America is a nation being held hostage by fundamentalism.
In our recent BNG webinar with Robert P. Jones and Greg Garrett and Timothy Peoples, the single thing that stuck with me most is a comment by Jones, who is among the foremost data interpreters on faith and culture in America today.
While it appears America is closely divided on culture war issues, that’s not really the case, he explained. On every contentious issue — immigration, abortion, book bans, race, LGBTQ inclusion, Christian nationalism — a majority of Americans and often a supermajority of Americans believes in diversity. But on every one of these issues, about 30% of the population wants to protect a past way of life centered on white heterosexual males.
Mark Wingfield
That 30% of the population — which neatly corresponds to the core base of Donald Trump’s support — has been “amplified,” Jones said, because they so dominate the Republican Party. They wield influence far beyond their numbers because they have leveraged the political system in their favor while complaining everything is stacked against them.
What Jones didn’t say in the webinar but is equally true is that this minority rule also is amplified by gerrymandering. One of the most significant ways white supremacists and Christian nationalists have held on to power they do not deserve is by stacking the voting deck in their favor.
That also includes voter suppression under the guise of “voter integrity.” See Georgia and Texas and Alabama and North Carolina as evidence of this trend.
“This is a kind of political fundamentalism that matches the religious fundamentalist that supports it.”
This is a kind of political fundamentalism that matches the religious fundamentalist that supports it. The two things are linked.
Look at the map at the top of this column and you will see Texas Congressional District 24, which is the newly drawn district for my residence as of 2020, thanks to Gov. Greg Abbott and his allies. If you know anything at all about North Texas, you should immediately see what’s going on here. The red arrow points to my house, which is barely hanging on to the edge of the district. Before 2020, we were in a more contiguous district that for many years was reliably red, then turned blue when our longtime Republican representative was sent packing.
He did literally pack up and move down I-35 to Waco, where he ran for Congress in a safe Republican district and got sent back to Washington where he has been a defender of Donald Trump’s Big Lie. Our changing district that rejected him then was chopped up to dilute the effects of our new demographics. We live in a neighborhood built in 1976, which means all the original North Dallas homeowners (reliably Republican) now have sold and moved away or died. The new, younger homeowners have different political interests.
To call our district “contiguous,” as the law requires, demands calling jigsaw puzzle pieces uniform, which they are not.
Our district spans parts of two counties — Tarrant and Dallas — and begins in the west with the most conservative bastion of Christian nationalism in America, the affluent suburbs of Keller, Southlake and Colleyville. This area is Ground Zero for book bans and attempts to keep kids from learning real history.
Through the narrowest of horizontal connections, the district spans through some of the multiracial mid-cities that are nothing like the affluent suburbs to the west. That connects the most conservative parts of Tarrant County to my changing part of Dallas County, which sits atop the also-very-conservative and very affluent University Park and Highland Park.
A fifth grade geography student could see what’s going on here. I am represented by a far-right Congresswoman whose base is 40 miles away in another county.
Here’s an explanation from the Brennan Center: “Despite the fact that non-white communities were responsible for 95% of the state’s population growth last decade, Republicans refused to create additional new minority opportunity districts in either the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex or Houston. In addition, they aggressively broke up diverse suburban districts where multiracial coalitions had come close to winning power last decade.”
There’s a Bible verse to address this situation. It’s found in Proverbs 20:23 — “Differing weights are an abomination to the LORD, and false scales are not good.” There are others, too, but you get the point.
“Religious conservatives hold sway in Austin today not because it is the will of the people but because it is the will of those who drew the election maps.”
Texas is home to two political realities today — the conservative west and east versus the more liberal urban core that spans the I-35 corridor from Denton to Dallas to Waco to Austin to San Antonio and then splitting toward Houston in one direction and El Paso in the other. Religious conservatives hold sway in Austin today not because it is the will of the people but because it is the will of those who drew the election maps.
And the same story can be told over and over again across this nation. Gerrymandering is the uneven weight of political influence that needs to be stamped out. Neither Republicans nor Democrats should be allowed to draw districts to their advantage.
Our statehouses and the U.S. Congress alike would be vastly different — and more consensus-based — if gerrymandering were outlawed.
How is this a concern for the church and Christians, you may ask. Two ways.
First, for all those Christians who are troubled by how “divided” we are today, this is an easy solution. Gerrymandered districts get extremists elected to office. Competitive districts get sensible people elected to office. If you want to have a “purple” church, work for a “purple” voting map.
“If you want to have a ‘purple’ church, work for a ‘purple’ voting map.”
Second, the essence of the Christian ethic is fairness. Christ followers are called to work for justice and liberty in all we do. If we are going to be a light to the truth, we should work for everyone to have an equal vote.
Republicans and Democrats alike have let us down on this. And one of the greatest disappointments to me is former President Barack Obama. As he was leaving office in 2016, he announced his priority would be working to get rid of gerrymandering nationwide. That sounded great, but as far as I can tell, nothing has come of this. Please correct me if I’m wrong, but where is the fruit of this labor?
We are living under minority rule largely because of gerrymandering and voter suppression. That is not the Jesus way, not the Christian way, not the ethical way, not the just way.
That 30% of the population Robert Jones talked about should not be able to dictate how the other 70% of the population lives. That is theocracy, not democracy.
Mark Wingfield serves as executive director and publisher of Baptist News Global. He is the author of Honestly: Telling the Truth About the Bible and Ourselves and Why Churches Need to Talk About Sexuality.
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The Christian case for democracy | Analysis by Mark Wingfield
Americans are not equally divided on culture wars, Robert Jones explains in BNG webinar