That 'Vision Thing'

I was up early in my Chicago hotel room and turned on the television to get more news of the previous day's Connecticut primary. The first words I heard were insurgent candidate and upset winner Jerry Brown's, intoning the biblical text from which I would be preaching that morning to SCUPE's National Urban Congress: "Without a vision, the people perish." It's becoming apparent to many Americans that we have a vision problem.

The issue was first officially named when George Bush joked, in a now famous remark, that he wasn't very good at "the vision thing." Subsequent events have proven the president right, but they have also shown that it isn't very funny.

In New York two weeks later, Brown and Bill Clinton slugged it out in the nastiest primary so far. The sordid affair featured a media circus, angry voters, and a low turnout that reflected public disgust and the often expressed majority sentiment for better options. Fifty percent of the voters believed the winner (Clinton) lacks the honesty and integrity to be president, and voters seemed to trust his opponent even less.

Low voter turnout, disappointment with the choices, and frustration with the direction of the country have characterized most of the primaries thus far. As many as 100 members of Congress may decide to leave office this year amid the cloud of corruption, paralysis, and growing public resentment. And all the candidates, including George Bush, can't say enough about how much they stand for change.

So far, most of the energy and enthusiasm of this presidential election campaign have been generated by the three "protest candidates." Jerry Brown, Pat Buchanan, and now Texas billionaire H. Ross Perot have each struck a nerve. Though the three have wildly different platforms, each has articulated the political alienation in growing sectors of the electorate.

Brown is mobilizing the public outrage against the whole political system, but has yet to generate confidence in his message or its messenger. Buchanan's politics of division seems to have fizzled now, but it points to the dangerous potential of a visionless and unraveling political climate. Perot's offer to run the country like a big business appeals to frustrated voters who feel the paralysis of the political process. All three point to the problem, but none of them has demonstrated a consistent and compelling alternative vision and the quality of personal leadership that generates trust.

ENDLESS DISCUSSIONS of term limitations, campaign tactics, and personal issues provide more distraction than genuine public debate about the crises and opportunities we now face as a nation. The underlying issues, dilemmas, and choices that confront us have yet to be clarified or adequately addressed in the public discussion.

This election year comes at a historic moment with the end of the Cold War, the changing global economy, the challenge of cultural pluralism, the urgent danger to the world's abandoned children, the pandemic of AIDS, and the international focus on the threats to our environment. Yet somehow, in this election year, these and other overarching questions are mostly being ignored. And in the moral vacuum of public leadership, we are indeed perishing.

The 800 urban pastors and church leaders who gathered in Chicago arrived in great pain and anguish from the places they live and work. Some kept calling home during the week-long congress to see if anyone had been shot. What became clear is that we are not facing an "urban crisis" but a national crisis of the soul in which the cities are bearing the brunt of the suffering.

In Chicago we named the "demons" that have taken possession of the nation, including the racism that divides us, the sexism that diminishes us, the class structures that control us, and the consumerism that is destroying our children, our environment, and our very souls. The feelings of helplessness gave way to a passionate hopefulness as we together articulated the contours of a new vision for our cities, our churches, and our nation. A bold and prayerful proclamation of "prophetic politics" emerged in the face of the empty public debate the nation now endures. In a precious moment of conviction and commitment, hundreds of pastors joined an altar call of black and white, Latino and Asian, women and men, to forge a "partnership for redemption and justice."

We have recently witnessed how an awakened church can make a political difference. In East Germany, congregations became the forums for change. In South Africa, courageous church leaders filled the political void created by white repression to provide national leadership for freedom. In El Salvador, the blood of a martyred church became the seed of political transformation.

Perhaps the time for the American church is coming. The most important question before us is where the visions and visionaries we need will come from. Perhaps we should stop looking to the compromised politicians and being forever disappointed. And perhaps the most important thing is not what happens in 1992, but afterward.