Sometimes it’s hard to understand why young people deviate from the conservative mentalities of their parents during their young adult years, but Raised Right: How I Untangled my Faith from Politics offers an explanation for the switch. Recounting experiences of faith and politics through childhood into young adult years, Raised Right is an early memoir, chronicling Alisa Harris’ leap, like that of many young people, across the political divide from right to left.
There’s some irony in the title, it seems, because much of what Harris suggests is that she was actually raised wrong, at least in a political sense. Though she dedicates the book to her parents and in the end praises them for their adoption of two Haitian children, her account of her religious and academic education comes off as pretty nutty. Her family attends a charismatic church she depicts in wacky terms early in her childhood, and later moves to something of the conservative evangelical sort where denim-skirt-clad homeschoolers hold to what Harris now considers ultra-conservative views on politics and family.
Their interest in local and national politics is intense: They picket regularly for pro-life causes, enroll their children in debate clubs that argue for conservative political ideas, and rally for Bush in the 2000 election. Harris follows along wholeheartedly through it all, wielding her “W” tote bag while fiercely imagining with her parents and pastors that political victories for the religious right will restore Christ’s rule on earth.
Halfway through the book Harris’ perspective changes from describing her sheltered and skewed childhood to recounting her coming of age: At college (the conservative Hillsdale), she finds her own identity, steeps herself in the humanities, embraces biblical egalitarianism, and develops an interest in journalism, which leads her to New York City to begin her career as a writer for a Christian magazine. There, life in the city and international reporting projects move her politically. Almost going broke, meeting Christians who are Democrats in her church’s small groups, encountering the plight of the homeless firsthand, and watching charitable relief projects in action broaden her awareness of significant problems in America and beyond, problems that Republican politicians, she says, tend to ignore.
The main problems with the religious right, Harris says, include disregard for poverty and international justice (particularly for women), obsession over the issues of abortion and gay marriage, and a mindset that generally embraces greed-centered capitalism. From her personal encounters she makes it clear that there are real, hurting people behind these issues rather than just the cardboard cut-outs we tend to imagine, and her discussion about their concerns becomes provocative in its ambiguity: “Jesus didn’t have much to say about homosexuality,” a friend states, and she tacitly agrees. The emphasis of Harris’ perspective on the pro-life debate is caring for women and the unborn, but she leaves things surrounding the issue of killing a little vague: “I care . . . that pregnant women who want to keep their babies get the help they need to do so.”
Perhaps with enough people hammering the issues of abortion and gay marriage, Harris is right to direct her attention and effort to other issues of mercy and justice, but the flavor of the book seems to downplay the importance of traditional marriage, infant life, and the church’s role in mercy ministry. She says nothing of the Scriptures’ teachings elsewhere about homosexuality, for instance. Certainly the lives of women are as important as those of unborn children, but no one in America or abroad advocates the slaughter of thousands of women annually, while many do defend murder of the unborn. And while conservatives may have tendencies towards foot stomping and sign-raising, their work and influence certainly isn’t limited to that; a good deal of mercy ministry comes out of evangelical churches, which are largely composed of members of the religious right. In Harris’ narrative, it’s hard to see exactly how she comes to the conclusion that concerns for “the poor’s rights” demand aligning with liberal politics rather than those of Christian conservatives, but by the end, Harris finds herself on the opposite side of the political spectrum, voting with those she had envisioned as the manifestation of evil while growing up.
In the conclusion, Harris documents a recent display she led in protest of Bank of America’s economic fraudulence. I’m surprised she concludes this way, because the early chapters of her book poke fun at her family and church’s frequent involvement in protests against abortion and homosexuality. “Carrying a sign seemed a cowardly kind of love, one that isolated you behind a barricade, futilely shouting at the world while it stumbled past,” she determines when looking back on those days. But in the end she embraces public displays against injustice, and it’s hard to see any difference in the latter over the former ones, except for the causes themselves. And in this case, it’s not clear why corporate greed trumps infanticide in degrees of heinousness.
Although I furrowed my brow a little in response to her conclusions, I did find Harris’ story moving in several ways. In a chapter about abortion, for instance, she speaks to the horrific experiences of women in foreign lands due to inopportune pregnancies. Her experiences remind me that in suburban America I am often guilty of forgetting the hardships of people worldwide. It’s true also that poverty, oppression, disease, and hunger have always been far from me, and that I often choose to live in blissful disregard of them rather than think upon and sacrifice significantly to aid those in need. Ultimately, she challenges readers to care, to love, and to take heart, things which ought to be central to any Christian’s approach to the world.
At times, Harris’ approach tends towards obscuring the truth when it encounters the complexities of hurting people, but perhaps truth spoken in love is what the broken need most. Paul reminds his Ephesian audience to do so in his classic paradigm, where speaking the truth without love and loving without speaking the truth both fail to embody Christ. While Harris is no doubt correct to criticize a loveless, sign-carrying conservative who hails women emerging from abortion clinics as murderers, supporting a woman through an abortion without speaking the truth would be equally heartless. Of course, perhaps by returning again to the abortion issue I’ve fulfilled the stereotype of a one-issue conservative, but I hope that holding firm beliefs about important issues and loving real people aren’t mutually exclusive.
Kathryn Walker writes from Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
RESOURCES
Alisa Harris, Raised Right
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Comments:
My journey led me in the opposite direction. I grew up a non-church going catholic secular atheist. In College I supported every single left-wing issue blindly. I cried when Obama won the election and ridiculed Palin to no end. I believed every myth and knew the arguments inside out. I was immersed in it and everything was a joke and we moked everyone especially organized religion types. We learned everything from Family Guy and the Huff. Post and Stewart and Colbert - they were gods, they were courageous, revolutionary etc. etc. But that was then and this is now.
My friends think I've lost it or given in somehow but the truth was the truth and I couldn't go back.
Being a lefty progressive has NOTHING to do with facts, it is almost 100% about emotion. It is simply easier and it fills you up so effortlessly with a sense of righteousness that is really addictive. Anyway I suspect there'll be more people moving to the right in the coming year, especially young people.
But people are complex and issues are not black and white. Curling up in crucible of people who share ones views or obsessions is not a healthy way to form views of life. Bravo to the author or anyone in this day and age with guts enough to leave the echo chamber, actually engage people of different views, and approach life with honesty and courage, whatever conclusion you end up drawing from it.
The Church doesn't harp on slavery, in the US at least, because nobody is trying to keep slaves. But the Church harped on it in the 1700's and 1800's. Same with Communism in Eastern Europe.
They just want us to shut up about it and let them do what they want.
Yet it sounds as if Alisa Harris does much the same, mind-reading the motives of conservative Christians to fit her need. As Joe and The Moz note, that door swings both ways, and Christian liberals generally embrace an easy, rather secularised gospel that allows them to divert feeling the pain of the oppressed into blame of others. (Conservatives have other methods of numbing that pain, but I presume Ms. Harris covers that.)
mcasey, I don't know that we actually are exposed to other views less and less. A lot of folks say that, and I can certainly find evidence for it. But I increasingly think it's not actually true. We can successfully avoid engaging the views of direct opponents, perhaps, but all of us encounter many many more points of view of people who disagree partly. In aggregate, that may be more powerful.
During the sixties and seventies, there were powerful currents within churches, including the Catholic Church, that promoted the idea that true Christians would, of course, throw in their lot with the poor and downtrodden by embracing revolutionary socialist causes. One booklet I recall seeing from that era was titled, "Jesus Says 'Yes' to Socialism." Radical priests in Latin America disassembled Marxism, took what they liked from it, and blended it with Christianity to form "Liberation Theology." These particular ideologues could point, with some justification, to Old Testament prophets thundering against the "sleek, rich ones" who abused widows and orphans, and then point to the early Christian communities described in the Book of Acts which were highly communal and socialistic in form. (Of course, these primitive Christian communities were very small-scale, voluntary societies, not a form of socialist statism forced on vast nations by an intellectual "vanguard.")
So, although American Evangelical Christianity and conservative Catholicism strongly tend in these days to support right-wing issues, the basic error is in concluding that ANY particular constellation of "God-approved" political/social attitudes, whether of the left or the right, should be required of Christians.
As to why young people often tend to drift to the left of their parents, I can offer my personal experience. I was raised in a conservative, traditional, working-class military family with mid-west roots. Certain attitudes were unquestioned, such as patriotism and obedience of authority. And in keeping with the prevailing mentality of working-class middle America of that day, there was an assumption of the superiority of the white race, although I think both my parents ended up moderating their racial attitudes with age and the influence of a changing society. My parents, basically, were very good people, despite their flaws, and I owe them a great debt.
