View from the Sidelines

Liz at Spectator Sport has a post about the Congressional race for the North Carolina Fifth. [link] The Republican candidate is Ed Broyhill, of the Broyhill furniture family. Liz reports that Broyhill is running ads that repeat these claims as to what he belives in (from his website):

•in the right of the unborn, the right to pray in school and the right to worship as we wish without government interference.
•it is our duty to uphold and defend our Constitution. I support Second Amendment rights to keep and bear arms.
•in supporting a limited federal government and a free enterprise system that encourages economic growth.
•we must fight and win the war against terrorism. I will stand firm with President Bush to win the war against terrorism.

According to Liz, he ends his ad with this statement: "I will work in Congress to preserve our conservative Christian values."

I confess that I don't get the linkage between most of Broyhill's list and "Christian values". Yes, abortion has been a conservative Christian issue for years, but gun control? Free enterprise? The size of the federal government? What is particularly "Christian" about these things?

I guess my fundamental question is why conservative politicians seem to be able, with impunity, to mix conservatism and Christianity and call the whole thing "Christian values"? I'm liberal and I'm Jewish, but that doesn't automatically make the values I hold "Jewish values"; I must make that case on my own. Similarly, it seems only right that if politicians insist on talking about "Christian values", they ought to have to explain how their values really are "Christian". If they can't, they and their purported values ought to be disavowed by the Christian mainstream for misappropriating the religious mantle.

What it comes down to is forcing politicians claiming that mantle to answer the hard question, "what would Jesus really do?" Somehow, I don't think he would advocate the right to keep and bear arms as a primary objective or propose smaller governments that kill social welfare programs. After all, aren't clothing the naked and feeding the hungry Christian values also? In the circumstances, Broyhill's conservatism (to use just one example) would seem to conflict with his Christian values. But if that's the case, why isn't the Christian mainstream repudiating his hijacking of their religion?

I certainly don't mean to say, by the way, that all mainstream Christians have gone down without a fight. Based on what I read (Liz's post is just one example; there are others), there is a strong liberal wing of American Christianity that is struggling with this issue. It's just that from the sidelines, it looks like the conservative side of the house is winning the battle for attention.

I also don't mean to belittle or disrespect Christianity; to the contrary, I think that the question "What Would Jesus Do" is a profound one that more Christian politicians ought to ask themselves, but only if they're prepared to answer it honestly and then act accordingly.