Yesterday one of my favorite contemporary church writers, Diana Butler Bass, posted a blog from a colleague who actually went to 
Saturday's Glenn Beck rally in Washington, DC. He makes an essential observation:
As I walked toward the hushed sea of people spreading out from the Lincoln Memorial and down the National Mall to the Washington Monument what I found was more worship service than political rally. Despite the vastness of the crowd, the tone was reverent. Few spoke, and when they did it was in a quiet undertone so as not to disturb those around them; that most couldn’t hear the speakers was irrelevant. More important was that they were participating in a moment, a public declaration of faith and solidarity to collectively proclaim that the Tea Party is more than an occasion, it is a movement...
As individuals the people I met and saw at the rally appeared friendly and pleasant. Many returned my smile, I wasn’t ejected for appearing “too liberal,” and some were happy to talk to me for awhile so long as my intention wasn’t to report our conversation in an article that could be twisted by the ‘liberal media.’
But that’s just it. In
dividually, most Tea Partiers probably are nice people, trying to do what’s right, motivated by good intentions that extend from their faith in God and in their understanding of what this nation stands for. And individualism is exactly what the rhetoric of the rally was all about; from the website: “throughout history America has seen many great leaders and noteworthy citizens change her course. It is through their personal virtues and by their example that we are able to live as a free people. Our freedom is possible only if we remain virtuous.” Mirroring their Christology, salvation for themselves and for the country is an individual act.
Individualism is beneficial for leaders to peg success or failure of a movement on each person’s virtue rather than the power of the collective to effect change. Individualism is focused on personal attainment, personal happiness, and personal livelihood, and fails to see how each relies on a system that empowers, privileges, or dispossess either the individual or others in the process. As I discovered at the r
ally, to shift the conversation from “I” to “we” in speaking of a collective liberation was quickly flagged as anti-American and dismissed.
Since when did “we the people” become synonymous with Socialism? How can we convince people that “loving their neighbor” means more than just praying for them, that it means supporting a system that raises each of us up through access to education, health care, jobs, and a livable life? How can we encourage people to stop thinking of themselves as living in subdivisions and start living in neighborhoods? How can we shift from the Jesus of the comfortable to the “sell all your possessions” Jesus?
I am grateful for Diana's sharing of this blog (read the whole thing @ www.religiondispatches.org/archive/atheologies/3236/“me”_the_people:_a_day_with_the_tea_party) I am also certain that their very real pain - exploited and manipulated as it is by harsh and even cruel right-wing ideologues - is real and part of God's still speaking voice. I look forward to wrestling with the scriptures tomorrow in light of this reality for they speak of "picking up the Cross to follow" - not head out as an individual - as well as consider the "ways of life and death" for the whole people of God. I clearly do not resonate with the overwhelming "individualism" of the Beck experience and affirm what Bass expresses here...
Saturday's Glenn Beck rally in Washington, DC. He makes an essential observation:As I walked toward the hushed sea of people spreading out from the Lincoln Memorial and down the National Mall to the Washington Monument what I found was more worship service than political rally. Despite the vastness of the crowd, the tone was reverent. Few spoke, and when they did it was in a quiet undertone so as not to disturb those around them; that most couldn’t hear the speakers was irrelevant. More important was that they were participating in a moment, a public declaration of faith and solidarity to collectively proclaim that the Tea Party is more than an occasion, it is a movement...
As individuals the people I met and saw at the rally appeared friendly and pleasant. Many returned my smile, I wasn’t ejected for appearing “too liberal,” and some were happy to talk to me for awhile so long as my intention wasn’t to report our conversation in an article that could be twisted by the ‘liberal media.’
But that’s just it. In
dividually, most Tea Partiers probably are nice people, trying to do what’s right, motivated by good intentions that extend from their faith in God and in their understanding of what this nation stands for. And individualism is exactly what the rhetoric of the rally was all about; from the website: “throughout history America has seen many great leaders and noteworthy citizens change her course. It is through their personal virtues and by their example that we are able to live as a free people. Our freedom is possible only if we remain virtuous.” Mirroring their Christology, salvation for themselves and for the country is an individual act.Individualism is beneficial for leaders to peg success or failure of a movement on each person’s virtue rather than the power of the collective to effect change. Individualism is focused on personal attainment, personal happiness, and personal livelihood, and fails to see how each relies on a system that empowers, privileges, or dispossess either the individual or others in the process. As I discovered at the r
ally, to shift the conversation from “I” to “we” in speaking of a collective liberation was quickly flagged as anti-American and dismissed.Since when did “we the people” become synonymous with Socialism? How can we convince people that “loving their neighbor” means more than just praying for them, that it means supporting a system that raises each of us up through access to education, health care, jobs, and a livable life? How can we encourage people to stop thinking of themselves as living in subdivisions and start living in neighborhoods? How can we shift from the Jesus of the comfortable to the “sell all your possessions” Jesus?
I am grateful for Diana's sharing of this blog (read the whole thing @ www.religiondispatches.org/archive/atheologies/3236/“me”_the_people:_a_day_with_the_tea_party) I am also certain that their very real pain - exploited and manipulated as it is by harsh and even cruel right-wing ideologues - is real and part of God's still speaking voice. I look forward to wrestling with the scriptures tomorrow in light of this reality for they speak of "picking up the Cross to follow" - not head out as an individual - as well as consider the "ways of life and death" for the whole people of God. I clearly do not resonate with the overwhelming "individualism" of the Beck experience and affirm what Bass expresses here...
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