Dr. Gamwell's statement

Thanks to Tom for posting the recent "Statement on the Christian Right" provided by Protestants for the Common Good.  For what it's worth, I do not believe the statement accurately captures either the goals and motivations of the "Christian right" or the realitites of our politics. 

Tom, in his in-text commentary, already captured my primary reservations.  It is simply not plausible to characterize as marginal, personal-virtue issues with which politics should not be so concerned such issues as "abortion," the "discipline of law and order," and "governmental accommodation of religion."  The statement then goes on say that, in "the Christian vision of justice," primacy of place should go to "laws and policies that provide or promote for all the most general conditions through which people are empowered to enhance their communities. Conditions of safety, health, and self-respect; material provision and opportunity for work; education; cultural richness; beauty and integrity in the environment; a favorable pattern of associations, including freedom of association; and a community of democratic rights, including religious freedom — these are the general sources that empower people to achieve, and they are the business of justice."  I do not detect, in these competing lists of things about which Christians really should care, any principle at work other than an effort to put controversial policies that are, I suppose, favored by Republicans on the "Christian right" / personal-virtue side of the ledger.  As Tom points out, it is hard to see how (i) "accommodation of religion" is not an important part of ""religious freedom" or how (ii) protecting the life of unborn children from lethal violence does not fit nicely within an agenda aiming at "conditions of safety, health, and self-respect."

I also do not think -- stereotypes and a few blowhards notwithstanding -- that the concerns the statement identifies with the "Christian right" reflect a view that "political choices should be based on biblical authority" or a practice of advocating "laws and policies solely by appeal to revelation in scripture."

Finally, I wonder what is meant by a "favorable pattern of associations"?  "Favorable" to what?