Religious Leftovers
How the National Council of Churches Lives Off the Agenda of the Democratic Party
by Mark Tooley
Does the National Council of Churches (NCC) ever disagree with the Democratic Party? The short answer is “not really.” But a longer answer would explain that the NCC, in its political pronouncements and activism, is sometimes more utopian and less grounded in political realities than the Democratic Party.
Predictable Opposition
On economic, military, and foreign policy issues, the NCC is always in sync with the most liberal wing of the Democratic Party. For example, NCC General Secretary Bob Edgar formally responded to President Bush’s State of the Union address in January much like a leader of the Democratic Party. (He is, after all, a former Democratic Congressman.)
“Many people are uncomfortable with a national priority that provides major tax cuts for millionaires and pays for them with funds that ought to go to help children without health care insurance, children who can’t get into Head Start, children whose families live on the edge all the time,” Edgar said in his response to Bush’s speech. “The President didn’t say it, but the country knows it: The union is in a state of great uneasiness,” he added.
On Iraq, Edgar said, “We should all be concerned about the tone of the President’s war rhetoric.” He claimed that “Americans are right to be uneasy about the morality of a pre-emptive American invasion that, even with extreme care on our part, could kill a staggering number of innocent civilians.”
This was boilerplate Democratic Party rhetoric, although more outspoken on Iraq than some Democratic leaders have been willing to be. Conservatives would say, with some justification, that Edgar resorts to class warfare histrionics and assumes that only an expansive federal welfare state can guarantee the common good.
It is of course possible for devout and orthodox Christians to share these assumptions. Many do. But there is little or nothing that is specifically Christian about this perspective, which involves partisan issues that are matters of prudential judgment, not Christian doctrine.
But Edgar’s spouting of a liberal Democratic and secular critique of President Bush’s policies underline how the NCC is utterly predictable in its public policy witness and can be expected to find sympathy among Democrats. His statement could just as easily have come from the National Education Association, the AFL-CIO, the Children’s Defense Fund, or any one of dozens of other secular liberal constituency groups within the Democratic Party.
If It Sounds Like a Democrat . . .
Mark Tooley directs the United Methodist committee of the Institute on Religion and Democracy (www.ird-renew.org) in Washington, D.C.
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