Kohut: Political Pulpit Should Sound Alarm Bells

Do pastor politicians leverage the pulpit for community good or personal self-interest? City ministers including leadership with the Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance of Greater Bridgeport are influential players in city politics. Former mayoral candidate Jeff Kohut wonders if–for some–it’s all about them or their people.

Judge Carmen Lopez makes an essential point about the problematic phenomenon known as “Bridgeport Politics.” She is absolutely correct in asserting that it probably isn’t a socially or politically healthy situation to have the “political” so strongly identified and inextricably dependent upon the sectarian/religious in Bridgeport (or anywhere). But in agreeing with, and keeping with this theme, we must remember that in places that were largely abandoned–urban centers of eroding wherewithal, cut loose to free-float by a suburban elitist-dominated state government and the extremely elitist federal representation that emerged from the reconstituted power structure of post county government/suburb dominated Connecticut state government, engineered by elitist suburbanites six decades ago–were left largely disorganized, with deteriorating neighborhoods representing political vacuums where the viable social capital capable of eliciting government and grassroots action was, and is, definable largely in terms of religious institutions.

When this is the case, there is going to be an inevitable politicization of religious life in the community, with some religious leaders, being human, succumbing to the “perks” and ambitions going with this territory (as they are eagerly recruited for support by the political power structure). With the degree of dependence on religious institutions in cities such as Bridgeport as the interface of the community and government, as well as being the conduit for many essential services and as organizers of social action at the neighborhood and city levels, this situation is becoming the norm as a substitute for direct government contact/service to the people. This situation has invited the clergy to assume roles as political powerbrokers/political operatives, and even as elected officials with dual bully pulpits. This medieval situation is exactly contrary to what the Founding Fathers intended for the political reality of this country. But as long as socioeconomic distress serves the political economy advantages of an elitist-engineered society, the ultimately unholy marriage of church and state and its expanding role in American political life–especially urban political life–will continue to increase in power and influence.

When churches provide a moral compass and serve as the moral canaries-in-the-coal-mine for society and government–without foisting doctrine directly on government legislation and policy–they are operating in the benign and useful realm allotted to them by the US Constitution. When churches become bases for political operatives and channels of political collusion, we’re entering the danger zone that stimulated and directed the genius of our Founding Fathers to proscribe religious influence/interaction with government. The former situation has stealthily found its way back into US government, especially in poor cities, and has been deftly exploited by the various levels of ruling oligarchs of our society, including opportunistic clergy and their political co-conspirators.

So Carmen Lopez is correct in her alarm at the increasing, direct influence of the clergy and churches on the political climate and political reality of Bridgeport, and places of similar description. When we see the extensive co-mingling of religion and politics at any level of government, it’s time to sound the alarm bells. It is a signal that both areas can become synergistic, social battle zones to the extent where our society will become destructively antagonistic and rivalrous, when it needs most to provide harmonious sanctuary where society can retreat and find protection from such antagonism and rivalry.

Perhaps Bridgeport is there now, and religious persons and clergy of goodwill need to rally for disengagement from direct, political activity at the parish and clergy level and get back to ministering to only the spiritual and perhaps the most basic of human needs of the congregations and community. This could–and should–involve things such as youth mentoring and providing sanctuary for at-risk youth via wholesome diversions/activities, but perhaps it shouldn’t involve such measures as politicized, headline-grabbing mass meetings and rallies, which tend to obfuscate the original messages and derail the intended action-creating aspects that might have been intended. When things become politicized, they tend to stray away from clear thinking and real action creation. We see that as a theme in the thread of Bridgeport church/community action meetings/initiatives that have led down mostly blind alleys over the past 20 years and have perhaps led us farther away from action than just leaving the ineffectual, disengaged politicians who tend to hide behind such “action meetings” exposed, unexcused, sans bs platforms, and rightfully hung out to dry.

It is probably time [for Bridgeport] to look toward secular, non-sectarian, objective, community-minded, grassroots leaders and politicians to start reaching out directly to the community for the purpose of addressing social issues, and especially for the purpose of pursuing elective office, rather than enlisting/resonating with the religious/sectarian aspect of the community and its codes and doctrines that are not necessarily designed to enlist action that can be embraced or executed at pragmatic, or even lawful (per electoral statute) levels.

In essence; it is right and good for churches and institutions of worship to feed, clothe and minister to the physical, spiritual, and emotional needs of the community, but probably not to waste resources on the vanity of the construction and maintenance of the political machinery of that community.