There are two books of the Bible that never mention God. One is the Song of Songs, which reveals a sensual female voice lavishly and explicitly describing her obviously athletic and sexy beloved. The book has proven far too sensual for modern Christian ears and has been neutered into an allegory of Christ’s love for his church.
The other book that never mentions God is Esther, the story of a Jewish woman in the time when Ahasuerus was the king of Persia. Esther, who keeps her identity as a Jew hidden, uses her wily womanly ways to find favor with the king and become his new queen. A plot to kill the Jews is uncovered and despite the possibility of being killed for speaking without an invitation, she reveals her true identity to the king to save her people. In short, without ever mentioning God at all, Esther thwarts the male dominated power structure of her world and offers hope and security to the minority Jewish population.
I bring this up because, as Peter Montgomery has noted here this afternoon, there are a lot of right-wingers, like Bill Donahue of the Catholic League, complaining that the Democratic Party Platform does not mention God.
Why should anyone be surprised that the mere mention of the word “God” would send shivers down the spine of the Democratic faithful? After all, the same platform says it’s a good idea for two men to get married; the public needs to pay for all abortions; there is no demand that Hamas stop terrorism against Israelis; the public must pay for a health care policy it manifestly rejects; the Catholic non-profit community must fork up money to pay for abortion-inducing drugs, etc.
But what is clear is that though God is never mentioned by name in the DNC platform, He is everpresent.
Take this section for example:
Republicans like Mitt Romney want to turn back the clock on the progress we’ve made, telling people whom they can marry, restricting women’s access to birth control coverage, and going back to the same economic policies that benefited the wealthy but crashed our economy. Their narrow vision is of an America where everyone is left to fend for themselves and the powerful can write their own rules. Ours is a vision of a big, compassionate America where everyone who works hard has the chance to get ahead—not just those already at the very top. It’s a vision that says everyone gets a fair shot, everyone does their fair share, and everyone engages in fair play. It’s a vision that says we prosper when we realize that we are all in it together and stand united as a nation without dividing or excluding people.
Does this not sound like Esther’s plea to the king on behalf of her people? She knew that speaking to the king could be the end of her individual life, but also knew that the risk was worth it if she could save the whole community. The DNC platform is cut from the same cloth, understanding that we sink or swim together as a nation and that division and myopic and exclusive concern for our personal safety and security could spell doom for all of us.
As professor of Hebrew Bible Sidnie White Crawford at the University of Nebraska writes:
“God is on the side of the oppressed, but works through human instruments to achieve the divine purpose. Esther is a human heroine for a human situation and, as such, speaks powerfully to all oppressed people through the centuries.”
What the DNC platform offers is love and compassion from the lowest level of our society to the highest. The platform envisions an America where we take account for the least of these and bring in those who have been pushed to the margins: the poor, LGBT people, immigrants, and others oppressed and crushed by a winner-take-all, zero-sum political game.
DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz said the omission of God was not intentional, but she still sees God reflected in the words, as she said to CNN’s Piers Morgan:
“We have a commitment through all faith traditions that our values are reflected in our policy. And that means that we should look out for the least of these, that we should fight for the middle class, that we should let everybody in America have an opportunity to be successful.”
I agree and I see plenty of God in the DNC platform (not so much in the GOP version, even though they take God’s name in vain a few times). Without ever mentioning God, the DNC platform, perhaps less poetically than the writer of Song of Songs, still captures the spirit perfectly: “Love is as strong as death, passion fierce as the grave… Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it.”
