Bruce Feiler - Where God Was Born, Abraham, Walking The Bible

Do We Need a Person of Faith to Run the Country?
Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Andrew Sullivan on "Reaping the Religious Whirlwind," God and the Republican Party:

Tackling an antiMormon evangelical heckler at one event, Romney delivered this carefully rehearsed line: “We need to have a person of faith lead the country.” It sounds pleasant enough and smooths over the difficult question of what exactly the content of your faith is – but isn’t it also a form of bigotry? Doesn’t it imply that atheists have no business running for office in the United States? If it’s bigotry to oppose someone on the basis of their faith, why is it not bigotry to oppose someone because they have none?

What the Republicans are discovering is that the short-term gains of using religion as a political weapon may be outweighed by the medium-term costs. Their two best candidates have been crippled by religious controversy. The third, John McCain, despite being pro-life, has had run-ins with the religious right in the past and cannot regain lost trust with the evangelical base.

Meanwhile, independents and swing voters are turned off by some of the rhetoric. In the first nationally televised Republican debate, three candidates said they did not accept the theory of evolution. If they don’t even buy natural selection, how are they going to grapple with climate change? And then there are small stories from the heart-land that just strike many Americans as bizarre. My favourite one was a resolution proposed by Utah Republicans at a local convention a couple of weeks ago. It was a statement of opposition to illegal immigration, but it had an eye-catching title: “Resolution opposing Satan’s plan to destroy the US by stealth invasion.”

The real stealth invasion, of course, is the incursion of blatant sectarianism into secular American political discourse. Sectarian politics doesn’t work in Baghdad, and it can’t work in Washington either. When it doesn’t end all civil conversation, it diminishes the ability of good men – like Romney and Giuliani – to run for office regardless of their own religious convictions.

Labels: Religion in America

Posted by B Feiler at 7:00 AM
Permalink Digg this Post Email this Post

0 Comments: