Politics and Faith

First published Albany Times-Union : Friday, October 24, 2008

Keep religion away from the ballot.

The Constitution, Article VI, Section 3, states "no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States." James Madison, the primary author of the Constitution, said, "An alliance or coalition between Government and religion cannot be too carefully guarded against."

Here's Theodore Roosevelt: "If there is one thing for which we stand in this country, it is for complete religious freedom, and it is an emphatic negation of this right to cross- examine a man on his religion before being willing to support him for office."

Yet we have now instituted such tests. We line up the presidential candidates and cross-examine them about their faith. They respond with Sunday school sagas about how they met God and pander to us with stories about how prayer will help them lead. How did this come about?

In 1979, four conservative activists, Paul Weyrich, Terry Dolan, Richard Viguerie (all Catholics) and Howard Phillips (a Jew who'd become an evangelical Christian) were looking for wedge issues to break up the Democratic Party. Right-wing economics and foreign policies had no popular appeal. So they came up with abortion, opposition to gay rights and (thinly disguised) racism, concerns that could be found clustered among religious conservatives. They recruited a minister, Jerry Falwell, funded him with corporate money and started the Moral Majority. It succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. The Religious Right became the base of the Republican Party, and the GOP gained control of federal government for the first time since the Great Depression.

Democrats were slow to respond. But politics is a business of learning what voters want to hear and then finding sincere ways to say it. Now, they've joined the choir. Meanwhile, sincerely religious liberals who hate the way faith became identified with right-wing politics were politicized in response.

Is faith a good guide to how someone will perform in office? George W. Bush, a born again Christian, claimed that God contacted him and said, "George," (they're on a first-name basis) "invade Afghanistan." So he did.

Although George failed to apprehend Osama bin Laden, God was apparently delighted, called back and said, "George, liberate Iraq."

Bush had a lot of support in all of this. Many people felt that he had been chosen by God to lead America in this moment of crisis and told him so. Here we are, a trillion dollars later, missions not accomplished, our armed forces too used up to respond to a new threat and our nation on the verge of bankruptcy.

If we accept it as true that God chose George and gave him specific instructions, and then look at the results, we have to form a very poor judgment of God, indeed, both as a human resources administrator and as a military strategist. Or, we might say that faith is not a good guide to competence in office.

I liked Jimmy Carter. Many did not. They felt that he was too goody-goody and too slow to resort to force -- the very qualities that came out of his version of born again Christianity. American presidents of little or no faith include Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln (though he could use biblical language to great effect), John Adams and George Washington. Yes, George Washington.

Washington did go to church, five or 10 times a year. But when people tried to box him into making a religious stand, he deftly evaded them. He gave moral advice to his adopted children, but, so far as we know, never urged religion on them.

He wrote: "Of all the animosities which have existed among mankind, those which are caused by difference of sentiments in religion appear to be the most inveterate and distressing, and ought most to be deprecated.

So if you are judging candidates by their religious stands, perhaps we should look to the model of the old George, the one who kept whatever faith he had to himself, and be more than a little worried about the candidate who more closely resembles our George. The one who gets bad guidance from God. Larry Beinhart's new novel, "Salvation Boulevard," is about the intersection of faith and politics. http://www.larrybeinhart.com

Comments

[blueollie]

My thoughts: I don't care what religious myths one believes or doesn't believe. I do care how people make decisions, and if someone thinks that "the end times are near" or that "the world is 6000 years old" or that we can escape the consequences of a problem if we cajole some deity into performing a miracle then, as far as I am concerned, that person is unqualified for office.

I don't want leaders that depend on "magic" and "miracles", though I understand why someone would use prayer, meditation and other practices (e. g., yoga) to calm their minds so that they can handle tough situations.

[Durango]

Separation of Church and State is designed to protect the CHURCH!!!!

And was advocated by, among other, Baptists. Who were discriminated against because many of the colonies had established churches. Churches that collected taxes from everyone.

And if you were not of the established church you still had to pay.And could e prosecuted. Even executed for not going along with the established church.

As one prominent church leader of the time said. If Christianity was the one true religion. Then it would be revealed to everyone on their own.

And there would be no reason to force Christian beliefs on anyone.

I would guess the Christian Right doesn't have that much faith in their own beliefs.

[davism97]

Well said Mr. Beinhart. There's a good 4 volume biography about George Washington written by James Flexner. It really educates you on what a selfless public servant is really like. They don't make them like Washington anymore. To destroy the wall of separation so that fundamentalist Christians can force their will on the people would've broken Washington's heart.

[Ovrthill]

Our problem is a system where a true selfless public servant will never get elected. We need to fix the system.

[Riven]

I think it's just possible that God did tell George W. Bush to invade Afghanistan and then Iraq. I'm not especially religious, but I do know that the Old Testament contains a number of stories in which the Hebrews were punished for their excesses and hubris with staggering defeats. Eventually, they were punished by the Diaspora.

If we read these stories as cautionary tales rather than religious ones, they point to the conclusion that pride does, indeed, go before a fall. Clearly the America that emerged from the Clinton years--financially secure, militarily superior--had a sense of itself as invincible. Bush manipulated that perception to misguide the country into two wars, but he is not solely to blame for our current sorry situation. We bear responsibility as well because of the insufferable attitude we had about ourselves. In bringing us to our knees, "Nature's God," as Thomas Jefferson once called the supreme being, may have been wiser than we think. And, of course, there's still time to reverse course with a President Obama. His greatest achievement would be, not to restore our economy, our military, or our worldwide image, but to restore our moral balance.

[Durango]

Hey, I bear NONE of the responsibility.

Zero, Zip Nada.

I do not accept any of the responsibility for what that fool and his cronies did.

I saw right through him from the beginning.

Don't pull that collective responsibility on me.

No way, no how!

[ArEsDee]

I don't consider myself to naive at all, but I am stunned that this whole co-mingling of politics and religion was contrived to push an agenda. Spin works, unfortunately.

[burpgun]

Reply to Montemalone-"When there is no religion,there will be peace!" Monte, we have a National Bureau of Standards in Washington, D.C. I admit that this is a very unusual place for these standards but these standards tell us exactly how long an object is, how much it weigns, how to determine its temperature, etc. Now Religion gives us a standard of what is right and what is wrong so when "there is no religion", there is no standard of right and wrong! Then it really doesn't matter if you are right or wrong and that is not "peace", that is chaos! Another name for chaos is anarchy!

[PistachioWildebeast]

Religion doesn't give you a standard of what is right and wrong. People decide on the standard of what is right and wrong, and some people use religion in an attempt to convince others that their views are absolute moral certainties. This has been known to result in unfortunate events. Dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria!

[Dave24]

The First Amendment, Thomas Jefferson's Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, etc.: These are the guides for our country, not the bible or any other fabricated scripture. As an Atheist, I will defend the rights of all people to believe in whatever God they want to; but they should also defend my right to abstain from such nonsense.

Secularism is good for religion just as much as it is good for government. The sooner theists realize this, the more united we can become. Until then, religious impositions remain a threat against us all.

[flanardiente]

Washington, Jefferson, most of the Founding Fathers, had a profound belief in God and an even more profound distaste for religion. They believed, essentially, that God made everything and moved on and it was up to us to figure out what to do with it. They usually didn't call God by name, "Providence" instead, the Provider, a wonderfully gender-neutral appellation that sounds almost modern. They were highly educated men of their time and the religious wars of Europe were near enough in time to be on their minds a lot. Jefferson was so proud of his legislation for religious freedom in Virginia that he wanted it carved on his tombstone, never mind the Declaration of Independence. Read what they wrote. They weren't shy, they left behind tons of correspondence and essays and articles, setting out exactly what they thought and what they believed. Their disgust at seeing today's religious bigots, panderers, hypocrites and parasites would be nothing compared to their disgust at how much power we've let them grab.

[brief candle]

I studied the bible for many years and you can make it say anything you want if you take sentences and put them together. You can do that with almost any book. Bin Laden is doing the very same thing with the Koran. To say that the evangelicals have got it right is like saying that, they and only they, know God, but the bible says that no one knows God, only the son. What I do know is that Jesus hung out with thieves, prostitutes, lawyers, tax collectors, and the poor. He fed the poor and turned over the tables of the money changers. Maybe it's time the evangelicals walked in his shoes instead of throwing stones at a decent man.

[MajorKong]

"I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do, because I notice it always coincides with their own desires." - Susan B. Anthony

[proreality]

excellent,

"When fascism comes to the United States it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross" Sinclair Lewis 1935

[burpgun]

Fascism did come to the United States in the 1940's but it was wrapped in black gold! Standard Oil of New Jersey-currently known as Exxon-Mobile- was brought up before three Congressional Committees on charges of "Treason and Impeding the U.S. War Effort" against Hitler's Nazi Germany! Reason-They gave Germany gasoline technology that enabled Hitler's war machine during WWII and contributed to Himmler's Circle of Friends-A Germen Fund Raiser-as late as 1944!

[brynn6]

Thank you all! I'm in Texas, where you can't swing a cat by the tail without hitting at least a half-dozen churches. I've lost jobs because I flatly refused to declare for a religion or discuss religion. My children have been openly harassed and called devil-worshipers in school. I sent them to a very secular Unitarian church (not all of them are alike) because I thought it would do the least damage and they could deflect some of the animosity. I was wrong. Unitarian wasn't good enough either.

Me, I'm not even religious enough to be an atheist. I know things must be getting a little better because if you had written this article right after the sacred 9/11, there would have been a hundred ugly responses by now. Keep up the good work...I think I love you. :)

[InTheSouth]

Very well said in this article. People in this country are still too much under the delusion that this country was set up as a Christian nation. It was not! Religions of all stripes were to be tolerated but none were to dominate, much less rule the government. Most of our founding fathers held religion in contempt as they were the educated of their time. Had they had the information available today from science, they would have probably been even tougher on religion. The fact that so many of us still prefer delusional beliefs and refuse to learn about the awesome reality that we have now discovered through science is saddening to me. Worse is that those people hold sway over our politicians. However, times might be changing. I can only hope. There are growing numbers of us that think "people of faith" should be challenged. They are not above the fray of rationality and reason. We also vote.

[LeftRight]

I'm so tired of people lying about the founders, claiming that this is (or was) a Christian Nation. That's such CRAP!!! We were formed mostly out of Northern Europeans, of course Christianity was a primary religion, but even in 1776 it wasn't the only one!!! GET OUT OF MY LIFE!!!

[iluvsam]

Thank you! I've been saying this for YEARS. However, I would take it further. I would have a religious test to hold office; the U.S. should be required to have only SECULAR politicians. If one believes in Bronze Age superstitions, believes in angels, and that some demi-god was born of a virgin, they should be automatically disqualified from being the most powerful person on the planet. Sorry. If one believes these things, they are completely irrational, delusional, and brainwashed to believe the ridiculous. I don't trust them to tie their own shoes let alone have access to the nuclear codes.

[HeevenSteven]

Nor the nuc-u-lar codes!

[PistachioWildebeast]

I completely agree. It seems self-evident that rationality is a necessary qualification for political office.

[montemalone]

When there is no religion, there will be peace.