Mark Hatfield's life lessons in God, politics

Aug. 11, 2011 - PRLog -- Opinion by Dick Hughes, reprinted from the Statesman Journal


It was the early 1970s, a time of tumult in our nation. The senator spoke at Linfield College, where I was a student but devoted more time to being an activist. I thought I knew everything — maybe that’s the life of a 20-something.

As a college freshman, I co-led the first peace march in McMinnville history. My anti-war activism was rooted in my Christian faith, not any political party. I am proud of the community collaboration we built to make the march happen: U.S. Bank of Oregon let us hold the candlelight prayer vigil on the bank’s plaza. Many townspeople and Linfield faculty members, administrators and students participated.

The 1970s also were an era of "free love" and rampant drug use, or so I’ve heard. Fortunately I missed those trains, if they ever came to McMinnville.

But I certainly bought into my generation’s distrust of The Establishment, including much of organized religion. Raised as a mainstream Protestant (American Baptist), I also looked down on those unenlightened Christians whom I considered outside the mainstream. Like evangelicals.

Then along came Mark Hatfield and knocked me off my prideful perch.

I don’t know whether it was something he said during his speech, but somehow I got hold of Hatfield’s book "Between a Rock and a Hard Place" (a title since used by Aron Ralston and other authors for different books).

Hatfield’s thought-provoking comments about Christianity, politics and serving the poor opened my eyes and humbled my spirit. I realized that God’s grace was not extended only to people of my upbringing and my biblical understanding.

Evangelicals could care just as much as I did about peace and social justice and showing God’s love by ministering to the needy. People such as Hatfield already were doing so. In fact, I was but a neophyte, and a self-righteous one at that.

As a college student, it had been easy to protest the Vietnam war (although I soon grew weary of the generic, shallow nature of street marches). I had nothing to lose. Yet here was Hatfield, a Navy veteran and Republican U.S. senator, speaking out against the war and calling for social justice. Politically, he had everything to lose.

But Hatfield had the courage, and the strength, to live his faith.

Religion is meaningless unless it affects every aspect of our daily lives. If we truly are believers, we cannot separate our values from our actions. Thus when people of faith are called to participate in politics, they must act on their beliefs.

A corollary is that voters should expect elected officials to follow their consciences, not the party line or the polls. Some Oregonians were angry that Hatfield’s successor, former Sen. Gordon Smith, didn’t side with the state on physician-assisted suicide, but I respected his following his beliefs, irrespective of whether I agreed with him.
Hatfield also wisely warned of the danger of mixing religion with politics — of mistaking our personal or organizational agenda for God’s agenda.

I share his discomfort with the institutionalization of The Religious Right — or the Religious Left or The Religious Center. It’s — what’s the word? ... naive? destructive? self-serving? presumptuous? — for a faith-based organization to presume its political agenda is specifically sanctioned and directed by the Supreme Being.

As Hatfield wrote in his book that changed my life, "The more I observe contemporary America while reading the Scriptures and the history of the Church, the more I sense how dangerous it is to mix our piety with patriotism."



Dick Hughes, who interviewed Hatfield several times, is editorial page editor of the Statesman Journal. Read his blog at StatesmanJournal.com/DickHughes or follow him on Facebook or at twitter.com/DickHughes.

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Linfield College, in Oregon, is recognized for arts, sciences and professional programs, international emphasis and commitment to social responsibility.