Interfaith Alliance supports a positive approach
It's only three days until we, as citizens, get to exercise our rights and responsibilities at the ballot box to select the next leader of the most powerful nation in the world.
Although we are all sick of the many campaign attacks and jabs, we shouldn't lose sight of a remarkable development in politics this year: The Christian Coalition has been forced into a smaller role. Have you noticed that Ralph Reed and Pat Robertson have received very little notice on television or in print media?
They've been relatively quiet since the Internal Revenue Service started to ask questions about how they endorse candidates through their voter guides. Also, there have been a couple of new moderate-to-liberal organizations that have been offering people Christian alternatives to the fundamentalism of Robertson and his followers.
One of those organizations is the Interfaith Alliance, which is distributing its own voter guide. The alliance now has 100 chapters across the United States with about 40,000 members.
Terry Anderson was recently in the Twin Cities to speak to local Interfaith Alliance members. Anderson, formerly the chief Middle East correspondent for the Associated Press, was held captive from 1985 to 1991 by extremists in Lebanon.
He now teaches at Columbia University, writes a weekly newspaper column and serves on the alliance's board of directors.
Anderson, 48, said the alliance surfaced two years ago because moderate and liberal Christians did not want Robertson to be the only religious voice involved in politics.
"We're not here to challenge the Christian Coalition," Anderson said. "We're here to promote tolerance and to talk about family values. For instance, education is a good family value. Their value about education is prayer in schools. Our value is to strengthen education. I do believe they're divisive and they are not inclusive and nonpartisan.
"They want to do away with welfare," Anderson said. "We want child care for welfare mothers.
"They want to eliminate the separation of church and state. Robertson wants the United States to be a theocracy. We think the First Amendment has served us very well for 200 years."
Anderson said he began to examine his Catholic roots shortly before being released by his Lebanese captors. Now he has fully returned to the faith, and part of his service is his involvement with the Interfaith Alliance.
"It's the negativity that bothers me," Anderson said. "Islam, Christianity and Judaism all have something in common: respect and tolerance. You have to be nice if you're a liberal Christian. And you have to live with ambiguity and complications. I have it tattooed on my forehead: It's Not That Simple."
Anderson said he believes the Christian Coalition and James Dobson's Focus on the Family are extremist organizations that want to take over the major institutions in our society and transform them with fundamentalist Christian concepts.
"They want to close down public education, and when they take over a school board, they start enacting their beliefs," Anderson said. "They hate gays and immigrants. But Jesus even loves liberals.
"There are all kinds of Christian people who are uncomfortable with the Christian Coalition. I just want people to know this is not the only Christian lobbying organization. "
Anderson says even though talk radio hosts and conservative Christian groups are infusing politics with negativity, he believes a positive approach to politics will prevail.
"I'm an eternal optimist," Anderson said. "I believe in the decency of ordinary people. Everyone is concerned about the divisiveness in politics. And yet the two presidential debates and the vice presidential debate are the most civil we've had."
Clark D. Morphew
11-2-96
