Having been out of town for Thanksgiving, I am late posting my monthly column for the Albuquerque Tribune. It appeared Thrusday, Nov. 25, Thanksgiving, under the headline above. What follows is the sub-head and the column.
(Thus far I have received one angry and one complimentary email.)
A.A.
Meet Linda Chavez (no, not that one),a nun who's dismayed by election's narrow 'values'
By Arthur Alpert
At Thanksgiving the media’s still gobbling about how "moral" or
"Christian" values voters re-elected the President. No evidence, but
faith-based journalism doesn’t need facts. And culture war sells.
So TV and the newspapers are promoting a "Mad Max" America - the good
guys, wielding the Cross and Star of David, advancing on secular hordes.
Hogwash. But since I’m a card-carrying secular myself, I call Linda
Chavez for counsel.
(No, not that Linda Chavez. Not the New Mexico-born columnist who wrote
here recently that real Americans voted for President Bush. The other 56
million of us? Probably terrorists.)
No, I refer to another Linda Chavez, a native and Sister of Charity and
my Christian values guru.
At age four, Linda told her parents she would be a teacher. Linda did
teach for 40 years, including 20 at Albuquerque’s St. Pius High School.
In 1994, she created SET for Health New Mexico. She retired as boss two
years ago but still works there.
Over bowls of chile stew (Linda, green, red for me), I asked her
reaction to the idea Christian values decided the election.
"Crying," she said.
Meaning the Christian right doesn’t grasp Christianity? "I may have a
limited world view," she said, "but no." She continued, "I want to say.
‘Who is your God?’ Where did they miss it?"
Miss what? The essence, Linda said She cites two Jewish injunctions:
"Love God with your whole heart…" and "Love your neighbor as yourself,"
and the Beatitudes: "Blessed are the poor in spirit. "Blessed are the
meek. Blessed are the peacemakers. Hello?"
(I understood her "Hello?" to mean optional war on Iraq ain’t
peacemaking.)
"I’m not saying [living them] is easy…," Linda said, but the Beatitudes
are where Christians start.
She suspects "moral values" translates into homosexuality -"We
shouldn’t put people down for something they can’t help" - and abortion.
Sister Linda is pro-life but worries when fervent opponents of abortion
don’t object to killing in war or on Death Row, too.
I told her Bob Jones III, of Bob Jones University, advised President
Bush that "(liberals) despise you because they despise your Christ."
"My God is not a condemning God. If we use Jesus as a model and I hope I
do, we will be slow to judge others. I have a hard time deciding for you
what is right."
Clearly Linda’s Judeo- Christian values - kindness, justice, love - are
not Bob Jones’ values.
As we pay the check, Linda recalls Jesuit Teilhard de Chardin’s view
that humans aren’t fully evolved. Yeah, I respond, and at this stage,
fear drives us, not love.
Later, thinking about the Bob Joneses, I figure they strike out because
they’re afraid and feel threatened. Which scares me. Still, they’re a
minority (a Zogby poll says religious moderates and progressives
constitute 54% of voters), so there’s no need to panic.
We must fight those who’d undermine the very Constitution that protects
their religion from government. (Oh Lord, they really know not what they
do.) Beyond that, I’ll try tolerance, hoping that rationality will
overcome, over time. I’ll even look for common ground.
Yes, Sister Linda and I might invite Bob Jones III to talk turkey. Tell
him that we, too, hate the use of sex to sell products. And we feel
beleaguered by rotten values.
Of course, Sister Linda will have to ask old Bob, "What would Jesus do?"
Alpert is a semi-retired newsman living in Albuquerque. Email him at
Arthur Alpert@swcp.com. His column runs the fourth Thursday of the month
in Insight & Opinion.