Religion is mixing with politics this presidential primary season in most intriguing ways. By all estimates the GOP, which is supposed to be the party of God is having a hard time finding a candidate. The two most outspokenly religious candidates -- Sam Brownback and Mike Huckabee -- can't get any traction and at least for now aren't a factor. Mitt Romney's Mormonism has proven problematic, and well there's Rudy Giuliani who just doesn't fit the program guide (McCain is fading out quickly). So who might the savior be?
Well it appears that the Religious Right is checking out
Law and Order DA and former Tennessee senator Fred Thompson. Dan Gilgoff writes a short piece for
U.S. News and World Report on Thompson's outreach to Conservative Christians, but there seem to be real questions about the authenticity of his faith. He's willing to meet with the kingmakers, who are interested, but they're not going bonkers over him. At least at this point, it seems more like pandering than outright piety.
The Democrats, of course, are the secularists, except that this year the top tier candidates are all quite glib about their faith professions, and Barack Obama is the most open about his faith. Despite efforts to tar him as being a Muslim -- and of course you can't suggest a Muslim (that's called xenophobia), Obama is the most outspokenly candidate about faith in the campaign. He makes it clear he's not ceding the faith and values conversation to the Religious Right. Yes, he's a liberal and he's a member of a liberal Black church with a controversial pastor, but he's very clear that his commitment to public service is rooted in his faith. The Christian Science Monitor has an excellent and fairly lengthy piece that lays out Obama's roots and faith views.
The author of the article on Obama, Arial Sabar, writes:
More than the other Democratic candidates for president, Obama has made faith a centerpiece of his campaign.
He has warned the left against ceding the mantle of religion to the evangelical right. He speaks of the church as an abiding force in American public life, from the Boston Tea Party through the abolitionist and civil rights movements. He suffuses his speeches with biblical allusions – "I am my brother's keeper" is a favorite phrase. And he has cast his generation of black leaders as modern-day Joshuas, after Moses' successor, who led the Israelites to the Promised Land.
Many of Obama's political views are "an outgrowth of his reading of some of the seminal parts of the Bible about doing unto the 'least of these' just as we would have done unto Christ," says Joshua DuBois, the campaign's director of religious affairs, paraphrasing verses in the book of Matthew. "He takes very seriously the numerous passages in the Bible that talk not only about poverty, but of people of faith taking God's words and extending them beyond the four
walls of the church."
But as Obama promotes faith as a means of uniting a diverse America around a shared set of values, he has at times found himself in a political minefield. To the left are liberals uneasy with religious intrusions into politics; to the right, conservatives who have questioned his Christianity and denounced his ties to Wright's Afrocentric church.
Now, I realize that this is a controversial step that Obama is taking. In fact it's a risky one. He has to keep a balance that doesn't put off the secularist wing of the party or unsettle those, like me, who believe in the separation of church and state, but I appreciate his willingness to take back from the Religious Right the Values debate!
The fine line here has to do with authenticity and recognition of the diversity of religious views in the nation. I think the reason people are fed up with the Religious Right is that it's so exclusivist and dogmatic. But, if the Religious Left is to find its voice it must be open while at the same being seen as believing in something -- wishy-washy won't cut it. But, whatever happens come November 2008, this election cycle has certainly turned things upside down!
Comments