I'm going to do something that is becoming increasingly unpopular amongst some Progressives: I'm taking Jon Stewart's side on what it will take to help the U.S. move forward - to progress rather than regress by getting stuck in the muck of our current political content and disposition.

The Right would love for the Left to buy into the dialogical framework they have built.  It avoids facts (or manipulates them), does not engage in conversation (more interested in who is the best or loudest bully), answers difficult question with non sequiturs and makes calls to broadly defined archetypes such as 'patriot', 'liberal' and 'socialist' in order to demonize or promote something or someone by evoking an emotional response from the audience rather than being bothered with facts.  The frame work is founded on the perception of being unchangeable and irrefutable.  The purpose of that foundation is precisely to mask the reality that the whole thing is a shell game where everything is changeable and refutable.

In much the same way that parts of MSNBC are becoming a mirrored response to Fox News, the Left is falling into the Right's dialogical framework – and it serves the Right well.  Not surprisingly, progress is antithetical to the goals of the Right.  A system bogged down in name calling, shouting and an 'us vs. them' disposition will never move forward (or will only move forward begrudgingly as we try to pull the nation's legs through the muck). 

They not only want us to do it, but in order to continue to support their agenda of not changing things too rapidly (which insures that those who are currently powerful remain powerful), they need us to do it.  They feed us a message of divide that over-inflates the importance of everything as if the wrong choice will be catastrophic.  People on both sides lap it up feeding the worst part of our humanity.

“But we live now in hard times, not end times. 
And we can have animus and not be enemies.”
-Jon Stewart at the Rally to Restore Sanity

I'm decidedly with Stewart on this one.  Those who will not engage in substantive discourse show either a lack of concern for the truth or a fear that their preconceived 'truth' isn't durable enough to hold up to scrutiny.  Riding under both positions is a general unwillingness to nuance your current belief.

As Stewart said in a recent interview with Rachael Maddow, “My problem is, it's become tribal." Our nation has bought into the framework set up by the Right.  We choose sides, come out fighting and act as if our very lives are counting on it.  I suppose they are, but just not in the immediate fashion our passion would suggest. 

My question is this, if it matters that much, why choose the path of mutually insured stagnation?

Yes, it has been far too long since the Left has had a charismatic, sharp minded leader to both represent us and give voice to viewpoints countering the ones expressed by the likes of Beck and Palin.  We hunger for that person to step up. Olbermann is fine, but he's not the one.  We thought Obama was the one, but the realities of the quagmire in D.C. have put an end to that.  Rachel Maddow may be the rising star, but her admirable commitment to MSNBC may tie her in so closely with the response to Fox that it will hamper her ability to do it with all of the credibility she deserves.

We hunger for that kind of leader so deeply that we are willing to crown Stewart our leader, when he doesn't want to be our leader.  He seeks to be a voice of reason, of sanity, calling out into the wildernesses of political and religious divide.  As you can both see demonstrated and hear articulated in the video clip below, he believes that the intentionally divisive nature of our current national discourse is counter productive to progress.  And I agree.

I hunger for substantive discourse in this great nation and I think most progressive do as well.  But the frustration of banging your head against the wall you meet almost every time you try to engage a hard core Fox News devotee in civil debate has led us to do a most surprising, yet somewhat understandable thing.  We have not only disengaged from substantive discourse with them, but at times with ourselves.  Worse yet, as can be seen in the disappointment some have expressed with Stewart after the rally, we are looking for someone to give it back to the Right utilizing the same tactics and framework they use.

Our fault is in thinking our new leader has to be a progressive mirror image of the leaders on the right.  What we need is someone who is different from all of that.  Someone who can stand outside of the fray, asses the real issues, point to the fundamental flaws in each side's arguments and then bring us to the table for dialog, all-the-while calling BS on us if we start to slip back into fallacious debate or party -line politics.

It turns out that while Jon Stewart might not be the voice we want, he just might be the voice we need.

As a Christian minister, I hope that he is, or that someone with a similar message is just waiting in the wings for the right opportunity.  This divided nation does not reflect a God who created us all equal.  This divided nation would rather demonize the other (see the devil in them) than see the reflection of the divine that God has planted in them – we would rather hate our enemy than love them. Our lack of substantive dialog does not point to a God who delights in wisdom daily. 

While we are not a nation of believers, I can't help but imagine what it would look like if those who do profess to worship God actually started acting like it.

Update: More on the dangers of this dialogical divide from one of my favorite thought thinkers: Dr. Seuss. (Thanks to a friend on The Christian Left for this connection).

Jon Stewart's Rally To Restore Sanity takes place this week.  I have to say, I am literally praying that it hits a nerve with most  Americans.  Admittedly, we know very little about what will actually happen at the rally.  It's hard to say definitively that it won't just turn out to be a jokefest, but even in his most comical moments Jon Stewart manages to slip in biting, level-headed, rational social and political commentary, so I can't help but believe the rally will be similar.

