KETR participates in the collaborative of Texas public radio stations known these days as The Texas Newsroom. Led by stations in Austin, Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio, The Texas Newsroom brings you the one-hour daily program Texas Standard, as well as the live statewide newscasts heard locally during Morning Edition and All Things Considered, the weekday morning and afternoon news shows.
Recently, The Texas Newsroom asked if KETR could participate in its Religion and Politics series, and I suggested a story involving African American churches in Northeast Texas, and how faith informs one’s personal perspectives and choices in the political world.
A phrase heard often in the Black church is “The world didn’t give it, and the world can’t take it away.” This refers to one’s intrinsic worth and human dignity as a child of God. One need not be religious to appreciate the spirit of that idea, but the notion also challenges all of our worldly relationships, in which we’re constantly being appraised by our social or material capital.
That idea, that our worth isn’t lost or acquired as we go along, also makes for an interesting foundation from which to engage the political world, especially in times when discourse has reached saturated levels of toxicity.
The story we ended up making can be found here on the Texas Standard site, and here on our own site. I’m pleased overall, though I sincerely regret that the story didn’t have the time to include more about the topics it introduced. Even in the long-form format of a four-minute public radio story, sometimes the best we can do is point to certain dynamics or situations, with a deeper understanding contingent upon whether the listener decides to learn more.
The main thing I took away from visits to Mount Moriah Temple Baptist Church in Commerce and East Caney Missionary Baptist Church in Sulphur Springs is that worshippers there pay attention to the personal character of political candidates, as evidenced not just by their actions, but also by the ripple effect from their presence in the public sphere.
“It's very disturbing to me when I hear certain religions agree with a candidate when that candidate is not speaking the truth or speaking love,” said Henry Ross, a congregant at East Caney.
That approach does not exclude the idea of choosing a candidate or ideology based on specifics of public policy. Instead, it makes that process more holistic by including the moral nature of political candidates and tendencies as a criterion in one’s political decision-making.
“One thing God is not, He is not the author of confusion,” said Anthony Henry, a city council member in Commerce and member of Mount Moriah.
“So therefore if Christ is in this, then there's not going to be any division after,” Henry said. “It's going to bring people together. So if there's still division, then you're manipulating Christ and God for your own good. It's older than sand. People have been doing it since the beginning. This is something that kings and judges did to get what they want. We're dealing with the same thing, in our political realm. We're not the only country that does it, but it's done.”
Henry also described his own personal efforts to practice moral discernment without practicing moral judgment. It’s one of the hardest balancing acts around, but just about every faith tradition asks that its practitioners discern the moral nature of actions without judging the moral nature of individuals or, even more dangerously, groups.
“It's a question that the man in the mirror has to ask himself,” Henry said. “Because if I answer that question for that person, it makes me a judge and I'm not a judge. And then you're doing the same thing they're doing, which is using Jesus’ name but following your way - following my way, and I didn't write the book. I didn't write the rules. I hadn't created anyone. You know, when I lay down and my tongue clings to the roof of my mouth, I'm going back to the dirt, I have to answer someone. So therefore to Him, to the ultimate, I can't put myself in a position to where I'm higher than anybody else.”
Also mentioned in passing in the Texas Standard story were matters of sex and sexuality. Issues related to sexual orientation and gender are often at the center of the bundle of touchy subjects often referred to as “culture war” issues. In these matters, people who spoke with KETR for the Texas Standard story offered a diversity of views, all of which were more nuanced that the polar positions on the topics that seem to dominate public discourse.
“Jesus gave us one command,” said Mynder Kelly, who attends East Caney. “He said, ‘Love one another.’ Speaking personally, I have gay people in my family. I have transgender people in my family. Do I agree with it? No. But do I love them? Yes.”
That view tilts conservatively, but doesn’t imply support for state government’s efforts to crack down on cities like Denton that seek to include sexual orientation and gender identity as protected classes in local anti-discrimination ordinances. No one I spoke with for the story seemed to begrudge legal protections for such groups. This centrist view, privately conservative and publicly progressive, doesn’t fit into either progressive or conservative creeds as they’re generally presented.
Despite the range of views I heard on matters of sexuality and other topics, people who spoke on record were united in one sentiment: We must face our collective challenges collectively, and not let our fears drive us into self-destruction.
“If not, we live along the lines of the great Babylonians and other peoples who were at the mountaintop, but eventually came down to the valley,” cautioned Rev. Larry Dixon of Mount Moriah Temple Baptist Church. “Because what was important, you know, became not so important. You’re going to reap what you sow. I don't care who you are. It has no color on it. Whatever you sow, you gonna reap. If you plant corn, you gonna get corn. You ain't gonna get grapes.”
The rest Texas Standard’s series of stories on religion and politics can be found here.
