"Balancing Acts" in USA TODAY, May 8, 2006

Whether the issue of the day is an abortion ban in South Dakota or gay marriage in Maryland, conservatives and liberals tend to retreat to their respective corners and gird themselves for battle. But since most of these controversies have religious roots, I'm convinced that our constant focus on political positions is misguided. It is more instructive to see these conflicts as an ongoing struggle between "obligation-keepers" and "liberation-seekers."

Obligation and liberation are the two major spiritual themes that animate life in America today, and most people align themselves with one of these attitudes. One group focuses on the obligations of religious life and seeks moral clarity, while the other tends to see religion as a liberation movement and stresses God's love for the oppressed. And though you might assume that obligation and liberation are synonyms for conservative and liberal, red state and blue state, they are really new fault lines that cut in unexpected and revealing ways through each camp.

President Bush is a classic obligation-keeper — pro-life and pro-traditional-family, with a strong focus on moral clarity. His approach to faith goes back to God's original covenant with Abraham, whom God promised to make fruitful if he will walk before God and be blameless (Genesis 17:1-2). Bush supports laws banning gay marriage and partial-birth abortion and uses his position to stress the importance of religious obligation and personal morality.

Bill Clinton, on the other hand, is a liberation-seeker — determined to help people in need and protect freedoms such as gay rights and abortion rights. His style of religion can be traced back to Moses and the exodus from Egypt, in which God liberates his people from the oppression of Pharaoh (Exodus 3:7-8). Clinton sees the political profession as a way to answer a call from God to help people, and his focus is on freeing people from captivity, discrimination, injustice and poverty.

Conservatives and liberals do not remain trapped, however, on opposite sides of the obligation-liberation divide. In a time of war, conservatives tend to focus on the liberation of oppressed people. Before the invasion of Iraq, I discussed the morality of war with members of Fairfax Presbyterian Church in Fairfax, Va., where I serve as pastor. After I preached a sermon on the exodus, I received an e-mail from John Warburton, a member who spent a career in the Air Force. "I believe that God expects us to help people who are oppressed," he wrote. Referring to the exodus, he pointed out that God allowed many Egyptians to be killed at the hand of Moses, and Warburton stressed that "the Egyptian rulers were somewhat like the leadership in Iraq. Their people were oppressed."

But the liberals in my church responded by stressing the obligation of non-violence. The invasion could not "by any stretch of the imagination be reconciled with the teachings of Jesus," said Esther Elstun, a George Mason University professor. She based her opposition on a strong sense of obligation toward the teachings of Jesus and considered the invasion un-Christian and un-American, which is why she said backers of the war preferred to use "such contemptible euphemisms as 'pre-emptive strike' and 'regime change.' "

Because obligation-keeping and liberation-seeking can lead to surprising political positions, they are vital to understanding the intersection between faith and politics — in congregations and in the larger community. There is a liberationist lilt in the conservatives' anti-big-government, anti-tax arguments ("It's your money, you should keep it"), and an obligationist tone in the liberals' desire to preserve government social programs and a progressive tax code ("To whom much is given, much is expected").

A balancing act between these two themes can open up possibilities for discussion and help people to see themselves and their opponents in a new light. And because most of us feel a desire to embrace certain forms of obligation and liberation in our own lives, these categories can serve as a common language for dialogue across the political spectrum. With regard to same-sex marriage, for example, it would be productive to explore not only how gays and lesbians can be liberated from discrimination, but also how they might be recognized as obligation-keepers in their monogamous relationships. In the ongoing immigration debate, there should be more talk about how charity toward undocumented workers can be balanced with clarity about immigration laws.

Whether the issue is presidential politics, war, taxation, homosexuality or immigration, we need to find ways to combine respect for obligation with an understanding of the need for liberation. Because conservatives and liberals tend to have stakes in both categories, our nation's political polarization might actually shrink as people work together to reconcile the competing demands of these two spiritual truths.

Henry G. Brinton is pastor of Fairfax Presbyterian Church in Fairfax, Va., and author of Balancing Acts: Obligation, Liberation, and Contemporary Christian Conflicts.

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