The Role of Religion in American Politics

 

For a lot of people religious faith becomes a kind of surrogate for a sense of is that person moral and while many Americans don't believe you have to be religious to be moral a lot of people believe that there might be a slightly better shot if you are religious   the American political landscape has been changing over the last few decades the conservative movement largely shaped by the ten ants of fundamentalism has influenced policymaking and election results nothing that many leaders have drawn on religion to make a political point senior fellow EJ Dionne takes a closer look at the relationship between religion and politics EJ this election cycle seems to be heavily influenced by religion is this a blurring of the line between church and state or is it just a matter of religion in politics separation of church and state is quite different from separating religion from politics indeed I believe that our tradition of keeping religion independent of government created much stronger religious institutions in America's because it wasn't a backlash as there was in many European countries against the Church of Rome usually an established Church so totally tied with the power structure so you had you know lots of traditions that developed independently and develop strong roots in civil society and if you are a serious believer I think it's impossible to separate your religious convictions from your political convictions EJ this election is feeling a lot of intensity from the Tea Party which stands for many conservative things and we tend to think of conservative politics being associated with the religious right so what is the connection between the religious right and the Tea Party there is this very interesting in a relationship between the tea party and the religious right on the one hand they're distinct movements and the Tea Party is focused more particularly in its public rhetoric on smaller government lower taxes in many ways to me they are the reincarnation of some very old white and far-right traditions in our politics but a lot of people who are part of the Tea Party or think of themselves as part of the religious right there was a survey that we sort of had an event on here at Brookings and were involved with by the Public Religion Research Institute we were we found that about half of the people in the Tea Party also thought of themselves as part of the religious right among white members of Tea Party it was 57% who thought of themselves as Christian conservative and I think you have certain bridging figures Christine O'Donnell Sarah Palin some degree Glenn Beck who kind of linked these movements together initially a lot of people thought that the Tea Party was a pure kind of libertarian movement not a Christian Right movement but our survey the Public Religion survey showed that on the social issues Tea Party folks are quite conservative well what gives rise to a strong religious subtext in politics you say it tends to be cyclical and is it born of social movements or policy changes in society if you were back to why religion became more important in 1980 for starters you have a whole series of court decisions so that a lot of people opposed to abortion felt that roe v wade imposed abortion by a judicial Fiat and that created the right-to-life movement you had decisions earlier that ended prescribed prayer in public schools now there are a lot of religious people were actually happy about that because what kind of prayer can you actually write if you've got to write it for everyone nonetheless a lot of religious people were offended by that and so you know just to pick those two there were issues like that that came along and then I also think among you know evangelical Christians particularly in the South felt that their bra culture was kind of hostile to them and so there was a kind of pushback so I think all those things came together to help create the religious right well what are some of the things that give rise to strong religious subtext in politics I think we tend to be very inconsistent on this that we love it when religious traditions engage on our side of politics but then we think it's illegitimate when they were on the other side so a lot of liberals are inclined to say well why do these folks on the Christian Right you don't want to bring religion into the abortion battle or why do they want to bring it into the you know gay rights fight I don't think it's illegitimate I have my own views on all these subjects but I think it's natural that this these links get created well it sounds as if religion can be manipulative in politics I think what's troublesome is when we start creating religious tests for politicians or when people start arguing for positions solely on religious grounds because in a pluralistic country you may come to your conclusions because of religious convictions but you have to make your case in a democratic republic to people whether they share your religious convictions or not I think that's where we start to get trouble is when people think religious arguments alone suffice in a secular Democratic public sphere well EJ many of our presidents Thomas Jefferson Abraham Lincoln Franklin Roosevelt Bill Clinton Barack Obama had quoted from the Bible or use religious things to make a point and this is not alarming this is politics as usual correct I am NOT alarmed by the fact that we are a country that includes a lot of religious people who bring their religious convictions to the table when they talk about politics are there forms of it that I worry about sure do I dislike it when religion is invoked to justify intolerance I think that's always wrong I think it's wrong when religion is used to divide that that that it's it's it's wrong for Christians to sort of inspire hatred of Muslims or Muslims to inspire hatred of Christians and or anti-Semitism is wrong but to me that is often more the manipulation of religion rather than appealing to religions as I would see an authentic voice I don't just mean authentic because it leads to a politics I agree with I think that at its best religion is always a challenge to you not a conformation