Calvin Fellow Looks at Moral Values and Politics

November 8, 2004 == MEDIA ADVISORY

Political pundits and others are scratching their heads in the wake of the
November 2 presidential election, puzzled and perplexed that across the country
more voters said "moral values" were the most important issue to them in
deciding their presidential vote.

Even more significantly 80% of those "moral values" voters put their support
behind President George W. Bush.

Stephen Monsma, a research fellow at the Paul B. Henry Institute for the Study
of Christianity and Politics at Calvin College, says the numbers should be
causing some serious soul-searching for the Democratic Party. And should spur
some changes to the party's platform.

"The Republicans," says Monsma, "now basically own the moral values issue.
And as long as that is the case the Democrats are going to struggle, especially
in presidential elections."

Monsma's perspective on the issue is an interesting one. He taught political
science at Calvin from 1967-1974 and taught political science at Pepperdine
University from 1987-2004.

In between he spent four years in the Michigan House of Representatives
(1974-78) and four years in the Michigan Senate (1978-1982), representing Grand
Rapids as a Democrat.

He says that he was able to exist in Lansing as a pro-life Democrat and an
unabashed and unapologetic Christian. And, he adds, he was not an isolated
case, recalling a mid-1970s state race for governor that pitted a pro-choice
Republican against a pro-life Democrat.

Today's Democrats, says Monsma, need to take a page from those days.

And he recites three things the Dems could do immediately to at least move the
moral values conversation back to their party.

The first, he says, is to look for the symbolic gestures that signal they
respect people of faith.

"Can they talk about faith in meaningful ways," he asks, "and can they connect
to faith groups - other than visiting a few churches in the last three weeks
before an election. Will Democrats go to the National Association of
Evangelicals convention? It seems incongruous to even ask the question but
would (Hillary Rodham) Clinton speak to the National Association of Religious
Broadcasters?"

Secondly, says Monsma, Democrats need to give a little on issues like gay
marriage and abortion and school prayer.

"Faith based initiatives," he says, "struck me as a perfect place for the
Democrats to be flexible. Instead they reacted as though Bush wanted to tear
down the wall of separation between church and state. I think their reaction
was an indication of how they have staked out the most extreme positions on
many important moral values issues."

Finally, Monsma says, the Democratic Party needs to do a better job of saying
what they are really for when it comes to moral values and other issues
important to the American people.

"They've tended to define themselves," he says, "by being against what Bush is
for. I think back to Democratic leaders like Roosevelt and Truman and they
were very clear about what the Democrats were doing and what they stood for.
Today's Dems aren't generating the ideas."

Monsma has written Working Faith: How Religious Organizations Provide
Welfare-to-Work Services, The Challenge of Pluralism: Church and State in Five
Democracies, When Sacred and Secular Mix: Religious Nonprofit Organizations and
Public Money and Positive Neutrality: Letting Religious Freedom Ring.

He has been a Fellow at the Henry Institute at Calvin since summer 2004. The
Paul B. Henry Institute for the Study of Christianity and Politics was created
in 1997 to continue the work of integrating Christian faith and politics
advanced by its namesake, educator and public servant Paul B. Henry. See
www.calvin.edu/henry

For more commentary from Monsma and others see
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/week810/commentary.html

Contact Monsma at 616-526-6993 (o) or 975-9247 (h)

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Received on Mon Nov 8 11:01:17 2004