#377: What Would Jesus Say?

The 2012 election gives new relevance to the words of Jesus in the Gospel of John (Chapter 9, verses 1-3)… 
     I had not intended another election piece.  But then Mitt Romney’s post-election analysis provoked so much commentary I felt impelled to join the crowd.

What struck me most was the response of those defending Romney’s claim that it was “gifts” from the Federal Government, and specifically from the Obama Administration, that induced many voting blocs (college students, single women, immigrants, and minorities) to provide Obama with his victory margin.

I personally found Romney’s claim exaggerated and simplistic--but like many such claims it contained a kernel of truth.  Chris Matthews, by contrast, exaggerated the opposite way, interpreting Romney to mean that Obama “bought” the election.  The truth lies in the middle.

On the level of simple facts, the government actions Romney cited did benefit many Obama supporters.  But so what?  Politics has always been about serving your constituent base.  Romney also promised to help folks if elected.  The difference is that Obama, as the incumbent, could do more than promise--he could act.  The field was not level. It never is when an incumbent runs for re-election.

But some Romney reporters read his remarks on a deeper level.  They took them personally not as describing how politics works, but as describing how our society has declined.  They took it as a moral judgment which they agreed with--a judgment against, not Obama, but against those who supported him.  Take this letter to the Boston Globe as an example:

President Obama and Senator-elect Elizabeth Warren won because too many voters buy into the Democrats’ message that the people need their help.  Too many think they are incapable of navigating a world of business, real estate, and commerce.  The Republican message--let government help you help yourself--doesn’t resonate when so many people are on the receiving end of federal benefits…

America is no longer a nation of independent, entrepreneurial, responsible individuals.  We are fearful, lazy, and looking for the government to make the tough decisions and take care of us.

This letter echoes many commentaries since the election, which in turn echo Mitt Romney’s earlier remarks about the 47% who will not take responsibility for their own lives.

The implied moral judgment is clear: the Democratic Party appeals to voters who lacked the virtues of independence and self sufficiency.  It wins elections by catering to the lazy, the weak, and the irresponsible. Such politics takes us down the road to national perdition

I admit I now understand this perspective better than I used to--but I still find it senseless and even repugnant.

I recall how mystified I was when, as a young boy, I first heard this gospel passage:

As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth.  His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”

“Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.”--John 9:1-12

The disciples’ question made absolutely no sense to me.  Why, I wondered, would anyone connect misfortune and misery with wrongdoing?  Why would anyone link sickness with sin?

It seemed to me then that Jesus’ response was just plain common sense.  To me, it was more than obvious that people often suffered misfortune through no fault of their own, and needed the help of others.  Didn’t the Parable of the Good Samaritan confirm precisely that point?

And Catholic tradition has long since interpreted Jesus’ remarks to mean that the suffering of others is God’s way of inviting our compassion.  Their suffering means, not that they have done wrong, but that we must prove ourselves to be our brother’s keeper.

As I grew, however, I met more and more people who thought just like those who challenged Jesus (in this case, his own disciples!).  They presume that people in dire straits, especially people who need others’ help (and particularly public sector help), have brought this misfortune on themselves, through some fault of their own.  Such people therefore deserve no help.

The logic still escaped me: how could one think backwards from an outcome of misfortune to its root in moral failing?  But I realized that many people did, in fact, think this way.  As time went by, the gospel passage thus seemed increasingly relevant, as a Christian rebuke against such logic.

I eventually learned, of course, that one strain of Protestant fought employed just this kind of logic in its moral theology.  Some Protestants professed belief in “predestination”--the notion that the identity of those to be saved (as well as those to be damned) is already known to God.  It was almost as if a list had already been drawn up.  This naturally begged the urgent existential question: “Are we on the list of those saved?”  And this led to the more practical question: “How can we know if we are on this list?”

So some Protestants begin to draw conclusions based on observation.  But while the Catholic tradition of “natural law” and always drawn conclusions about God’s will by observing the facts of nature, those Protestants begin to draw conclusions about God’s will by observing the condition of people.  To oversimplify: people observed to be wealthy, successful, thriving were judged to be blessed by God—a sure sign of their salvation.  Those struggling or downtrodden, by contrast, could be judged to be suffering God’s neglect or even punishment--the likely sign of their damnation.

Such a distortion of the gospel message was certainly not what Luther or Calvin had in mind, yet once this oversimplification hijacked the label “Protestant Work Ethic,” it validated the prejudices and moral arrogance of millions of Americans over many generations.  It appears that many Americans still distort the gospels this way.

Last week I mentioned the declining demographic of the American “mainstream” that peaked in the 1950s and is now falling to minority status.  The post-war decade they dominated, the 1950s, achieved a kind of happy “normalcy” many Americans still yearn for as a kind of “golden age.” But this “normalcy” was possible only by ignoring the plight of millions of citizens outside the mainstream.  I’m not just referring to the discriminated minorities that provoked the Civil Rights movement; I’m referring especially to the millions in poverty whose shocking portrayal in Michael Harrington’s landmark 1962 book The Other America triggered the Kennedy administration’s War on Poverty--a war we are still waging 50 years later.

Since the 1950s, those needy millions have not only become more visible, they have become more numerous as new people arrive from Vietnam, Cambodia, Haiti, Latin America and the Caribbean.  Moreover, even the middle class has seen its self-sufficiency threatened: since 1970, real wages have steadily declined, wealth has concentrated into a smaller portion of our population, and the 1950s’ ideal of a family supported by one wage earner has become increasingly rare.

It is little surprise, then, that even before The Great Recession the political climate favored candidates willing to respond to the needs of the poor, the immigrant, young, the single women.  It made political sense, even for candidates who were not motivated by moral concerns.

By contrast, to ignore all those Americans in 2012,  to write them off, and to criticize opponents for offering to help them makes no political sense at all--the election results proved that.

So why would smart politicians deliberately oppose and ridicule such “gifts” to those in need? Why act in a way that makes no political sense? I can only think that the old judgmental mindset of the disciples in John 9:1-3 is still at work.

Those in need, that mindset thinks, suffer misfortune due to their own failures.  They have brought their hardship upon themselves.  They demonstrate themselves incapable of responsible behavior.  They do not deserve the government’s help.  And those who promise such help are pandering to the basest instincts of a society in decline. 

What would Jesus say to people who take this point of view?  We don’t even need to ask what he would say--we already know the answer.  These people should read the gospels.

© Bernard F. Swain PhD 2012