Get on the Truth Van

Dispelling the myth that Progressives and Christians don’t mix.

By Jason Rathod, Grinnell College

Walking back from class a couple of weeks ago, a strange, multi-colored van darted in front of me. At first, it looked like an awkward cross between an ice cream truck and Scooby-Doo’s Mystery Machine Van. That was until I saw the gigantic image of a fetus plastered across the side. Meet the “Truth Van.”

Inside of the “Truth Van” members of an extremist group called Missionaries to the Pre-Born disseminated anti-abortion propaganda throughout Grinnell’s campus. Included in their “literature” were pamphlets that showcased dismembered fetuses and compared Planned Parenthood to the Nazis. Perhaps most outrageous, the group chopped up and misconstrued passages from the Bible to support their claims, which include calling for the execution of women and doctors who participate in abortion procedures.

Coming from a strong Christian background myself, I am continually shocked when people derive misguided values from such a loving tradition. My grandfather was an evangelical, United Methodist minister in India. He spent his life spreading the gospel of Christ’s charity and helped open 11 churches and a hospital in his home state of Gujarat. My father followed in his footsteps, immigrating to America and preaching Christian values of faith, hope, and love to congregations across rural Nebraska.

Unfortunately, many progressives have been all too ready to accept the vision of radical, fundamentalist Christians as representative of the religious community over the vision presented by my grandfather and father. In fact, conventional wisdom after the 2004 elections was that the triumph of “moral values” was really a triumph of gun-toting, gay-hating, Christian misogynists.

Nothing could be further from the truth. For instance, a 2004 survey by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life reveals that most Christians embrace progressive values. In the survey, a large majority of Christians rank promoting economic development as one of the top three American foreign policy goals and support increasing government funds to “aid the disadvantaged” even if it means higher taxes.

If the Christian community holds progressive values, why did a healthy size majority vote for Bush? One way to effectively answer this question is to step back and ask: why does anyone turn to religion in the first place? Whether riding in a Truth Van or sitting in my father’s congregation, I agree with theorists like Emilie Durkheim and Peter Berger—religion first and foremost provides order to the world and gives life meaning beyond the day-to-day grind. Religion can create a sense of a collective conscience, a basis for communal spiritual social life. And who wouldn’t want that?

Politics has the capacity to serve much of the same function. Politics and a political system at its best can make a nation believe that its purpose extends beyond fulfilling day-to-day needs, and involves improving our world, progressing humanity toward transcendant aims. Such an approach orders the world for the many citizens who view politics as a chaotic and confusing insiders game. This messaging approach also explains how a president preaching freedom for the oppressed can win an election against a challenger who was more of a true champion of economic justice but failed to contextualize an economic recession and an unpopular war in an ordered, and ultimately religious, narrative.

Former President Clinton recognized the importance of transcendant narrative, framing his entire 1992 platform under the simple heading a “New Covenant.” The “New Covenant” delivered states like Montana and Louisiana, while the secular and cluttered “Stronger at Home, Respected in the World” lost these red states by 20 points. To carve a path out of the political wilderness, progressives should infuse religion not just in our discussion of specific issues, but in the very way we approach politics.

Jason Rathod is a Junior Political Science / Religious Studies double major at Grinnell College. He is Opinion Editor for his school’s newspaper and active with Campus Democrats. He earned street credibility among liberals for writing a satirical Q & A with David Horowitz prior to his fanatical speech at Grinnell. After reading the piece, Horowitz reportedly went nuts, called Rathod an “ignorant moron,” and pleaded with the college president for a public apology.
Horowitz was promptly shown the First Amendment in response.