightful little gifts like the PATRIOT Act, illegal wiretaps, sanctioned torture, the death of habeas corpus and the disaster of a war in Iraq to name only a few of my personal points of contention. I take responsibility for my part of electing George Bush (the first time...my opinion had changed by 2004). I feel like I was guilty of overly simplifying my politics and voting for him because it was "the Christian thing to do" rather than what I felt to be right in the broader sense.

Recently, one of my very favorite podcasts, Speaking of Faith, did a two-part series called “The Faith Life of the Party” highlighting representatives from both the left and the right discussing the ways faith affects political affiliation. I very much enjoyed the series and took comfort in the knowledge that there are legitimate differing opinions about how faith can play out in the political arena. It’s good to know that there is a reason to believe that the jump from scriptural mandates to legislation is not as easily ascertained as I once thought. I believe the behavior of the leaders of the Christian Right this election season has only served to further my conviction to abandon my former post. Blatant fearmongering such as Dobson's "Letter from 2012 in Obama's America" is an illustration of what I believe to be shameful, desperate, and negative leadership in a time that calls for the hope of Christ to be illuminated.

I now believe that living the Gospel ethic requires both vision as well as imagination. This realization is particularly comforting in light of the many possible tangential roads of scriptural interpretation made possible by the ugly broad ditch of separation between the world of Jesus and the world in which we now live. I believe that the Bible calls us to preserve the sanctity of life and I am pro-life, but I also believe that the call to preserve life extends beyond the issue of abortion to the death penalty, the problem of poverty, human trafficking, fair immigration policies and needless warmongering. No candidate or piece of legislation will ever be perfect and I don’t expect it to be. As a follower of Christ I believe that it is my responsibility to continue holding my interpretations of Christ’s life up to scrutiny constantly looking for new revelation on how to communicate his love to the world. That being said, I will be voting for Barack Obama tomorrow not simply because he is a brother in Christ, but also because I feel like his platform, while not perfect, more accurately represents my broader political priorities (Jim Wallis published a great blog post about this HERE, my husband also posted many of our collective thoughts HERE). However, it brings me great peace to remember that whatever way the election plays out tomorrow, that Christ alone is our hope.

Obama '08!

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