Alex McNeill
Alex McNeill, Religion Dispatches’ LGBT editor, is the first openly queer ministry candidate in a conservative Presbyterian region in North Carolina. With a Master’s of Divinity from Harvard, Alex is Director of Development at the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, writing the “Presbyqueerian” blog, an exploration of a contentious ordination process and other musings on sexuality and theology.
Judging purely on the basis of Facebook responses to the news that I’d be attending the “Restoring Honor” rally, my friends expected that I’d either be killed by an angry mob or that I’d respond with a scathing criticism of the attendees. Either way, no one was interested in joining me.
The assumption that I’d respond critically was shared by the attendees I spoke to about their motivations for attending, what they hoped the event might accomplish, and how faith is a guiding force for their beliefs and participation in the Tea Party. I am not here to write another scathing criticism, and I don’t want to play into an “us versus them” mentality, as that may well be what allowed the Tea Party can grab the national spotlight in the first place.
As I walked toward the hushed sea of people spreading out from the Lincoln Memorial and down the National Mall to the Washington Monument, what I found was more worship service than political rally. Despite the vastness of the crowd, the tone was reverent. Few spoke, and when they did it was in a quiet undertone so as not to disturb those around them; that most couldn’t hear the speakers was irrelevant. More important was that they were participating in a moment; a public declaration of faith and solidarity to collectively proclaim that the Tea Party is more than an occasion, it is a movement.
Those with whom I spoke wanted to be sure I understood the Tea Party is distinct from Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin, and that it is more than the sum of its spokespersons. Most wanted me to see that they were ordinary, hardworking, Christian Americans who were fed up, frustrated with a system that had failed them, angry over the country’s direction, and interested in a return to (as the Restoring Honor Web site put it) “the values that founded this great nation.”
When asked what America would look like should we return to those values, most responded with platitudes about how this country was founded by Judeo-Christians; when I asked them to clarify, many questioned my motivation for doing so.
As individuals, the people I met and saw at the rally appeared friendly and pleasant. Many returned my smile, I wasn’t ejected for appearing “too liberal,” and some were happy to talk to me for a while so long as my intention wasn’t to report our conversation in an article that could be twisted by the “liberal media.”
But that’s just it. Individually, most Tea Partiers probably are nice people, trying to do what’s right, motivated by good intentions that extend from their faith in God and in their understanding of what this nation stands for. And individualism is exactly what the rhetoric of the rally was all about. From the Web site: “throughout history America has seen many great leaders and noteworthy citizens change her course. It is through their personal virtues and by their example that we are able to live as a free people. Our freedom is possible only if we remain virtuous.” Mirroring their Christology, salvation for themselves and for the country is an individual act.
The convenience of individualism is that others cannot be held accountable for personal failures, nor can an individual be held responsible for the actions of another. The problem with individualism is that it fails to connect the dots between a movement or ideology and how one person might interpret that ideology, thereby taking a course of action perhaps incongruous with the party’s original intent.
Individualism is beneficial for leaders to peg success or failure of a movement on each person’s virtue rather than the power of the collective to effect change. Individualism is focused on personal attainment, personal happiness, and personal livelihood, and fails to see how each relies on a system that empowers, privileges, or dispossess either the individual or others in the process. As I discovered at the rally, to shift the conversation from “I” to “we” in speaking of a collective liberation was quickly flagged as anti-American and dismissed.
Since when did “We the People” become synonymous with Socialism? How can we convince people that “loving thy neighbor” means more than just praying for them, that it means supporting a system that raises each of us up through access to education, health care, jobs, and a livable life? How can we encourage people to stop thinking of themselves as living in subdivisions and start living in neighborhoods? How can we shift from the Jesus of the comfortable to the “sell all your possessions” Jesus?
I don’t think we change the nature of the conversation by berating those with whom we disagree, further sowing the seeds of resentment and faction. We change the nature of the conversation by connecting our own work to the values or faith by which it is motivated. The Christianity I practice requires that I love my neighbor even when it isn’t easy, that I work for “the least of these” even when I want to quit, that I give my two coins even if they are the last two I have, and that Jesus died not only for my sins but also for those of the tax collector, the Samaritan woman, and the Pharisee.
