I
was bemused, recently, to read an editorial in a conservative church periodical
noting the fact that Jane Dixon, the Suffragan Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese
of Washington (and, happily, a new member of The Witness' board of directors),
had been seen on television at the Democratic National Convention asking "questions
publicly of persons who presented positive stories about Mr. Gore's candidacy."
Deplorably, our editorialist scolded, she was wearing her collar at the time!
Give me a break! Far from an injury, I consider anything that gets people thinking about the relationship of their moral values to the choices they make at the polling booth a benefit to us all -- no matter the collar-wearing bishop or religion-professing candidate in question. Anything to move us beyond the superficial God-talk and right-wing idolatries of today's politics. Luckily, there are many encouraging signs in this election year that significant numbers of progressive citizens are not only examining the connections between their deepest convictions and public policy, but they are also finding ways to give political voice to their conclusions without settling for soul-destroying political compromise. In some cases this means taking to the streets, in others it means creating intelligent alternatives to the corporate captivity of the dominant parties' political campaigning.
In this development, I believe, we are beginning to see the fruits of a political shift long in the making. At its root has been a deep hunger for an integrated way of living in which daily choices are made in mindfulness of global implications -- and spiritual practice becomes a form of political activism. Over the past few years, The Witness has brought attention to the iceberg-tips we could see -- the community food security movement (see TW 1/2-99), the Free Time/Free People campaign (TW 1/2-00), the socially responsible investing movement (TW 3/96), the 15-year-old bioregionalism movement (TW 6/99) and the array of earth-honoring and justice-seeking intentional communities that seem to be on the increase (TW 10/00), to name just a few. This is the ant-and-spider resistance of which Korean theologian Chung Hyun Kyung spoke in a 1997 interview with then Witness editor Jeanie Wylie-Kellermann (TW 7/8-97): "Like the ant, every one of us, in our local places, can make a small hole [on behalf of justice] in our locality. But we also are spiders. With the Internet and all this information organization, we make connections like spiders. We do works in our communities and keep our light alive, keep our hope alive. It will accumulate."
And the accumulating seems to be gaining momentum. No one, for example, not even those who put out the call for concerned people to make their witness at the World Trade Organization's Seattle meeting last November, expected the vast crowds that turned up for that massive protest on behalf of global quality of life. And the speed with which the "Shadow Conventions" were organized this summer still seems miraculous. Both times, people of faith were prominent participants.
So, bizarrely enough, I am not feeling as gloomy this presidential election year as I might. Not because I think my candidate will win (this is the first time in a long time I've had a candidate), but because progressive religious people -- some wearing collars, to be sure, and many others simply wearing their faith -- are showing up, values intact, and raising important questions.
You go, Jane.
Julie A. Wortman is editor/publisher of The Witness.