<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0“Of course,” Patricia told me, \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0In talking about religion, race, \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0For the last week, I’ve been in \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Such discretion means\u00a0 <\/span>the set-piece issues of abortion and \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0What remains unsettled in England \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0It’s testament to the political \u00a0\u00a0 But that’s politics. Spin, <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0“Of course,” Patricia told me, leaning in close, “of course English people don’t even like the Scottish.” Patricia, the funny, perceptive, activist wife of a progressive Church of England vicar, made a face. ” I have no idea if you’ll be able to elect Obama,” she said. “We’d never vote for a Scot for…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":153,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,32,1,18,15,2,9],"tags":[88],"class_list":["post-107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-abortion","category-christians","category-election-08","category-international-relations","category-jews","category-muslims","category-religion-in-the-public-square","tag-election-international-race"],"yoast_head":"\n
\nleaning in close, “of course English people don’t even like the Scottish.”
\nPatricia, the funny, perceptive, activist wife of a progressive Church of
\nEngland vicar, made a face. ” I have no idea if you’ll be able to elect Obama,” she said.
\n“We’d never vote for a Scot for high office;\u00a0\u00a0so\u00a0<\/span>I’m not convinced white people here would ever elect a
\nblack man.”<\/p>\n
\nand politics this week with British voters of different ages and backgrounds,
\nI’ve come to believe again, albeit with some light rolling of the eyes, in
\nAmerican exceptionalism. But I’ve also come to see the ways in which the image
\nof America–its faith and its politics—carries meaning for English (and, to
\nsome extent) European Christians.<\/p>\n
\nEngland to work with “emerging” postmodern Christians of all denominations.
\nThis is, of course, a country with a state religion, ubiquitous churches and
\nmosques, and a powerful evangelical movement; but the spectacle of religion as
\npart of electoral politics is almost entirely absent here. Paul and his wife
\nJeni,\u00a0 <\/span>a young Christian couple who work in
\nmanagement, were appalled by the way American candidates proclaim their faith.
\nJeni describes herself as English -“and I love it! I like the queen, I’m
\npassionate about London–” and she grew up as a preacher’s daughter. She
\nremembered, approvingly, when a reporter badgered Tony Blair with questions
\nabout his church’s minister. “Tony Blair just said, ‘We don’t do religion’ and
\nthat was that,” she said. “As it should be.”<\/p>\n
\ngay marriage that have become staples for the U.S. Christian Right in election
\nyears fail to arouse much passion among voters in Britain. “Abortion just isn’t
\na political issue here,” said Dave, a self-described socialist serving as the
\nvicar in a London parish. Dave, an influential preacher who left the
\nevangelical movement to become an Anglican priest, remembers “a few” attempts
\nto stir up outrage over abortions. “But really,” he said, “that was all settled
\nin 1969.”<\/p>\n
\nand in Europe are issues of race and immigration. As in America, different
\ngenerations understand race in very different ways. For Jeni, the young white
\nEnglish woman who grew up dating a black man, religion–in her case, the Nation
\nof Islam followers who taunted her–is often \u00a0<\/span>a force for racial separation. For\u00a0 <\/span>Fuzz, a Australian church consultant in his 50s who works
\nacross the Middle East and Asia, Christianity is a force that’s capable of
\ntranscending racial and ethnic boundaries. But all believe that American racism
\nis, as Dave the vicar put it, “extreme,” and that levels of racial conflict in
\nAmerica are higher than in Britain or its former colonies. Strikingly, they
\ntend to read American movements for racial justice–both black and Latino–as
\nessentially religious movements led by Christian preachers. And they tend to
\nbelieve that today’s equivalent political power lies not in Christian workers
\nfor racial justice, but in the fire-breathing, uncompromising, social
\nconservatism of\u00a0 <\/span>the mighty army of
\nright-wing Christian voters.<\/p>\n
\ngenius of the Christian Right that it’s exported abroad -and confirmed in the
\nminds of American voters–this image. None of the British voters I spoke with
\nhad any idea of the actual percentage of the U.S. electorate who self-identify
\nas evangelical -just 8% in 2007, according to evangelical pollster George
\nBarna. None of them knew that Barna also showed, back in 2004, that a third of
\nall born-again voters thought abortion was morally acceptable, and about the
\nsame percentage thought homosexual relationships were morally acceptable.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nmarketing, money and power. And as lovely as the English disdain for mixing
\npolitics and religion might seem to me, the reality is that in the absence of
\nan established church, American churches do constantly compete in the marketplace
\nfor power. American religion, to the slight horror of our friends in Britain
\nand beyond, remains right down in the mud of political life, mixed up in
\ninextricable ways with the common life of citizens. May God have mercy on us
\nall.\u00a0<\/p>\n