Cynicism or Realism?

I had the marvelous opportunity of spending time with one of my mentors and friends today for lunch. Ed Chinn (www.edchinn.com) called me this morning to say he was in town.

Ed is one of those people who speaks perspective into my life like few others. He laughs in the face of world events, not because he doesn't care about them but because God laughs and he has God's perspective. And he seems to have a faith that implicitly knows God is in control whereas mine seems to be captive to the whims of circumstance.

Ed isn't a cynic but one of the things he said today had to do with the reality that institutions that rise up to battle injustice will always end up depending on the continuation of the very injustice they fight. For example, the American Cancer Society depends on the fact that cancer continues to be pervasive. Should cancer be defeated, the ACS would cease to have a purpose.

Now, that's not to say that fighting cancer is not a noble cause or that anyone in dark smoke filled rooms at ACS headquarters is secretly funding the disease, but expand this to other realms and you find a troubling truism.

I'll start with one of my own causes. The fight against abortion. I believe babies have a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness guaranteed under our constitution. More than that, I believe that babies are made in the image of God and as such ought not to be killed for the pleasure of a more comfortable life for a mother or father. I understand that there are (few and far between) times when the life of a mother may be at stake and diffitult choices need to be made. Still, the comfort of a young mother or her parents seem to result in far too many babies being killed in this nation. And our recently elected president calls babies a "punishment". Just so we're clear, I'm against abortion.

But Ed made a brilliant point when he called out the fact that so many Christians consider voting for a Democrat to be anathema because of this one issue. The fact is that since Roe V. Wade was decided we've had 25 years of Republican presidents who have done little or nothing about this issue. So, why do we consider Republicans to hold any kind of moral superiority on this? As Ed said "The dirtly little secret is that Republicans need the abortion issue to solidify the base voters." That means that if abortion went away, what issue would Republicans easily be able to use?

On the Democrat side, Democrats need the poor to continue being poor. For over 40 years the Dems have been fighting the "war on poverty" and it frankly isn't being won. When there are poor neighborhoods, it's easy for a politician to go there and stir up the base with promises.

In the same way the Rainbow/Push coalition needs racism to continue in America. The NRA needs anti-gun legislators. Labor unions need "stingy" bosses. Fundamentalists need immorality.

I have yet to hear of a charter for an organization that includes a clause giving the conditions whereby that organization will no longer be necessary.

When this little piece of realism hits home I begin to see how organizations may rise up to fight a good fight against an immoral or unjust foe, but be a little careful. Don't get swallowed up and taken in as the power brokers will do what needs to be done to maintain their power.