{"id":6,"date":"2010-04-28T13:45:51","date_gmt":"2010-04-28T13:45:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/christianityfortherestofus\/2010\/04\/arizona-the-most-schizophrenic-state.html"},"modified":"2010-04-28T13:45:51","modified_gmt":"2010-04-28T13:45:51","slug":"arizona-the-most-schizophrenic-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christianityfortherestofus\/2010\/04\/arizona-the-most-schizophrenic-state.html","title":{"rendered":"Arizona: The Most Schizophrenic State"},"content":{"rendered":"

This morning on MSNBC in a discussion
\non Arizona’s new anti-immigrant law, Tamron Hall asked her viewers, “Is Arizona
\nthe most conservative state?”  <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

 Arizona is not really the most
\nconservative state.  <\/span>But it may
\nwell be America’s most schizophrenic one. Certainly, when people think of
\nArizona they think of Barry Goldwater and John McCain, both Republicans with
\nstrong libertarian sensibilities–and both of whom are routinely identified as
\nrepresenting the soul of Arizona politics. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

 However, Goldwater and McCain are only
\nhalf of the story.  <\/span>Arizona was
\nalso home to Cesar Chavez<\/a>, founder of the United Farm Workers who was one of
\nthe most important labor leaders of the 20th<\/sup> century, and Stewart
\nUdall<\/a>, the Secretary of the Interior under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson who
\nenacted some of the most of significant environmental legislation in American
\nhistory.  <\/span>Chavez and Udall were
\nseminal figures of modern progressive politics.  <\/span>Both were deeply shaped by Arizona, its land and its
\npeoples, and brought issues of workers’ right, Hispanic immigration, natural
\nresources, and justice for Native Americans from their home state to the
\nforefront of American consciousness.  Chavez and Udall embody the soul of Arizona, too.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

In other words, Arizona is a place of immense contrasts–contrasts that are sometimes difficult with which to cope–and that shape the ethical, moral, and spiritual dimensions of life there.  <\/span>Indeed, its
\nlandscape tells the tale: Arizona’s most dominant geographic feature of the
\nstate is the 200-mile long Mogollon Rim, the edge of the Colorado Plateau,
\nwhere the land suddenly drops 3000 feet from a lush pine forest to desert
\nbasin.  <\/span>Within a relatively short
\ndistance, two completely different ecologies exist. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Arizona’s schizophrenia also exists in
\nits culture–Arizona gave America both Wayne Newton (born in Virginia, but spent much of his life in Arizona) and Alice Cooper.  <\/span>Religion is not immune from the state’s
\nbi-polar extremism: adherents of new spiritualities make up about 20% of the
\npopulation, roughly the same number who belong to evangelical
\nmega-churches. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Thus, Arizona tends to bounce between
\nextremes, with the conservative pole often being most organized and
\nauthority-driven, thus influencing politics and the criminal justice
\nsystem.  <\/span>While the progressives
\ntend to cluster around arts, education, and spirituality, and they are typically
\ndiverse and decentralized. The same electorate voted in both Janet Napolitano
\n(D) as governor and Jan Brewer (R) as Secretary of State.  <\/span>Brewer succeeded Napolitano when the
\nDemocratic governor joined the Obama administration.  <\/span>The new immigration bill is one of those bi-polar bounces, a
\nkind of fear-driven manic phase prompted by bad politics, failed federal
\npolicy, and increased violence on the border.<\/span><\/p>\n

At its best–and the new law is nowhere
\nnear its best–Arizona manages to balance its extremes, centering itself around
\nits independent spirit, a practical sort of libertarianism, pragmatic
\nenvironmentalism, and wisdom from a variety of cultures. Indeed, Phil Gordon,
\nthe current mayor of Phoenix, who disagrees with the new law, wrote this week
\nin the Washington Pos<\/a><\/i>t<\/i>:<\/span><\/p>\n