And none-to-soon.  As a matter of fact, you could easily make the argument that it is almost too late.  The divides in this nation are as deep as they have been in recent memory.  Political attack ads don't even pretend to be sane. If anything there seems to be a competition for who can get away with the most insane, unfounded, outrageous ad. “I'll see your 'scary Mexican illegal immigrants' and raise you a 'Latinos shouldn't vote.'” 

And it isn't just the Right that isn't...well, right.  The left plays their own version of this reactionary, thoughtless insanity. From the recent firing of  NPR analysts Juan Williams for giving commentary on a show where he was taking on the role of commentator to the USDA firing Shirley Sherrod for something she said about a white farmer which was taken out of context.  In both cases rational, sound minds might have contextualized their statements and made reasonable choices rather than capitulating to the either\or with\us against us false dichotomy than has been falsely set up as the prevailing narrative our our nation.

As I said, we don't really know what Stewart's (and Colbert's) plans are for the rally, but the signs being proposed for the rally (check them at at saneornot.com/sane) do give us a general idea of what might be the day's theme: “I understand the difference between, communism, fascism, and socialism and don't use the terms interchangeably,” “My political views cannot be summarized in a pithy sign,” “One of us or perhaps neither of us may be right.”   At the heart of each sign: rationality, reasonableness and acceptance.

As a Christian minister, I have to say I'm majorly in favor of moving this nation away from our current wilderness of division and hate, toward a narrative of acceptance and sanity.  John the Baptist brought a similar message from the wilderness in a time of political and religious divides.  During a time when those with power and money were constantly taking advantage of those without, he proclaimed the coming of one that would lower the mountains and  raise up the valleys; make the crooked straight; and the rough plains smooth.

Jesus did just that.  Calling for the world to stop it's dividing and belittling ways, to recognize the value in everyone, to offer a helping hand to those in need, and to stop the corruption practiced by so many of the powerful.  Much later in the history of the world another man would pick up the great theme of which John the Baptist proclaimed as he stood in Washington, DC and said, “I  have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.”

The fear and the divide that political ads and reactionary responses to sound bites place on this nation move us further away from Jesus' vision which was so soundly reiterated in Dr. King's dream.  We must not let the fear, division and thoughtlessness win out.

Clearly Stewart is no Dr. King, or John the Baptist or Jesus.  But (even though the far Right will no doubt bash his message as elitist, socialist, and naïve) it does seem that, Stewart stands in the shadows of these giants in as much as, it would seem, he will be reiterating their message to us... only he'll be funnier.  Let us hope, let us pray, that all flesh will see that day together.

Jon Stewart, born Jonathan Stuart Leibowitz, is holding a rally in Washington on October 30, 2010. The Rally To Restore Sanity, without just coming right out and saying it, it is a response to Glenn Beck's Restoring Honor rally - a rally held on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on the anniversary of King's "I have a dream" speech. Beck's rally attempted to co-opt not only the civil rights movement, but Christianity as well.

The problem is, just under the surface of much of what was said, were some pretty ridiculous implications that fit in neither the realm of civil rights or Christianity. As seems to be the case at any Tea Party related rally, there was the ever present (yet unspoken) assumption of white privilege - definitely not part of the civil rights movement. Also unspoken (for the most part) and related to the former was a great deal of anger, hate and fear. All three of which, I would argue, the Bible encourages Christians to avoid.

Along with the things that were silently (for the most part) present, I'd also like to mention a very specific, and admittedly subjective, thing that was noticeably absent - rationality or any real attempt at wisdom. You know, that silly little thing that Proverbs tells us is the thing in which God delights daily.

Enter Jon, a Jew by birth (and by his own admission, just barely by practice). With a rally sign ready, reading "I do not agree with you but I do not think you are Hitler," Jon announced his Rally To Restore Sanity – a million moderate march – a rally to promote reasonableness, a rally to restore sanity...and he's doing it in WASHINGTON, DC! (Seriously Jon, admit it, trying to restore sanity in Washington... well, it's a little insane).

Jon proposes to, in concert with Stephen Colbert's March to Keep Fear Alive , comically show the absurdity of what has become the tenor of the nation – divisiveness, anger, fear, judgment and doing it all in the name of God. As stations like FOX News (where Glenn Beck's show is hosted) seem hell bent on always kicking the bipartisan rhetoric up a notch, Jon purposes to “Take It Down A Notch For America.”

Ultimately, the wisdom, forgiveness, acceptance and rationality to which Jon calls our nation, are (or at least should be) at the core of Christianity. Not that they aren't at the core of many other religions not to mention good old fashioned morality, because they are, but it is particularly interesting (and in my opinion fitting) that it took a Jew to stand up for what is biblically right (even though it isn't likely that the Bible is the impetus behind his call) in the face of a ramped-up and horribly deformed Christianity.

You can watch both announcements here: