Jesus, Howard Dean, and the Easter Bunny

Some evangelicals are claiming that DNC Chair Howard Dean's failure to mention

the resurrection of Jesus in his Easter statement shows that Democrats are just plain incompetent in
their message to Evangelicals.  This is utter nonsense.  But
the attack on Dean reveals a lot.

What do Howard Dean, the Easter
Bunny, and the Republican message machine all have in common? 
No, it isn’t the opening line to a bad joke.  Or maybe it is.

As a Christian ethicist who
tries to help Democrats understand religion better, I was intrigued
and frustrated recently when a friend sent me an article by Nathan Gonzales
that circulated on the Internet chastising Governor Howard Dean on his
Easter statement.  The author took umbrage when Dean did not mention
the resurrection of Jesus in his Easter greeting and by this omission
demonstrated yet again that Democrats are just plain incompetent in
their message to Evangelicals.  This is utter nonsense.  But
the attack on Dean reveals a lot.

The timing of this jeremiad
against Dean is curious.  Just a few days earlier he gave a successful
speech at Eastern University, a flagship Evangelical college in Philadelphia. 
Tony Campolo, a superstar in the Evangelical world and an emeritus professor
there, had invited Dean.  He got a warm reception and spoke directly
to a set of moral concerns shared by the Democratic Party and many Evangelicals. 
The swiftness of the subsequent assault smells like Republicans fear
at the inroads Democrats are making in the Evangelical world.

Gonzales turned to Rich Cizik,
Vice President of Government Affairs for the National Association of
Evangelicals for the kill quote.  Cizik said, “This press release,
absent any reference to Jesus, without whom the Easter resurrection
story is meaningless, is apparently a sad reflection of a ‘lowest
common denominator’ religious outreach of the Democratic party. 
Wake up and smell the Easter lilies! This kind of outreach will not
pass the smell test of any evangelical.”   

Cizik, who recently dodged
getting fired from his NAE position because a number of the Grand Viziers
of the Religious Right felt he was drifting dangerously left for his
work on global warming and poverty, took the obligatory cheap shot at
Dean, no doubt in an attempt to buttress his bona fides with the Religious
Right.  He missed the fact that Dean is not clergy or a theologian,
and the Democratic National Committee is not a church!  Dean should
not be held to an arbitrary unwritten creed dictated by a curmudgeonly
religious lobbyist.   He and the DNC can issue Easter greetings
in any form they want.   That they chose Hallmark and not
Karl Barth as the form of the message means nothing ominous.   

But what about the substance
of the charge that Dean bent over backwards to avoid mentioning Jesus
when he said Easter Sunday was a joyous celebration representing peace,
redemption and renewal?  I took a look at the two White House statements
issued around Easter.  On Good Friday the White House issued a
typical ghost written blurb addressed only to Christians.  While
it noted the resurrection of Jesus is the most important event of the
Christian faith, it quickly linked the holiday to praying for our soldiers. 
That’s a theological stretch to put it mildly, connecting the death
and resurrection of the Prince of Peace with the war in Iraq. 
But on Easter itself, the President gave a short statement after attending
services at Fort Hood, Texas, making no mention of Jesus or the resurrection
saying simply that this is a joyous day for many people around the world
and it was a day for us to reflect on our many blessings.  So in
his generic Easter he sounded similar to Dean.  Where is the Evangelical
outrage? 

We are at such a low point
in our political discourse when polemicists can read ceremonial statements
from politicians and use them as the basis for personal attacks. 
Both Dean and the president issued typical Easter statements. 
As a Christian theologian I believe Easter is precisely about peace,
redemption, and renewal as Dean said.  Faithful politicians do
not have to tell their whole theological creed every time they address
religion.  Cizik is a genuinely nice guy and I hate to see he and
his organization dragged into cheap partisan politics over this statement. 

The real story in this kerflufle
is that millions of Evangelicals already vote Democratic and more of
them will do so in 2008. This terrifies the Republican establishment
and the elites of the Religious Right.  In the last few months
John Kerry spoke at Pepperdine University, Hillary Rodham Clinton spoke
at the Sojourners Pentecost gathering, and Barack Obama spoke at Saddleback
Church at the invitation of Pastor Rick Warren.  All got great
receptions. Some surveys currently estimate that an additional one third
of the white Evangelical world can be persuaded to vote Democratic. 
Add that number to the one fifth of Evangelicals who already vote that
way and you can see why there is real anxiety as Republicans look at
2008. 

So next time a commentator
or Religious Right leader fulminates against Democratic politicians
on religion, pull the curtain back and see what is really going on. 
The Democratic message to Evangelicals and other religious communities
is gaining traction and Governor Dean has a strong hand in that work. 
The palpable fear this creates is only going to grow in coming months. 
Brace yourself for more noise. 

Shaun Casey is a visiting fellow
at the Center for American Progress and he teaches Christian Ethics
at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, DC.   His e-mail
address is [email protected].