Candidates talk…a lot…about religion

CNN has been re-running its special of last weekend ‘Faith and Politics’ and, in fact, it’s airing again tonight. If you haven’t seen it, try to catch it on this go-round, because when the presidential candidates get pressed for answer on matters of religion, it’s a moment of truth…so to speak. This particular special presses Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and Barack Obama for answers, and they are telling. Both in word, and body language.

But I have a question I haven’t heard asked yet by all the media folks talking so much these days about faith as an issue in the elections. Over and over lately, I’ve heard Hillary almost reproach questioners with the comment ‘I don’t believe you should wear religion on your sleeve’. And now some big media newsroom anchors are working that line into their questions. Like….’Senator (whoever), some politicians think you have to wear religion on your sleeve to attract the religious vote…’

So my question is…what the heck does that mean? I’d like to hear one big name media celebrity ask “What does it mean to wear religion on your sleeve, and why are so many people using that as a buzz phrase now?” Maybe to avoid discussing their deeply held beliefs on matters of morality, on the record. They do answer the questions, because religion has emerged as one of the big topics in the debates. But some of them would obviously rather not.

Look, nobody can or should judge another person’s sincerity or intent. Period. But voters want and deserve to know what moral compass directs a candidate’s worldview. The Christian Science Monitor has this analysis of that ‘faith and politics’ forum, with the ‘take’ that finding faith has made for a good political strategy.

This was no garden-variety political presentation by the top three Democratic presidential candidates Monday night on the campus of George Washington University, in the shadow of the White House. The forum, sponsored by the progressive Christian group Sojourners, represented the boldest indication yet that the “religious left” is building as a political force, no longer willing to cede “values voters” to the religious conservative movement that has long formed the activist base of the Republican Party.

The candidates’ easy willingness to appear at the forum also represents a watershed for the modern Democratic Party: Intimate discussion of faith, and how it informs policy views and personal behavior, is no longer an arms-length proposition at the party’s highest levels.

“It’s an important strategic move for all these people – not to say their faith isn’t genuine,” says Jim Guth, an expert on religion and politics at Furman University in Greenville, S.C. “But I think they recognize that in a very closely divided electorate, any ability they have to peel off moderate religious conservatives or centrists, by making it clear they’re comfortable with the language of faith – that’s a political advantage and wise strategy and maybe good policy and good politics.”

So, you are being wooed, courted, solicited. But at the same time, America is finding where it stands are a nation whose Founding Fathers were very bold and clear about the Christian roots of the nation. We’re having a national ‘conversation’ about how faith informs us.

Still, experts on religion and politics agree that the religious left has a way to go to catch up to the religious right in organizational strength and that there are structural barriers that could prevent it from happening.

“When you look at religious progressives, generally, they come in many different varieties,” says John Green, a senior fellow at the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.

Some are theological liberals who happen to be politically liberal, some are theological conservatives who happen to be politically liberal, and some are a bit of both, Mr. Green says. And they come from different backgrounds – evangelical, Catholic, mainline Protestant. So while religious conservatives can easily organize within their congregations, for the religious left it is more complicated…

Each side emphasizes different issues, and so the rise of one is not necessarily dependent on the decline of another. For the right, abortion and gay rights have long been the driving issues, while on the left, poverty is the top issue – and was the focus of Monday’s presidential forum. The Iraq war, climate change, energy, and the environment have also grown in importance among religious liberals, and the rise of those issues in public consciousness in the past couple of years has also given religious progressives more to rally around.

But there’s another distinction to make here. While the right is driven by the pro-life cause, they see it as the root of all human rights on which every other good and service and protection is grounded. The religious right also embraces that range of social justice causes, and their organizations do tremendous global relief work to uphold the dignity of each human person. But the religious left is driven – as this article says – by social justice and environmentalism and culturally progressive causes, while they’re divided on the belief that the life to be celebrated and cared for begins in the womb.

It’s going to be a very interesting presidential campaign, now that everyone’s reckoning with religion.