We the Purple: Faith, Politics and the Independent Voter
By Marcia Ford | Related entries in 3rd Party, IndependentsGreetings! I’m Marcia Ford — journalist, writing guru, blogger, and author of We the Purple: Faith, Politics and the Independent Voter. Oh, and I’m a Christian, an evangelical no less. Ordinarily, I’d withhold that last bit of information for a while; I’d rather have people get to know me before they make wild and crazy assumptions about who I am based on my faith. But we’re blogging here, and that means we need to get right to the point.
Which is this: you cannot presume to judge a person’s politics by the church they attend. That’s truer than ever today, thanks to a variety of reasons: disenchantment with partisanship in the church; more open dialogue about faith and politics, largely taking place in cyberspace; and a greater freedom to question and challenge religious authority.
And yet, as recently as three years ago, I was pegged a Republican solely on the basis of the church I attended. Ironically, at the same time but several hundred miles away, I was pegged a Democrat because I chose to spend several days at a particular retreat center. There I was, a die-hard independent, with the stench of partisanship all over me. I would have none of that. The only way I knew to cleanse myself was to write We the Purple — and walk away from church for a good long time.
Over the next few weeks, I’ll be blogging not just about the relationship between faith and politics from an independent perspective but also about independents in general, particularly those who are politically active, savvy, and making a difference despite the major parties’ attempts to keep them from doing so.
I’ll look at who independents are and what they want, the areas of agreement that enable them to work together, and how the Internet has fueled the growth of the independent movement and related grassroots activism. And I’ll show how the two major parties attempt to suppress voter turnout, as well as use two specific hot-button issues to manipulate the religious vote. Finally, I’ll take a look at transpartisanism, a growing effort to bring major parties, third parties and independents to the table to work together on solutions to our nation’s many problems.
It’s a truly exciting time to be an independent, and not just because politicians are courting us more than ever before. We have the opportunity today to bring about radical political reform, from a position outside the two-party system — the only place genuine reform is likely to occur.
This entry was posted on Monday, April 7th, 2008 and is filed under 3rd Party, Independents. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
April 7th, 2008 at 2:26 pm
Cool. Great to see you posting here. Downloaded your first chapter, and I’ll buy the book later. Looking forward to some interesting discussions.
I am a committed Dividist myself, and consider that having partisans at each other’s throats to be positive good thing for the country. Should be fun.
I’ll contravene the blogger’s bylaws and actually read the book before airing my views.
April 7th, 2008 at 8:37 pm
I love the play on words with “We the Purple”. I’m dedicated to recognizing that most people want to leave the world a better place for their children and there isn’t one party or viewpoint that is “right” (meaning correct) in how we get there…not to mention multiple viewpoints on what “better” looks like. But our goals are similar. How do we have civil dialogue with one another about serious issues like constitutional rights, healthcare, immigration, Iraq, Iran etc. How do we persuade the righteously indignant to have dialogue? What’s in it for all of us that is better than being right? Looking forward to more blogs about the system itself.