Is Religion a Threat to Democracy?
Commentary: Faith talk on the campaign trail.
January 14, 2008
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[Introduction by Tom Engelhardt]
Here's the strange thing: If we are in a political "season of change" and "change" is now the word most used by presidential candidates, change isn't exactly valued when it comes to presidential runs themselves. Take, for example, the Democratic debate moderated by ABC News' Charlie Gibson a week ago. In that mere hour and a half of television, Gibson, his TV sidekicks like George Stephanopoulos, and the four candidates managed to use the "C" word some 48 times -- being "agents of" or "power voices for change," "making," "delivering," "producing," "advocating for," "fighting for," "believing deeply in," "loving," even "embody[ing] change." In the process, they just about ground change into the dust. But lurking in the background was another use of that word—as an accusation—and it went unnoticed.
Here's Hillary Clinton, for example, launching an attack on Barack Obama:
"You know, I think that, two weeks ago, you criticized Senator Edwards in saying that he was unelectable because he had changed positions over the course of four years, that four years ago he wasn't for universal health care; now, he is. Well, you've changed positions within three years on, you know, a range of issues that you put forth when you ran for the Senate, and now you have changed."
To which, Obama had to respond: "I have been entirely consistent in my position on health care…"
This is typical of our electoral moment and it's another little legacy of the Bush era. You can probably thank Karl Rove for this one because in 2004, handling a notoriously single-minded, inflexible, and stubborn candidate, he managed to turn the "C" word into a curse no one is likely to forget. To change, you remember, was actually to "flip-flop." And if there's one thing in the post-2004 era that no candidate can now afford to be charged with, it's flipping and flopping like a fish on the deck of a ship.
John Edwards, for instance, recently changed his position on Iraq in a significant way. While still in the Iowa caucus race, he called for the withdrawal within 10 months of all American troops in Iraq (except for a few thousand soldiers left to guard the Baghdad embassy), including the trainers of Iraqi troops. Previously, like the other two leading candidates, he had only called for the withdrawal of American "combat troops" who make up perhaps half of the U.S. troop contingent. He was not challenged on this in the debate, but had he been, he would surely have little choice but to claim that he, too, had somehow been "consistent," that he hadn't flip-flopped on Iraq.
As a result, the "change" candidates of 2008, wielding the "C" word for an audience "fired up" for… well, you know what, so just shout it out… must themselves swear that they are "consistent" in their positions, that, in short, they do not change. The one thing these candidates of change can't go out in public and say is something like: "Well, that was 2002, but in the intervening years, I've done a lot of thinking, had new experiences, grown, matured… changed, and so has my position on [you fill in the issue]."
Change may, or may not, turn out to be the Pied Piper of 2008 for the American voter, but it surely will remain the Scylla and Charybdis of twenty-first century presidential politics. So watch out… be consistent… go (like the Republican candidates) for the "eternal" verities… and, while you're at it, consider the nature of religious consistency in politics, because this election is, so far, not just the non-flip-flop election, but the "faith" election in which even Hillary Clinton has a "Faith, Family and Values" team on her campaign staff, while John McCain claimed on the campaign trail that he thought the Constitution had established a "Christian nation"… but let Tomdispatch regular and professor of religion Ira Chernus tell you the rest. Tom Engelhardt
Is Religion a Threat to Democracy?
Faith talk on the campaign trail.
By Ira Chernus
It's a presidential campaign like no other. The candidates have been falling all over each other in their rush to declare the depth and sincerity of their religious faith. The pundits have been just as eager to raise questions that seem obvious and important: Should we let religious beliefs influence the making of law and public policy? If so, in what way and to what extent? Those questions, however, assume that candidates bring the subject of faith into the political arena largely to justify—or turn up the heat under—their policy positions. In fact, faith talk often has little to do with candidates' stands on the issues. There's something else going on here.
Look at the TV ad that brought Mike Huckabee out of obscurity in Iowa, the one that identified him as a "Christian Leader" who proclaims: "Faith doesn't just influence me. It really defines me." That ad did indeed mention a couple of actual political issues—the usual suspects, abortion and gay marriage—but only in passing. Then Huckabee followed up with a red sweater-themed Christmas ad that actively encouraged voters to ignore the issues. We're all tired of politics, the kindly pastor indicated. Let's just drop all the policy stuff and talk about Christmas—and Christ.
Ads like his aren't meant to argue policy. They aim to create an image—in this case, of a good Christian with a steady moral compass who sticks to his principles. At a deeper level, faith-talk ads work hard to turn the candidate—whatever candidate—into a bulwark of solidity, a symbol of certainty; their goal is to offer assurance that the basic rules for living remain fixed, objective truths, as true as religion.
In a time when the world seems like a shaky place—whether you have a child in Iraq, a mortgage you may not be able to meet, a pension threatening to head south, a job evaporating under you, a loved one battling drug or alcohol addiction, an ex who just came out as gay or born-again, or a president you just can't trust—you may begin to wonder whether there is any moral order in the universe. Are the very foundations of society so shaky that they might not hold up for long? Words about faith—nearly any words—speak reassuringly to such fears, which haunt millions of Americans.
These fears and the religious responses to them have been a key to the political success of the religious right in recent decades. Randall Balmer, a leading scholar of evangelical Christianity, points out that it's offered not so much "issues" to mobilize around as "an unambiguous morality in an age of moral and ethical uncertainty."
Mitt Romney was courting the evangelical-swinging-toward-Huckabee vote when he, too, went out of his way to link religion with moral absolutes in his big Iowa speech on faith. Our "common creed of moral convictions… the firm ground on which Americans of different faiths meet" turned out, utterly unsurprisingly, to be none other than religious soil: "We believe that every single human being is a child of God… liberty is a gift of God." No doubts allowed here.
American politicians have regularly wielded religious language and symbolism in their moments of need, and such faith talk has always helped provide a sense of moral certainty in a shape-shifting world. But in the better years of the previous century, candidates used religion mostly as an adjunct to the real meat of the political process, a tool to whip up support for policies.
How times have changed. Think of it, perhaps, as a way to measure the powerful sense of unsettledness that has taken a firm hold on American society. Candidates increasingly keep their talk about religion separate from specific campaign issues. They promote faith as something important and valuable in and of itself in the election process. They invariably avow the deep roots of their religious faith and link it not with issues, but with certitude itself.
