Good and Bad Ways 3

Robert Benne, Director of the Roanoke College Center for Religion and Society, examines the Fusionists in his new book Good and Bad Ways to Think about Religion and Politics. The Fusionists are those who combine their politics and their religion/faith. Often enough, the Fusionists don’t know even know they are doing this.

In this chp Benne names some names.

He sees four basic types of Fusionist:

First, there are the Cynics. I don’t know if this is right term, but it is the right term to describe how many look at some political leaders: they use religion to their own end. They don’t really believe the religion, or at least not at a deeply significant way, but they need that religion in order to succeed in election and power.

Names? He sees Howard Dean, John Kerry, Lee Atwater, along with the more notable and vicious uses by Stalin and Hitler. Please don’t connect these folks at a substantive level.

Who do you think appropriates religion today but doesn’t really believe it?

Second, for some Fusionists it is more a matter of cultural heritage. Icelanders are Lutheran, Croats are Catholic, Serbs are Orthodox, Bosnians are Muslim, Greeks are Orthodox, Scots are Presbyterian, English are Anglicans …

He warns here: “the fusion almost always serves the nation or tribe or ethnic group rather than the faith” (30).

Where do you see this fusion of culture and faith and politics today (in the USA)?

Third, there are Straight-Line Thinkers. That is, some fully believe one’s Christian faith directly leads to a political theory or party. Tillich thought Christianity led to Socialism, the Religious Right (Christian Coalition, Moral Majority) thinks it leads to Republican Party, and HuffPo Christians think their faith leads to the Democratic Party.

Who is the most obvious Straight-Line thinker you know of today?

Fourth, in what appears to me to be a combination of two and three, Benne sees some who unintentionally think their faith leads to a political theory. I don’t see this as unintentional as he does, but maybe he’s right. He singles out the Evangelical Lutheran Church which thinks the faith leads to more or less Democratic Party platform values; and he sees the same more or less in the Religious Right. He thinks this is more unintentional than many think.

Do you think the Mainliners progressive theology leads to progressive politics in a conscious way? Do you think the conservative theology leads to conservative politics in a conscious way? Or do you think this is more unconscious?