Faith & Family Live!

Faith & Family Live is where everyday moms offer one another inspiration, support, and encouragement in Catholic living. Anyone grappling with the meaning of life or the cleaning of laundry is welcome here. Read the blog, check out our magazine, join our community, learn more about our mission, and come on in! READ MORE

Bloggers

Meet the Faith & Family bloggers. We invite you to join us in encouraging and helping the Faith & Family community grow in faith!

Danielle Bean

Danielle Bean
Danielle Bean, a mother of eight, is editor-in-chief of Catholic Digest and Faith & Family. She is author of My Cup of Tea, Mom to Mom, Day to Day, and most recently Small Steps for Catholic Moms. Though she once struggled to separate her life and her …
Read My Posts

Rachel Balducci

Rachel Balducci
Rachel Balducci is married to Paul and they are the parents of five lively boys and one precious baby girl. She is the author of How Do You Tuck In A Superhero?, and is a newspaper columnist for the Diocese of Savannah, Georgia. For the past four years, she has …
Read My Posts

Lisa Hendey

Lisa Hendey
Lisa Hendey is the founder and editor of CatholicMom.com and the author of A Book of Saints for Catholic Moms and The Handbook for Catholic Moms. Lisa is also enjoys speaking around the country, is employed as webmaster for her parish web sites and spends time on various …
Read My Posts

Arwen Mosher

Arwen Mosher
Arwen Mosher lives in southeastern Michigan with her husband Bryan and their 4-year-old daughter, 2-year-old son, and twin boys born May 2011. She has a bachelor's degree in theology. She dreads laundry, craves sleep, loves to read novels and do logic puzzles, and can't live without tea. Her personal blog site …
Read My Posts

Rebecca Teti

Rebecca Teti
Rebecca Teti is married to Dennis and has four children (3 boys, 1 girl) who -- like yours no doubt -- are pious and kind, gorgeous, and can spin flax into gold. A Washington, DC, native, she converted to Catholicism while an undergrad at the U. Dallas, where she double-majored in …
Read My Posts

Robyn Lee

Robyn Lee
Robyn Lee is a 30-something, single lady, living in Connecticut in a small bungalow-style kit house built by her great uncle in the 1950s. She also conveniently lives next door to her sister, brother-in-law and six kids ... and two doors down are her parents. She received her undergraduate degree from …
Read My Posts

DariaSockey

DariaSockey
Daria Sockey is a freelance writer and veteran of the large family/homeschooling scene. She recently returned home from a three-year experiment in full time outside employment. (Hallelujah!) Daria authored several of the original Faith&Life Catechetical Series student texts (Ignatius Press), and is currently a Senior Writer for Faith&Family magazine. A latecomer …
Read My Posts

Guest Bloggers

Kate Lloyd

Kate Lloyd
Kate Lloyd is a rising senior, and a political science major at Thomas More College of Liberal Arts in New Hampshire. While not in school, she lives in Whitehall PA, with her mom, dad, five sisters and little brother. She needs someone to write a piece about how it's possible to …
Read My Posts

Lynn Wehner

Lynn Wehner
As a wife and mother, writer and speaker, Lynn Wehner challenges others to see the blessings that flow when we struggle to say "Yes" to God’s call. Control freak extraordinaire, she is adept at informing God of her brilliant plans and then wondering why the heck they never turn out that …
Read My Posts

Get our FREE Daily Digest

Add Faith & Family to iTunes

 

Christian First, American Second

My unexpected lesson from Joe Biden

Taking advantage of the rare opportunity of an available television (we don’t have one at home), we watched the vice-presidential debate last night.

I should disclose right away that I have never voted for a Democrat for president, and will never do so as long as preserving legal abortion remains a part of their platform.  I watched the debate rooting for Palin and finished feeling pretty good about her performance.

Nevertheless, for me the most memorable moment of the ninety-minute debate was something Joe Biden said.

Mike Mansfield, a former leader of the Senate, said to me one day — he — I made a criticism of Jesse Helms. He said, “What would you do if I told you Jesse Helms and Dot Helms had adopted a child who had braces and was in real need?” I said, “I’d feel like a jerk.”
He said, “Joe, understand one thing. Everyone’s sent here for a reason, because there’s something in them that their folks like. Don’t question their motive.”
I have never since that moment in my first year questioned the motive of another member of the Congress or Senate with whom I’ve disagreed. I’ve questioned their judgment.

As a passionate pro-lifer and a fiscal conservative, I question Biden’s own judgment on a lot of issues.  But I think the theme he’s touching on here is something that all of us could do well to keep in mind.

Especially in election times, where things can become very polarized, it’s easy to demonize those on the other side of an issue.  Some pro-lifers assume pro-choicers don’t care about babies; some pro-choicers assume pro-lifers don’t care about women.  Some Iraq-war supporters assume its opponents don’t care about helping the Iraqi people or defeating terrorism; some Iraq-war opponents assume its supporters don’t care about peace or the lives of our soldiers.  Some people who oppose the expansion of government-run programs assume those who support them don’t care about the fiscal freedom and well-being of Americans; some people who want programs like government-run health care assume that those who oppose them don’t care about the poor.

And so on, and so on, ad infinitum.

I have opinions on most of the issues in American politics and some of these opinions are very strong, so I’ll admit that I’ve been guilty of this on occasion.  It’s easy to do: I get passionately caught up in an argument I that matters to me, and I forget to give my opponents on the issue the benefit of the doubt.

At those moments, I forget that I am a Christian first and an American second.

I hardly expected that I would watch the debate and get my foremost take-away lesson from Joe Biden, but I did.  I’m not sure this is exactly the point he was trying to make, but he reminded me what is most important here.

It’s the paradoxical challenge of being Christians: we aren’t obligated to agree with our political opponents and we certainly aren’t obligated to vote for them.  We are obligated to love them.  This means starting by assuming that everyone - even those whose view are most divergent from my own - cares about those around them and acts from the best possible motives.  And even if I have proof that this isn’t true for a particular person, I’m still obligated to offer charity to him or her to the best of my ability.

In some cases this means praying for them, because as Catholics we recognize that holding and acting on some views - such as the pro-choice one - can be morally quite risky.  In other cases, where the issues at stake allow many morally-acceptable viewpoints, it means holding our peace and simply agreeing to disagree.  In all cases, it means recognizing the humanity and dignity of all persons, no matter what positions they hold.

As things get more and more heated over the next month, I’m going to try to remember this every day.


image credit


Comments


Post a Comment

By submitting this form, you give Faith And Family Magazine permission to publish this comment. Comments will be published at our discretion, and may be edited for clarity and length. For best formatting, please limit your response to one paragraph and don't hit "enter" to force line breaks.

Name:

Email:

Website:

I am commenting on the one originally posted by the author

Write your comment:

Please enter the word you see in the image below:


     

Remember my personal information.

Notify me of follow-up comments.