Akuntabilitas

Transkripsi wawancara telepon ini saya kira patut dibaca oleh para pendeta dan pengkhotbah. Meski wawancara ini berfokus pada politisi: Mengapa begitu banyak politisi Kristen melakukan skandal sex? Seperti dikatakan Michael Lindsay sendiri, para pengkhotbah juga perlu berwaspada. Tak sedikit pendeta jatuh dalam dosa sex dan pornografi. Saya berpendapat, ini terjadi karena banyak pendeta (khususnya, Evangelical) merasa too powerful untuk dikoreksi oleh orang lain. Bahkan mereka tak merasa perlu punya teman yang dapat mengawasi hidupnya, menjadi sahabat dalam pergumulannya.

Religion. Sex. Power.
By Michael Lindsay and Curtis Chang

Michael Lindsay is a sociologist at Rice University who specializes in issues surrounding leadership, religion, and culture. Lindsay conducted the nation's largest and most comprehensive study of public leaders who are people of faith, and published Faith in the Halls of Power: How Evangelicals Joined the American Elite. He has also written numerous articles and won several prestigious academic prizes and fellowships. He received his M.Div. from Princeton Theological Seminary and his Ph.D. from Princeton University.

It’s a scene so familiar it’s become cliché. Another national politician standing before a podium making another public confession of another scandalous sex affair, often while his wife stands rigidly beside him. It’s an awkward scene for everyone. But there’s another awkward aspect: that there’s a very good chance the politician in question has publicly identified himself as a devout Christian.

Today we’re riffing on the question: Why are so many Christian politicians caught in sex scandals? The issue is not just that Christian politicians are, when it comes to sexual indiscretions, like everyone else. They actually seem worse. In the past four years, of the nine major sex scandals involving congressmen, eight have involved a self-identified Christian -- and most were evangelical, conservative Republicans who campaigned explicitly on faith and family values. Here’s a roll call:

1) Republican Mark Foley of Florida, a self-described Roman Catholic who fought against child pornography, was caught in 2006 sending sexually explicit messages to congressional pages.

2) Foley was replaced by Republican Tim Mahoney, who ran on a self-described fundamentalist Christian platform. Two years later, ABC News reported that the married Mahoney had paid over $100,000 to a former staffer to keep quiet about their affair.

3) Senator Larry Craig (R, Idaho), a Methodist, conservative, family-values Senator was arrested in 2007 for allegedly soliciting sex in an airport bathroom known for anonymous gay encounters.

4) David Vitter (R, Louisiana), another family-values conservative Christian, confessed to employing the services of the “D.C. Madam.”

5) Vita Fasella, the lone Democrat on the list, once played in a Christian rock band. A DUI arrest in 2008 revealed that the married congressman had fathered a child with a mistress.

6) Chip Pickering lived in DC with other congressmen at the “C Street House,” part of a ministry to politicians known as The Fellowship. Although he took part in accountability and prayer groups, after a divorce his wife filed a lawsuit alleging that Chip had had an affair, with trysts taking place within the C Street House.

7) John Ensign (R, Nevada), the only Pentecostal serving in the Senate, carried on an extramarital affair with the wife of an aide from 2007 to 2008.8) Finally, in a sign of just how tawdry the recent pattern has been, the most recent scandal barely raised an eyebrow. Mark Souder, a self-proclaimed Christian family-values politician from Indiana, confessed to yet another affair with another staffer. He resigned in May 2010.

This roll call of shame might evoke outrage at the hypocrisy involved, embarrassment at being identified with such persons who profess Christian faith, and suspicion of those who claim the mantle of family values. Yet the fundamental question is: Why? Why are so many Christian politicians in sex scandals? Are they more hypocritical than others, or is there something dangerous about the combination of faith and worldly power? And what are the lessons for us?

