Faith and Politics today.

I was left with a lot of questions after our first class on Monday. I found it really interesting and exciting to embark on what will be a multi-faceted discussion of the complicated issue of faith and politics. After viewing the blog that Dr. Dillon wrote on Monday I was interested to see how things have changed. In other words, after watching videos on two of our leaders from years back I was interested to learn whether faith and politics was deemed an important issue from our current candidates. I went onto the websites of all the major candidates from both parties- Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards, John McCain, Mitt Romney, and Mike Huckabee. I found that a commonality among the websites was that they all had a tab at the top of the sites entitled “Issues.” I decided to see whether these candidates considered the crossroads of faith and politics to be a modern day “issue.” I found that faith was mentioned only on two of the candidates sites. Barack Obama had faith as an issue on his website and I will include his thoughts below. Perhaps most impressively, Mike Huckabee had an actual section under issues which he called “faith and politics”- perfect! Below you will find the two videos from these two candidates in which they discuss how faith and politics should inform one another.

(an interesting side note that I found from exploring the websites- I believe that it was Joe (or Bob?) that during class brought up the possibility of the environment being a moral issue. We ended up not putting it under the moral tab but I was interested when I found this as Huckabee’s tagline for his faith and politics section- “My faith is my life - it defines me. My faith doesn't influence my decisions, it drives them. For example, when it comes to the environment, I believe in being a good steward of the earth.” Just thought that it was interesting that the one issue he chose to illustrate the intersection of his faith and politics was the environment.)



I think in Huckabee's video we see a similar idea to that of Martin Luther King- that his faith is part of who he is and is therefore part of his political thought and action. Huckabee has been criticized for his extremist views when it comes to his faith, particularly his denial of evolution. My question is this- should Huckabee's opinions about something such as evolution effect his ability to be a strong political leader? If the answer is yes, then does that mean that candidates should hide their religious affiliations? And if the answer is no, then does that mean that any issue regarding faith should not affect one's political abilities and be used to pick up votes? I certainly do not know the answers to these questions, but I think they would make an interesting discussion.



Here, Barack takes a somewhat different road from Huckabee with an emphasis more on the communion of the various religious backgrounds of Americans and how the people of various religions can come together for a common political goal. He makes an interesting point about the major movements in our country and how they have been led by people of faith. I think another interesting idea that is brought up in this video and something that I was thinking about during the last class is the distinction between faith and morality. Barack says that the religious people do not have a monopoly on morality. When we talked last time about Kennedy bracketing his faith and politics and saying that he would leave faith behind when he entered the Whitehouse I could not help but think, well does that mean he needs to leave his morality? Are the issues of faith and morality separate and what are their distinctive roles in politics?

(Another side note that I thought was interesting was that the quote about the video on Barack's website was in relation to the Kennedy video that we watched in class-
“(Obama's speech on faith) may be the most important pronouncement by a Democrat on faith and politics since John F. Kennedy's Houston speech in 1960 declaring his independence from the Vatican...Obama offers the first faith testimony I have heard from any politician that speaks honestly about the uncertainties of belief.”
— E.J. Dionne, Op-Ed., Washington Post, June 30, 2006

I thought this was interesting given the fact that I was looking for how the new politicians differ or are similar to those we saw in class and then the website mentions that exact speech.)

The other major issue that I focused on during my time watching the news and other events this week was which issues were really being focused on by the candidates and the press. I was interested to see whether what we deemed the “moral issues” would find there way into the current political discourse. I watched both the State of the Union and the Democratic Debates, I was unable to watch the Republican debates so I watched highlights online. During the State of the Union Address George Bush mentioned the word “faith” only three times. The quotes are below:

“Thanks to the D.C. Opportunity Scholarships you approved, more than 2,600 of the poorest children in our nation's capital have found new hope at a faith-based or other nonpublic schools.”

“Faith-based groups are bringing hope to pockets of despair with newfound support from the federal government.”

“And, to help guarantee equal treatment of faith-based organizations when they compete for federal funds, I ask you to permanently extend Charitable Choice.”

Okay, so he mentions faith, but not really in regards to his own beliefs but only in regards to faith-based initiatives. For a president who campaigned as a “compassionate conservative” and used his faith quite a bit to appeal to voters, it is surprising that he does not mention it much these days.

During the Democratic Debates and what I could find from the Republican Debates there was no mention of faith and politics nor of the issues that we called moral. The major issues that were brought up during the debates were the big three of this election: Health Care, Economy, and the War. No candidate, except perhaps Huckabee, relates these kinds of issues to their own faith. I think the issue of poverty is one that represents some exception to this rule because often candidates mention their own values in relation to the supposed war on poverty. However, it is somewhat disheartening that faith does not seem to have a central role in our political discourse. Is this how it should be? Should the separation of church and state require that one’s faith be bracketed when it comes to political issues? And just as Dr. Dillon alluded to in her second post, is the discussion of faith on the political road a real faith or a calculated move to obtain more votes?