I, however, was a wildly imaginative and adventurous "science nerd" who simply had to experiment with life, and I ended up in the late sixties in Berkeley, California, probing the limits of human experience. Not too surprisingly, I had drifted to the left of my parents. But, really, what else could I have done? I had to explore and experiment! Concerning specific social and political issues of the day, I engaged in activism against the Vietnam War, which I considered to be unnecessary and immoral, although I always refrained from being a booster of the communist North. Now, at the age of 68, looking back from the perspective of much greater maturity and wisdom, with the light of Christ as my beacon, I can say with certainty that I WAS ABSOLUTELY RIGHT TO PROTEST THAT WAR! After all, we ran the experiment, so to speak. We finally got to see what a terrible fate would befall the American people if South Vietnam fell to the North. We got to see why 57,000 Americans and two million Vietnamese had to die. And I am still waiting for the negative consequences of the fall of the South. In my opinion, the case is closed. If it isn't critically important to the well-being of the American people, then we should refrain from foreign military adventures. And this, of course, is a good conservative attitude!
So, let's not panic if the younger generation proves to be a little rebellious or experimental, or doesn't follow in the attitude-mold of their parents. It is far more important that they finally come into relationship with God and follow the path that leads beyond all the strife of this world.
Rick, not that the U.S. did much right in Vietnam, but there were horrific consequences: Our failure encouraged communists worldwide, and hundreds of thousands of South Vietnamese were killed and over a million placed in concentration camps after we abandoned our allies. And the Khmer Rouge were aided and abetted by the North Vietnamese communists.
Don Roberto
Berkeley, CA
I am glad for your comment. Protesting Vietnam was a good thing, a very good thing, while defying sexual taboos was probably not (I realize you did not allude to this personally). Sometimes it is hard to know which "rebellious" experimentations will end in justice and truth. But, I guess I could ask (and this is coming from a former Catholic, current--and struggling--Lutheran science gal): "Where does Catholic doctrine discourage protesting against violence and war'? But, it clearly discourages fornication, adultery and drunkenness (not sure about drugs).
I invite Rick to come speak with some of the many Vietnamese and Cambodians who now live near me in Northern Virginia. They, if not you, remain grateful for the American attempt to prevent the Communist totalitarian regime of North Vietnam from taking over their homeland. Despite the deaths of millions of their countrymen--including families and friends--and the incredible hardships they had to endure before coming to the United States, they remain remarkably free of rancor and bitterness regarding the way in which the United States betrayed its ally and violated its sacred word, so that Rick and his ilk can wallow in self-righteousness.
All this raises the question of why evangelical Christians in the U.S. tend to associate with free market libertarians so much. Someone above implicitly referred to the research claiming that welfare hurts the poor (Charles Murray) or that conservatives give more to charity than liberals (Arthur Brooks). Yet these are citations to secular Beltway wonks in the AEI/Cato/Heritage orbit. I imagine that few conservative Christians have read the literature on these issues in enough depth to have well-grounded views. So where does the evangelical Christian affinity for free markets ideas come from?
Tax collectors in ancient times (and even up until fairly recently in some places) were often private individuals who had received special authority from the state to seize the money or property of others and take a cut for themselves. People like the biblical writers would have seen them as parasitic and greedy or what we call today crony capitalists.
That said, Jesus famously declined to offer his views on the subject of Roman fiscal policy in the greater Jerusalem area when the question was put to him. That suggests those who come away from the Bible as something other than economic libertarians might have the better of the argument.
I would like everyone who welcomes the sexual revolution to visit neighborhoods empty of married fathers, and then to visit the local prisons. I would also like anybody who accepts same-sex pseudogamy to explain to me how we can have that -- which is unnatural and absurd -- and not have the whole rest of the miserific sexual revolution. Explain, leftish Christian, how chastity, just for instance, makes any sense at all, given same-sex pseudogamy.
When Jesus said that the fate of Chorazim would be more terrible than that of Sodom and Gomorrah, isn't it obvious that he was using those cities as patterns of horrific sin? Yes, certain sins are EVEN WORSE than the sins of Sodom; but the wickedness of the sin of Sodom is precisely why we use that city as a point of comparison. And please, no nonsense about how Ezekiel and Jeremiah viewed the sin of Sodom. I'm a literary scholar by trade. Unlike many exegetes, I know how to read.
