But Beckwith didn’t—and now he’s motivated just about every mainstream faith institution in Indiana against him and his calls to embrace hatred as a Christian value.
Clergy members and religious leaders from the Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu and other faith traditions gathered along with elected officials from both the Republican and Democratic parties to denounce Beckwith’s “give hate a chance” rhetoric. They also called on Indiana Gov. Mike Braun—supposedly Beckwith’s boss—to strip the lieutenant governor of any role with the governor’s Faith-Based Institutions Initiative and assign those duties to the Indiana Civil Rights Commission.
As rebukes go, this one was both decisive … and predictable.
Schemers and hustlers such as Beckwith have a hard time grasping this, but men and women who have devoted their lives and souls to the study and in the service of faith don’t particularly like it when politicians use religion for personal, political purposes.
I learned that a long time ago.
More than 20 years ago, I was the executive director of what then was the Indiana Civil Liberties Union.
At that time, some conservative state legislators had latched onto what they thought was a bright idea. They thought they could get around the constitutional prohibition government-endorsed religious expression by placing a monument featuring the Ten Commandments on the Statehouse lawn and calling it a history lesson, not a government stamp of approval.
Everyone in Indiana knew the ICLU was going to sue the state to prevent the monument from going up.
Many of the lawmakers who voted for the measure knew we were going to win and likely collect substantial legal fees when we did. Several of them told me about a joke bouncing around the caucus gatherings.
The Ten Commandments bill, the joke went, was actually an ICLU appropriations bill.
But even though the ICLU’s chances of prevailing in court were better than good, we didn’t file suit right away. In fact, we delayed long enough so that some observers wondered what was causing the hold-up.
The delay was the product of some conversations with religious leaders around the state.
They didn’t like the Ten Commandments bill. They thought it trivialized sacred principles.
When the ICLU held a press conference announcing the suit to stop the posting of the Ten Commandments at the Statehouse, clergy members from just about every faith tradition showed up to speak in favor of the litigation.
That was because they had signed on as plaintiffs.
One by one, they said that they resented having politicians use religion to score political points.
The most telling moment came when a Presbyterian minister said that, for people of genuine faith, the Decalogue was a matter of profound spiritual importance and “not some sort of lucky charm.”
Serious people of faith, the minister argued, don’t play games with religion.
Micah Beckwith is not a serious person.
But he can do and has done serious harm.
I know that he serves as a pastor for a church on the outskirts of Indianapolis that seems to show a remarkable tolerance for the sexual exploitation of children and others, but he never went to divinity school or studied theology—Christian, Jewish, Muslim or any faith—in any substantial and rigorous fashion. He has an undergraduate degree in business economics and business management.
That’s it.
Yet, he’s taken it upon himself to start a religious war here in the heartland. Out of ignorance, out of ambition and, yes, out of malice, he’s called on Hoosiers to launch a latter-day crusade against the infidels.
And he’s done so without thinking—apparently at all—about the damage he might do to ordinary people and their lives.
That’s why the clergy members from so many different faith traditions have come out in opposition to the feckless lieutenant governor’s statements.
And that’s why they don’t want him anywhere near faith-based institutions that aim to help people.
These religious leaders take questions of faith seriously. They take their vows seriously. They take their duties and responsibilities seriously.
Unlike Micah Beckwith, they don’t see religion as “some sort of lucky charm.”