Michael Lindsay, professor of sociology at Rice University, is uniquely qualified to answer these questions. He is the author of Faith in the Halls of Power, widely acknowledged as the definitive account of evangelicals in positions of elite influence. Michael spoke with me by phone:

Michael, why are there so many Christian politicians in sex scandals?
My mother used to say that our weaknesses are just our strengths carried too far. Politicians and preachers have a lot of the same skills. Both reach their positions because they are highly relational. They’re great at building connections, forming new friendships, making people feel welcome and a part of their community. Sometimes we can take those relational skills and use them inappropriately. That’s what gets preachers and politicians off track. No one I’ve studied has turned to a wayward life by one giant mistake. What gets them in trouble is usually a series of small, incremental decisions over a period of time. A lot of these extramarital affairs begin when a politician forms a closer relationship with a co-worker than he should, or when a sexual jest becomes an inside joke between a politician and a staffer. And in the end that winds them up in real trouble.

That would seem to apply to politicians in general. But it seems that Christians have a disproportionate amount of sex scandals. Is there something about specifically Christian, often conservative evangelical politicians that makes them more inclined to these types of affairs?
It’s true that conservative evangelicals who have been in politics have really captured the headlines. I think part of it is the great strain these folks feel on their family lives. There’s constant scrutiny for how they treat their kids and how they relate to their spouses, and sometimes that can actually produce some weird family dynamics that create tension in their marriages. These families are strained when they get into the political limelight, and in the heat of the moment they begin to unravel.

Is this happening more often now? It seems in the last four years, we’ve had a real explosion of sex scandals, especially from Christian politicians. Has something changed in Washington culture?
Probably the biggest shift relates to the ways in which political leaders work and how they commute to Washington. Twenty years ago, those elected to Congress moved their families to Washington and became a part of this small community of other elected officials who also had recently moved. The wives played bridge together, the kids played soccer together, the couples went out to dinner. It created an intimate network of relationships.

In 1994, Newt Gingrich was concerned about his new Republican lawmakers losing contact with constituents. So, he installed the procedure that no roll call votes would be held on Friday or Monday. With that he encouraged the lawmakers to remain in their districts. They would fly to Washington late Monday night or Tuesday morning, take care of their committee activities and other voting procedures on the floor, and leave Washington Thursday night or Friday morning. This created an intense crucible for political leaders who worked night and day while in Washington and then returned to where their families lived in their home districts.
This served to build relationships with constituents. But it places a terrible strain on families that has, I think, contributed to the erosion of marriages. It’s also given rise to deep-seated political animosity. It’s much easier to demonize your political enemies if you don’t know them as people. So there have been some really bad consequences of this particular strategy that’s been in place now for about sixteen years. My hunch is that it’s also played a large role in the rising number of political figures who fall into sex problems and extramarital affairs.

What does this pattern say about the readiness of evangelicals to enter the halls of power?
Evangelicals have spent a lot more time thinking about how to gain power than how to deal with power. Like many Americans, evangelicals don’t like to think of themselves as having a great deal of status or fame or influence. Yet on a comparative perspective, American Christians are the most powerful people of faith who have ever walked the earth. For that reason, evangelicals in politics need to devote more time and energy to considering what sort of safeguards they can put in their lives, what guardrails will give them accountability -- people asking hard questions into their lives, and to whom they are willing to be genuinely accountable. Probably the biggest issue is that evangelicals have not thought strategically of how corrosive power can be, how corrupting for your personal life, and how vital it is to have a wellspring of accountable friendships and support systems to help navigate the minefields.

In a couple of the recent sex scandals, there seemed to be some support structures. Chip Pickering and John Ensign were part of the Fellowship, a network of Christian politicians meeting regularly for prayer and accountability. What broke down there, or is a structure like that inadequate?
As I told the New Yorker when they were writing a story about the Fellowship and the C Street House where a number of these members of Congress lived, accountability works to the extent that one is willing to make him- or herself accountable to the group. The Fellowship has been incredibly influential in the lives of more Washington political leaders than any other ministry, church, or religious organization. I studied it for a number of years, and the Fellowship is unrivalled in its scope and influence. The Fellowship can set up a structure of accountability; it can build small prayer groups and fellowship networks and those can be very important in people’s spiritual lives. But they only work to the extent a person is willing to be honest with their group and to live by the principles they espouse.