I cannot, in good conscience, profess to be a Christian and not see the world as composed of a “we” rather than just “me.” It is also because I am a Christian that I cannot dismiss the Tea Party outright as I hear their cry of suffering. Many people at the rally spoke to me about losing their jobs, nearly losing their homes, and losing their spirit. That suffering is real, despite whatever else may be said. The Tea Party offers hope, if nothing else, and directs anger at individuals rather than toward a system of disempowerment. All I know is, as I surveyed the crowd, I couldn’t help but think about what could happen if all these people suddenly transformed their anger into a movement bent not on equality, but justice.
Another letter writer noted that "It is one thing for an individual to choose to sacrifice for their neighbor, it is entirely different when a governing body makes that decision for them." There is something to that. However, I would like to point out that governments routinely force their people to sacrifice for their neighbours in the form of taking their money, by force if necessary, to spend it on the capacity to make war and on actually making war. At times, governments even demand, in the form of conscription, that its people sacrifice by putting them in uniform and requiring them to die or, perhaps worse, kill for their neighbours. These exactions do not seem to excite in my fellow Christians that same distaste that many express for having governments take their money to use it for what are charitable purposes of feeding and clothing the poor and providing health care for the sick. I’m not suggesting the other letter writer himself embodies this inconsistency.
If Christians are willing to have governments take their money, and at times lives, for the defence of their neighbours by war, it is not in principle wrong for governments to take their money for charity where private charity has failed. And private charity has always failed. In countries like Canada and the USA today, we have extensive social safety nets precisely because of the experience of the failure of private charity to manage more than preventing outright starvation in the streets. We have to ask ourselves whether it matters more that we actually help those in need or whether it matters more that we give for the sake of our own salvation. The former does not pre-empt the latter.
If Quakers, Jehovah’s Witnesses and other pacifists are required,as they are, nevertheless to pay for the machinery of war and for war, how can one object to the lesser transgression on individual liberty of being made to pay to help people?
– Mike from Ottowa
Alex, I loved your article and thought you bent over backwards to give the people at the rally a chance. The fact remains that the Tea Party is represented by the likes of Glen Beck and Sarah Palin. Beck did not give any of his standard rhetoric that particular day on his historic day. But just listen to what he says to a much larger audience on the TV the days before and the days after his cleaned up appearance. I suppose he equates himself to Martin Luther King and didn't want history to record him saying the things he normally says.
I view the Tea Party in total and think they need to be responsible for the overwhelming inflammatory statements that their spokespeople are saying.
– Harry Forsdick, Lexington, MA
I am a pastor who must help people navigate the waters of the spiritual and political on a daily basis. I agree with Mr. McNeill on his appeal for Christians to think in terms of community rather than the individual. I agree that Jesus calls the individual to love people more than themselves, to sacrifice for their neighbors, and to be people of justice. His understanding of the Christian life is spot on.
I find it difficult, however, to apply these principles to the government. It is one thing for an individual to choose to sacrifice for their neighbor, it is entirely different when a governing body makes that decision for them. Especially when the refusal to do so can result in imprisonment, as it does when one refuses to pay taxes to support such a government.
It is the responsibility of the clergy to call Christians to live the Jesus ethic. Perhaps our failure to do this has lead to the need for the government to step in. Nonetheless, Mr. McNeill, it is a mistake to ask the government to apply Jesus' teachings on such a broad scale as it will result in a system that only devalues the individual. I am no fan of individualism, but history teaches that a government which does not value indivualism rarely works out well for the people. Perhaps your plea is better directed at America's clergy to teach Christians to take Jesus' words seriously. I suspect the genesis of true American change is found in her pulpits rather than on the steps of her monuments.
Thank you for thoughts.
– Ken Boggs, Pasadena, CA
The radical individualism has been a deep part of the more literal Christianities for a long time. Just think of the first verse of the well-known Christian revival hymn, "In the Garden," and imagine it being sung by thousands, or tens of thousands:
I come to the garden alone,while the dew is still on the roses;And the voice I hear, falling on my ear,the Son of God discloses.
Refrain:And He walks with me, and He talks with me,And He tells me I am His own,And the joy we share as we tarry there,None other has ever known.
"None other has ever known"! It's like the joke about the narcissist who says, "But enough about me. What do YOU think of me?"
– Davidson Loehr, Austin TX
Let me be honest. I am not big on this idea of God as the fulfiller of our requisition lists.
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