From an admittedly limited perspective of someone who got to speak with a few English-speaking Cambodians in Cambodia itself, it seems to me they hold King Sihanouk in somewhat high esteem. Indeed, the U.S. backed the idea of a constitutional monarchy with King Sihanouk as head after the Khmer Rouge were removed from power by the Communist Vietnamese government.
What does this have to do with anything? The U.S. recognized Lon Nol as the legitimate head of state of Cambodia after he seized power in a coup -- the evidently popular King Sihanouk went into exile first in China and then in North Korea where he angrily denounced the Lon Nol regime and urged Cambodians to rise up and put an end to Lon Nol's repression and his cooperation with the U.S. bombing of the country. This uprising, of course, became the Khmer Rouge.
As it happens, the U.S. did little to stop the Khmer Rouge and it certainly seems as though the bombing of the countryside and the king's denunciation of the same helped swell the Khmer Rouge's ranks (most of whom were poorly educated peasants who cared little about ideology from the start). King Sihanouk was not an ideological Communist and at one point unleashed a brutal crackdown on leftists in Cambodia while still in power.
Could things have turned out differently if U.S. policy had been different? I don't know and I will leave that judgment to historians. But the idea that the U.S. somehow gets credit for trying to stop Communist totalitarianism in Cambodia of all places seems a bit far-fetched.
Thank you for your responses to my rambling posting. If you will go back and read it again, though, you will find that my argument for the misguided nature of our military mission in Vietnam was that, after letting the experiment run its course, it was obvious that the fall of Saigon to the communists had no negative effects on the American population whatsoever. Nor did it jeopardize our eventual victory in the Cold War. Your counterargument is that it had a negative effect on the South Vietnamese people. This is undoubtedly true, but begs the point I was making. I was adopting a more conservative philosophy concerning America's military "policing" role in the world, and your rebuttals have ignored that point.
Stuart, I also ran into Vietnamese immigrants while I was working in the high-tech industry in California who firmly supported our efforts in their country. I commiserated with them on Vietnam's fate, but declined to agree that the onus was on us to take responsibility for preventing it. I currently teach a few Vietnamese online who are still in Vietnam. The people are finally doing much better than before (and that is a relative statement, of course), and the US government has discovered that the Vietnamese government is a useful ally in curbing the expanding power of China. There are some very interesting relations being forged between the Pentagon and the Vietnamese military. Oh yes, Stuart, I was intrigued to discover that I now belong to an "ilk". Is that anything like a secret society?
Don Roberto: Actually, the North Vietnamese communists booted the Khmer Rouge from power when they invaded Cambodia. It may seem strange, but compared to the nightmare of the KM, the North Vietmamese were, relatively speaking, a "liberation."
@Mick Leahy
Yours was the MOST intriguing rebuttal! I've thought carefully about it, and I can't find any reason why an earlier fall of Saigon to the North (say, in 1967, rather than in 1975) would have given the Soviets the green light for an invasion of Western Europe. Why? And how could they have pulled it off? Before my countercultural adventures in Berkeley, I was a B-52 crewmember in North Dakota. SAC and the Navy's submarine fleet were fully capable of killing the Soviet Union as a modern nation overnight, and they were unstoppable. That's what I was trained to do. America's defeat in Vietnam strikes me as more encouraging to the communists than our decision not to enter that particular battle at all would have been. If you can give a further explanation of your ideas, I would be sincerely interested in hearing it.
@momofthree
Despite my intellectual adventuring in Berkeley, I remained relatively prudish in my sexual life. Yes, you are right. Any true spirituality requires the subduing of the elemental and instinctual powers of the flesh, not their indiscriminate unleashing, and wholesale "unleashing" was taking place in the countercultural movements of the time. When I realized it was high time for me to get out of Berkeley, I never looked back.
While I cannot speak for all evangelical Xians, the reason I like free markets is because I like the “free” part. I do not know if this is more prominent among evangelicals, as opposed to other religious groups, but I like freedom and would rather error on the side of too freedom than too much coercion.
There are ways this blends well w/ Scripture, for Jesus is Lord – which implies that Pharaoh is not. And it seemed important to G-d to demonstrate that.
(I know, G-d has given certain legitimate functions to government, but normal humans being what they often go beyond the boundaries G-d intended. I think of Matt 23 where some who had legitimate authority were still chastised…)
I am also moved by how freedom glorifies G-d. The Adversary challenged that Job served G-d for the pay. Without freedom, the Adversary could claim that we only serve G-d because we do not have the opportunity or ability to do otherwise.
