Beware the Perrysees

 

(All are welcome for the 9-11 memorial service at USC's Bovard Aud on Sunday at noon - Mayor Villaraigosa will speak.  Following the service, and for the next month, see:Chapter 9, Verse 11 of the World's Sacred Texts - Art by Ifrah Sheikh, USC Fine Arts student and Muslim member of USC's Interfaith Council - USC's URC Bldg, Fishbowl Chapel)

Beware the Perrysees

"But woe to you Pharisees! for you tithe mint and rue and every herb, and neglect justice and the love of God; these you ought to have done, without neglecting the others." (Luke 11:42)

"And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by men. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.  And in praying do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard for their many words." (Matthew 6: 5-7)

On August 6, Rick Perry stood and prayed so that he would be seen by men and women, 30,000 of them, in a Houston stadium.  He heaped up empty phrases, thinking he would be heard for his many words.  And he has been heard.  Not by God, any more than anyone else who goes in his or her room and shuts the door to pray in secret.  He has been heard by the Republican Tea Party, and now he is their front-runner for the race for the presidency.

Beware the Perrysees!  - who know better than to support teaching biblical creationism in science classes in the public schools, but do it anyway to cultivate a certain political demographic group. 

Beware the Perrysees!  - who pretend they don't believe the overwhelming evidence of climate change, in order to get the votes of people who are either unaware or uncomfortable with the facts.  There are probably more climate scientists named Rick who agree with the human-caused climate change theory than the total number of climate scientists who oppose it. 

Beware the Perrysees! - who one day suggest that Texas should secede from the Union, and the next day whine about not getting enough federal disaster relief.  Texas can't put out its own fires because its taxes are too low to pay for enough firefighters to do the job.  This is the "Texas model" our nation is being told to emulate?  

But there is good news in the bad news that Rick Perry is now a serious candidate for the presidency.  He is so blatantly cynical in his abuse of Christianity, so spectacularly Pharisaic in his hypocrisy, that I predict an uprising against him by evangelicals, especially young ones, who are already disgusted by the excesses of the political religious right. It will be his own people who bring him down: conservative evangelicals who can't bear the dissonance between his politics and the faith he claims so publicly to follow.

Rick Perry may well embarrass America into major cultural change.  And it can't come too soon.  The planet can't afford an American president who denies the facts about climate change.  Our social fabric can't afford a further widening of the income gap between the rich and everybody else. 

Millions of Americans have made "conservative" an essential part of their identity - because they've lost their other identities.  For decades they have been voting against their own interests - against the interests of the poor, the middle class, the workers - because they have lost their sense of self.  They've lost their identities as skilled workers, as their jobs have moved to Asia.  They've lost their identities as community leaders, because their communities have shriveled with the closure of the industries that sustained them.  They've lost their identities as providers for their families, now that everybody in the family has to scramble to find work to pay the household's bills.  So they cling to the identity that cynical politicians have offered them:  flag-waving, proud, self-reliant, faithful, self-defending Americans.  They vote on the basis of culture as much or more than on the basis of policy positions. 

George Bush, a patrician Yale graduate, played to this cultural identity, but Perry embodies it. We now get to witness Rick Perry trying to play two contradictory roles at the same time: that of the proud conservative who trumps cultural identity over facts, and that of a serious candidate for the presidency who has no choice but to grapple with the facts.  Buffoonery inevitably will result, and I predict this will inspire a healthy identity crisis among conservatives.

We must offer a cultural alternative to struggling Americans if our political landscape is to change.  We have to offer another way of seeing themselves to people who have lost the identities that once sustained them.  Christianity has one to consider:  "But be doers of the word, and not hearers only..." (James 1:22)  "But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy."  (James 3:17)  Imagine the positive change that would sweep our country if we could see ourselves as kind, loving Americans who take care of each other, both directly and through the structures of our society! 

 

Bhagavad Gita, 9:11

Art by Ifrah Sheikh