Ratted out by the Huffington Post, no less. In her exposé there, Valerie Tarico — a self-described “former fundie” — shows politicians the ropes on “speaking evangelicalese.” Tarico urges politicians to do things like:
1. Refer to “my heart”:
a. Evangelical examples: asking Jesus into your heart, God is speaking to your heart.
b. Secular use: I feel in my heart, I know in my heart no matter how hard it may be, we need to provide basic medical care for every child in this country.
2. Say you felt “called” or were led to do something.
a. Evangelical examples: God called me to move to Seattle, to take up the ministry, to put John 3:16 on my eyeblacks. Richard Dawkins and I have been brought together.
b. Secular use: I felt called to take up the cause of health care for all.
3. Use the word “personal” liberally.
a. Evangelical example: I needed a personal faith. You aren’t really a Christian until you have a personal relationship with Jesus.
b. Secular use: I have a personal relationship to the people in that nursing home.
Tarico does warn those seeking to woo evangelicals not to fake it, but still implies that certain key phrases can cause evangelicals to warm or cool to a politician.
What intrigues me about this is not that playbooks like this exist — I’ve been around politics long enough to know that there isn’t a target audience out there which hasn’t been neatly categorized, packaged, and labeled for presentation. One could write a similar list for speaking to liberal environmentalists, sexual libertines, or blue collar union workers. What’s revealing here (and equally disheartening) is the depersonalized view of people that comes with such mass-culture thinking.
E pluribus unum rules the day. In this instance, evangelicals are viewed as little more than a voting bloc to be swayed — easier to deal with en masse than as individuals. Sadly, such thinking infects the whole of the political spectrum, and it’s far from the approach Jesus took when he looked upon the crowds. That we would all view others more as “sheep without a shepherd” than sheeple…
October 21st, 2009 | 12:42 am | #1
The advice in the playbook is eerily accurate. It’s sad to think how many believers would blindly accept anything promoted by a politician who combined Tarico’s advice and a bit of moralist polish.
October 21st, 2009 | 3:38 am | #2
You’re missing the point. It shows a problem, not so much with political campaigners who go through this unlocked door, but with voters who leave it unlocked. Too often, evangelicals are suckers for public figures who use the correct lingo – Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, George Bush, and even Ronald Reagan, who unlike the other three was not even an Evangelical in any meaningful sense.
October 21st, 2009 | 6:34 am | #3
I’ve interviewed Tarrico at IM and will again. An atheistic voice with some good advice we should listen to.
October 21st, 2009 | 11:19 am | #4
This is so true. It also seems that believers can do this to each other in what could appear to be manipulation.
It might not be manipulation on purpose. When someone uses the “I feel led” or “God told me” language without further discernment, how is an answer given? Especially, when it is geared toward a decision to be made, teaching, etc. It leaves little room for reconsideration and disagreement.
October 21st, 2009 | 12:25 pm | #5
I feel led to serve you all kool-aid.
October 22nd, 2009 | 9:52 am | #6
[...] And one of the participants there struck right at what is to this observe, the heart of the matter. [...]
October 22nd, 2009 | 12:27 pm | #7
The language of what is heartfelt is totally appropriate in the context of religious discourse. The problem is the mixing of religious discourse and political discourse in the service of political ends.
I think it is fully appropriate to use religious discourse in a religious context to articulate a position that represents a religious believer’s viewpoint in the public policy marketplace. That is the case with discussion among fellow religious believers about abortion policy, and same sex marriage policy, and religious freedom policy. This is encouragement of active participation in democracy.
What I find objectionable is the subversion of religious language in the service of political power. It is essentially a personal claim to prophetic, even messianic, authority. It is an assertion of self as being closer to God, rather than humility before God.
That is why I am offended by the language used by President Obama, when he told us that we are wealthy sinners if we do not volunteer to be our brothers’ keepers by supporting Federal control of health care. He is claiming to enlist the authority of scripture in support of a messy political compromise whose specific contents are still being tossed around like a bad hash.
“My brother’s keeper” was not the commandment of God, but the sarcastic rejoinder of Cain when he lied about knowing the whereabouts of his murdered brother. God never told Cain, or Adam, or Abraham or Moses, that we must each be in control of our brothers, as we would with our sheep, controlling when they go in or out and where they go. Loving our neighbors, the real command, does not mean doing for them what they can do for themselves and their own families. But the profession that Cain derided is what Obama aspires to: He would be our keeper, in charge of us, caring for us, and keeping us from organizing our own herds and caring for ourselves.
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