Campaign Finance Reform A Theological Issue

by The Reverend Richard S. Gilbert
Member, IINYS Board of Directors

Joseph Campbell in The Power of Myth speaks of "...a time when...spiritual principles informed the society. You can tell what's informing the society by what the tallest building is. When you approach a medieval town, the cathedral is the tallest thing in the place. When you approach an eighteenth-century town, it is the political palace that's the tallest thing in the place. And when you approach a modern city, the tallest places are the office buildings, the centers of economic life....That's the history of Western civilization."

I believe Campbell's compelling image is at the heart of American political problems. The market dominates not only our economic life, but our political life as well. We might call it market imperialism, as the market invades and dominates every other phase of human existence. It is a case of money operating outside its sphere. This is plutocracy - government by the few - rather than a democracy - government by the many - and that is where we are heading as the economic losers increasingly abdicate responsibility to the winners and opt out of the political system.

Lord Acton once said that "power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." It might also be said that "money tends to corrupt, and unlimited money corrupts absolutely." Finance reform scandals emerging out of the 1996 American political campaign corroborate those words. The result is that Americans increasingly believe political power is for sale to the highest bidder.

Conservative thinkers understand economic and political freedom as inextricably interwoven. Economist Milton Friedman sees the capitalist economy as a voting booth - each person voting with his/her dollars for the goods and services (including government presumably) that he/she wishes. But increasing concentration of economic power as the rich get richer and the poor get poorer and large corporations control decision-making threatens this philosophy of human freedom. In political democracy it is one person, one vote. In political economy we are in danger of seeing one dollar, one vote, since those with dollars exert a disproportionate influence on public policy. To a disturbing degree power grows out of the end, not of a gun barrel, but a dollar bill. Since members of the House and Senate need to raise thousands of dollars a day to conduct a campaign for election or re-election, we have a new Golden Rule of Politics: those with the gold make the rules - or at least control those who do.

The Hebrew Bible warns about such concentration of money and power. The prophet Isaiah warned, "Woe to those who joined house to house, who add field to field, until there is no more room, and you are made to dwell alone in the midst of the land. The Lord of hosts has sworn in my hearing: 'Surely many houses shall be desolate, large and beautiful houses, without inhabitant." (5:8-9) The idea of a radical equality was suggested in the "Year of the Jubilee," in which land was redistributed to its original owners as a means of equalizing land ownership, in those days the primary source of wealth. Amos was powerful in his denunciation of those "who trample upon the needy" and "buy the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals." (8:4-6).

In the Christian scriptures we find a very strong bias toward the poor and powerless. In Matthew Jesus is reported to have said, "... it will be hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God." (Matthew 19:23-24) It was said that St. Jerome would rather store money in the stomachs of the poor than in a purse. Economic resources were given in common for the use of all people, not merely the rich. Clearly the concentration of power and wealth was not anticipated by early Christianity. The Social Gospel movement at the turn of the century and the Roman Catholic bishop's articulation of God's "option for the poor," also articulated by Protestant theologians, suggests the need to guard against the rich and powerful exploiting the poor and powerless.

To be sure each citizen has formal freedom to participate in the process, but lack what political philosopher John Rawls calls "the worth of freedom," the capacity and opportunity to participate in those decisions that affect one's life. To political pundits like George Will, who believes campaign spending limits inhibit free speech, we can only note that in the current mass media context it takes considerable sums of money to exercise that free speech to the degree necessary to support political campaigns. Anatole France wrote of the "majestic equality of the laws, which forbid rich and poor alike to sleep under the bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread."

Unitarian Universalists affirm the "inherent worth and dignity of every person," a value undermined when concentrations of power render individual political activity relatively meaningless. The Unitarian Universalist Association's covenant affirms the "use of the democratic process ... in society at large," a value compromised when economic powers exert a disproportionate influence on public policy. Democracy is here understood as the capacity of people to participate in the decisions that affect their lives.

Religious educator Hugo J. Hollerorth once wrote, "To be a human being is to be a dwelling place of power. To move about the world, and interact with it, is to encounter power. We live in a world inhabited by power - power which impinges upon us and affects us every moment of our existence.... Religion arises ... out of the effort of human beings to make their way in a world of conflicting powers."

Individual citizens are in serious danger of losing their power to participate in democratic government. Unless we reform the money-driven political process we will find democracy slowly but surely slipping from our grasp as a moneyed oligarchy increasingly takes control of the political system. This will not only corrupt public policy and widen the already gaping disparities between rich and poor, but also deny the inherent dignity of the individual - which is as much a religious as a political issue.

Our calling as religious people is to work to create a community in which the commercial, the political and the religious edifices are in creative balance, and no one enterprise dominates the skyline. We must extend the democratic process throughout the society if we are to create the Beloved Community of which Martin Luther King, Jr., among others, spoke.

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