The Arizona I’ve known since moving here from Chicago as a
\nboy is the birthplace of Cesar Chavez; it’s a free-thinking, hospitable state
\ncapable of balancing great natural beauty and cultures of all sorts. This place
\nwe’ve heard about lately, the Arizona willing to risk economic boycotts and
\ninternational ridicule in the pursuit of an ugly, discriminatory law? I don’t
\nrecognize it.  <\/span><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n


<\/i><\/font><\/p>\n

Some people are calling for a consumer boycott
\nof Arizona.  <\/span>I’m just calling for a
\nreturn to creative balance.  <\/span>Oh,
\nand a mega-dose of Lithium probably wouldn’t hurt either.  <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This morning on MSNBC in a discussion on Arizona’s new anti-immigrant law, Tamron Hall asked her viewers, “Is Arizona the most conservative state?”   Arizona is not really the most conservative state.  But it may well be America’s most schizophrenic one. Certainly, when people think of Arizona they think of Barry Goldwater and John McCain, both…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":66,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-immigration","category-religion-and-politics"],"yoast_head":"\nArizona: The Most Schizophrenic State - Christianity for the Rest of Us<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christianityfortherestofus\/2010\/04\/arizona-the-most-schizophrenic-state.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Arizona: The Most Schizophrenic State - Christianity for the Rest of Us\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This morning on MSNBC in a discussion on Arizona’s new anti-immigrant law, Tamron Hall asked her viewers, “Is Arizona the most conservative state?”   Arizona is not really the most conservative state.  But it may well be America’s most schizophrenic one. Certainly, when people think of Arizona they think of Barry Goldwater and John McCain, both…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christianityfortherestofus\/2010\/04\/arizona-the-most-schizophrenic-state.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Christianity for the Rest of Us\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-04-28T13:45:51+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Diana Butler Bass\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Arizona: The Most Schizophrenic State - Christianity for the Rest of Us","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christianityfortherestofus\/2010\/04\/arizona-the-most-schizophrenic-state.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Arizona: The Most Schizophrenic State - Christianity for the Rest of Us","og_description":"This morning on MSNBC in a discussion on Arizona’s new anti-immigrant law, Tamron Hall asked her viewers, “Is Arizona the most conservative state?”   Arizona is not really the most conservative state.  But it may well be America’s most schizophrenic one. 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She holds a Ph.D. in religious studies from Duke University and is the author of seven books including A People\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s History of Christianity: the Other Side of the Story (HarperOne, 2009) Her best-selling Christianity for the Rest of Us (2006) was named as one of the best religion books of the year by Publishers Weekly and Christian Century, won the Book of the Year Award from the Academy of Parish Clergy, and was featured in a cover story in USA TODAY. Diana regularly consults with religious organizations, leads conferences for religious leaders, and teaches and preaches in a variety of venues. She regularly comments on religion, politics, and culture in the media including USA TODAY, Time, Newsweek, The Washington Post, CNN, FOX, PBS, and NPR. From 1995-2000, she wrote a weekly column on American religion for the New York Times Syndicate. She has written widely in the religious press, including Sojourners, Christian Century, Clergy Journal, and Congregations. From 2002 to 2006, she was the Project Director of a national Lilly Endowment funded study of mainline Protestant vitality\u00e2\u20ac\u201da project featured in Newsweek, U.S. News and World Report, the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times. Diana also serves on the board of directors of the Beatitudes Society. Diana has taught at Westmont College, the University of California at Santa Barbara, Macalester College, Rhodes College, and the Virginia Theological Seminary. She has taught church history, American religious history, history of Christian thought, religion and politics, and congregational studies. She lives in Alexandria, Virginia. She is a member of the Episcopal Church of the Epiphany in downtown Washington, D.C.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christianityfortherestofus\/author\/dbbass"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christianityfortherestofus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christianityfortherestofus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christianityfortherestofus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christianityfortherestofus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/66"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christianityfortherestofus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christianityfortherestofus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christianityfortherestofus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christianityfortherestofus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christianityfortherestofus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}