September 21, 2004

The outsourcing of U.S. jobs overseas, the subject of much discussion in this year’s presidential campaign, is part of an economic movement that promises a better life—indeed, a new beginning—for many people in developing countries. It gives technologically savvy young people in countries like India livelihoods that move them into the ranks of the middle class. On the other hand, workers in industrialized nations are being displaced in large numbers. Comparably well-paying jobs are not being created fast enough to make up for the positions headed offshore.

As has been the case for the past few presidential elections, on Election Day I will almost certainly cast my vote once again for none of the above. Here is why:

Mainline Protestant denominations have steadily declined in membership for four decades in the U.S., so it was not surprising to learn recently that Protestants overall are losing, or have lost, their status as the nation’s religious majority. Growing religious diversity has meant also that in national politics the Democrats could nominate a Jewish vice presidential candidate in 2000 and a Catholic presidential hopeful this year.

Does this cap the end of dominant influence at top government levels for members of the historic Protestant denominations?

When has a master’s thesis in theology ever spurred a governor to try to amend his state’s constitution? Perhaps only in the case of Susan Pace Hamill, whose concern for justice and knowledge of tax law led her to write The Least of These: Fair Taxes and the Moral Duty of Christians, a biblical critique of Alabama’s tax code. Hamill wrote the thesis—which later became a pamphlet—in 2001 as part of a sabbatical year at Beeson Divinity School in Birmingham. She was on leave from the University of Alabama Law School.

But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only. . . . Therefore you also must be ready; for the Son of man is coming at an hour you do not expect. (Matt. 24:36, 44)

In M. Night Shyamalan’s faux gothic film The Village, a late-19th-century community lives in enforced isolation; the deformed, bloodthirsty creatures who inhabit the woods outside the village prevent access to the world beyond. What makes the film an imitation gothic is the double plot twist. It turns out that the monsters are a fiction invented by the elders of the village to keep the younger generation within its boundaries.

If you are a regular listener to radio’s A Prairie Home Companion or a bluegrass fan, chances are you know the signature sound of Sam Bush, a mandolinist who commands his instrument with sublime grace one moment, ferocious jig energy the next. He also has a pleasing voice, tinged with gravel on songs such as the positive-thinking “A Better Man” and the steady-rocking “Bless His Heart.”