{"id":48,"date":"2006-09-28T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2006-09-28T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/godspolitics\/2006\/09\/diana-butler-bass-the-missing.html"},"modified":"2006-09-28T12:00:00","modified_gmt":"2006-09-28T12:00:00","slug":"diana-butler-bass-the-missing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/2006\/09\/diana-butler-bass-the-missing.html","title":{"rendered":"Diana Butler Bass: The missing sentence…"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"DianaLast week, Sojourners launched the \u201cRed Letter Christians\u201d<\/a> group at a press conference in Washington. \u201cRed Letter Christians\u201d is a short-hand way of talking about Christians who take the whole of Jesus\u2019 teachings seriously in our spiritual and public lives\u2014even the difficult bits of the Beatitudes like \u201cblessed are the poor\u201d and \u201cblessed are the peacemakers.\u201d <\/p>\n

It is humbling to be asked to be part of this group of Christian writers; I felt especially awed at Dave Batstone\u2019s discussion of contemporary slavery as a moral issue and Randall Balmer\u2019s call to stand up against torture. For more than a dozen years, I have been voicing my concerns that the Religious Right\u2019s conception of \u201cvalues\u201d issues is limited and politicized, but most of my words have been in print\u2014not spoken with passion (as my colleagues so ably did) before reporters. With lights and cameras on, and journalists taking notes, I felt surprisingly shy (not at all as I feel in the pulpit or in the classroom) and, introducing myself quickly, shared my concerns about issues of church and state, and then willingly surrendered the podium to the next Red Letter Christian!<\/p>\n

The combination of my colleagues\u2019 clarity and my own shyness would have kept me glued to my seat for the rest of the event, save the question of one reporter. Several tried to pin us down politically (suspicious, I think, that we are some sort of front organization for the Democratic National Committee). Finally, one asked outright if all the Red Letter Christians were registered Democrats\u2014and if any of us were Republicans.<\/p>\n

The room seemed a little strained at that point. One person talked about being an independent voter. I kept thinking that the journalists were missing the point by trying to define us by Washington categories instead of theological ones. Unexpectedly, I found myself at the microphone again\u2014\u201ccoming out\u201d politically to a room full of the mainstream media.<\/p>\n

I shared that I am currently a registered Democrat and that I was born to a Democratic family. However (and in correct chronological order), I have been a Democrat, a Republican, an Independent, a Republican, a Democrat, a Republican very briefly, and once again a Democrat (maybe the journalist should ask me the same question five years from now!). But then, the ultimate confession: One of my proudest possessions is a personal letter from Senator Barry Goldwater (yes, \u201cMr. Conservative\u201d) congratulating me on being Arizona Teen-Age Republican of the Year in 1976!<\/p>\n

The room laughed. And the subject changed back to more important things (like poverty, the environment, and peacemaking) than our voter registration. But if I wasn\u2019t quite so intimidated by the cameras, I now realize that my confession should have extended just one more sentence: \u201cYes, I\u2019ve worn all these political labels\u2014depending on issues at stake and candidates in races\u2014but throughout my checkered political history, one label has never changed: Christian; I am a Christian, and all those other labels are secondary to my baptismal journey to live the teachings of Jesus.\u201d <\/p>\n

And that\u2019s the point of Red Letter Christians: We are Christians. All those other labels\u2014Democrat, Republican, liberal, conservative\u2014are secondary to being Christian, our passionate quests to enact grace and live a Christian way of life. As I reflect on my missing sentence, I realize that it sounds a wee bit like a sentence from scripture. Not one printed in RED letters, but the plain black words of St. Paul: \u201cThere is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male or female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.\u201d If the blessed apostle were around for press conferences today, I\u2019m pretty sure he\u2019d add, \u201cno longer Republican or Democrat,\u201d too.<\/p>\n

Diana Butler Bass<\/a> is an independent scholar and author. Her latest book is <\/span>Christianity for the Rest of Us (Harper, September 2006).<\/span><\/p>\n

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

Last week, Sojourners launched the \u201cRed Letter Christians\u201d group at a press conference in Washington. \u201cRed Letter Christians\u201d is a short-hand way of talking about Christians who take the whole of Jesus\u2019 teachings seriously in our spiritual and public lives\u2014even the difficult bits of the Beatitudes like \u201cblessed are the poor\u201d and \u201cblessed are the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nDiana Butler Bass: The missing sentence... - God's Politics<\/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\/godspolitics\/2006\/09\/diana-butler-bass-the-missing.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Diana Butler Bass: The missing sentence... - 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