There may be a connection between the change in political culture and the polarization and demonization you mentioned. If you are always attacking and condemning the opposition, and you cannot let your guard down or open yourself up for constructive judgment, it becomes much more difficult to be open with your closest friends and family.

The Bible says we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. I can’t think of the last time I heard a sermon about self-deception -- how we fool ourselves and convince ourselves that we are invincible. When you’re in a powerful position, it’s even more tempting to see yourself as above reproach, invincible. I won’t be like the next guy. That cocktail of ego, ambition, and self-righteousness causes so many problems for these political leaders, and for business leaders as well. If you convince yourself that you won’t fall prey to those problems, it creates a false persona.

Given the track record of the past four years, do you think that the family-values political movement still has credibility in the broader culture?
I think the American electorate is sick of hearing people opine about the state of the American family. Perhaps what is most sickening to many skeptical voters is a conservative politician who talks about the threat and danger of gay marriage while staying silent about the threat and danger of adultery or divorce. Adultery and divorce are just as pernicious, if not more so, to the stability of our children growing up in families where they know they’re loved and where family life is actually life-giving.

Michael, you’ve clearly thought and written a lot about what it’s like to enter the halls of power. What advice would you give someone planning to embark on a career path that will lead them into positions of elite influence, whether it’s politics or business or something else?
Make sure your marriage is strong and you’ve got the staunch support of the people who know and love you best. They’ve got to be convinced this is a calling, not just for you, but also for them, because you’re bringing them along in that process, and see if you can get a group of friends who can be supporters, even if it’s a matter of having a telephone appointment once a month. You need a group of people who can support and encourage you and make sure you’re holding true to your values.

Then, in the process, identify some people who have been successful in politics over the long haul, people whom you respect for their lives and integrity; seek out their counsel, because they’ve figured out how to maneuver around these potential pitfalls and perhaps they can point you in the right direction.

We close each installment of the Veritas Riff series with three questions. The first question is, more broadly: What are you surprised by these days?
I’ve spent the last couple of years studying the lives of great leaders, their networks, their upbringing and their motivations. I’ve been surprised at how little your family’s socio-economic status means in your likelihood to succeed. For earlier generations, if you wanted to be a senior business leader or college president, you really needed to come from a family where your father made a lot of money and you had enjoyed the privileges and opportunities that came along with wealth.

Not anymore. It’s a whole different ballgame now. Now we find that early career opportunities -- such as the chance to apprentice with a great leader while you’re in your 20s -- are far more likely to predict whether you will rise to a senior leadership position. That’s been really surprising to me.

That’s encouraging news. The second question is: What are you concerned about these days?
I’m concerned by how little attention we give to the importance of cultivating virtues in our lives. One particular virtue that deserves a lot more attention is the virtue of rest. The concept of Sabbath rest can be found in many of the major world religions, including Judaism and Christianity. But we live in a frenetic world where we don’t practice restraining our ambition, bridling our sense of doing something big for the world. We’re constantly trying to improve and outwork the next person.

That’s setting us up for long-term failure. In that environment, it’s hard to keep things in balance and develop nurturing relationships with our families. We can convince ourselves that we’re part of what’s saving the world, when in fact we play a very small role. Practicing Sabbath rest is one way of exercising humility, but we do it very, very poorly in this country.

Finally, Michael, what are you feeling hopeful about these days?
I work everyday at Rice with fantastic, talented, bright undergraduates, many of whom have noble dreams and high hopes and the ability and skills actually to achieve some of them. I’m more encouraged than ever because those young people are genuinely committed not just to advancing their own personal agendas, but to the common good, to a vision for human flourishing that advances the interests of all.

That’s a promising sign. I hope that their enthusiasm percolates out and more of us catch it in the days ahead.