{"id":1617,"date":"2004-12-04T10:10:00","date_gmt":"2004-12-04T14:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/nateptest\/2004\/12\/04\/dems-and-religion\/"},"modified":"2004-12-04T10:10:00","modified_gmt":"2004-12-04T14:10:00","slug":"dems-and-religion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/2004\/12\/04\/dems-and-religion\/","title":{"rendered":"Dems and religion"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

I wrote this about a month ago and shopped it around, but I haven’t heard anything back yet.  So I publish it here.<\/p>\n

“Don’t panic.”\n<\/div>\n

\nThat’s the first action that the Democrats need to take, in light of
\nthe election returns.  Then they need to get to the business of
\naddressing the role that religion plays in public life in our society,
\nas many Democrats have for many years been uncomfortable talking about
\nreligion in public.  <\/p>\n

Public professions of religion serve as one sort of shorthand, a signal
\nfor the star of values that guides a candidate through the night of
\npolicy.  Voters are wise enough to know that they will not care
\nabout the arcana of legislation and regulation. They prefer to leave
\ndecision-making to their politicians, as long as the shortcuts that
\ntell voters how a candidate might make a decision reassure them that he
\nshares the ways they might make similar decisions.<\/p>\n

Eighty-four percent of Americans attend a religious service with some
\nregularity.  And yet, very few religious believers seem to exist
\npublicly on the higher levels of the Democratic Party (with notable
\nexceptions like Mike McCurry).<\/p>\n

If the Democrats want to connect on religion, what should they
\ndo?  From a former Christian evangelical turned Anglican and
\nHarvard academic, here’s my few cents.<\/p>\n

1. Don’t use religion, be religion – I grew up as an evangelical
\nChristian in a conservative part of California.  Although no
\nlonger an evangelical, I still know the language, and I can hear it in
\nvirtually every speech that George W. Bush gives.  And it
\nresonates with a number of Christians in this country because it tells
\nthem that he’s committed.  In their understanding, to use the
\nlanguage of life-conversion indicates a wholesale change of heart, of
\nlife, of love.  Anyone who would reveal such an inner personal
\ntransformation in public demonstrates the life-altering effect of that
\nchange, proving that his religion resonates deep down within him. <\/p>\n

Faith has and does play a role in American public life, and many
\nDemocrats need to get used to and accept that fact.  The Democrats
\nneed to begin becoming comfortable talking about the role that faith
\nplays in their own lives.  Even if they don’t speak an evangelical
\nlanguage, they need not be shy using the language of their faith,
\nwhatever that may be.
\nUsing religion will have the opposite effect that the Democrats want
\nright now; being religious will make all the difference. 
\nReligious Democrats must get used to speaking openly and honestly about
\nhow their faith informs the choices they make.  They must call out
\nhypocritical uses of religion for political gain, whether by
\nRepublicans or Democrats.  And they must explain how the historic
\nfaiths they hold value openness, honesty, charity, and mercy.<\/p>\n

2. Social values versus personal values – If you actually read the
\nHebrew Bible, the Qu’ran, and the Christian Scriptures, you note that
\nGod spends lots of time lecturing his people on the care of the
\nlowliest people.  God lays down rules for the Hebrew nation how to
\ntreat the poor, slaves, and all sorts of vulnerable people.  When
\nGod gets angry in the Hebrew Bible, it’s often because his people have
\nabused the poor and lowly. Mary, pregnant with Jesus, sings of how God
\nwill “cast down the mighty from their seat and exalt the humble and
\nmeek.”  Jesus promises in the gospels again and again to upset the
\nsocial order and take care of those who are forgotten. <\/p>\n

These are all the values and morals of a society, and historic Judaism,
\nChristianity, and Islam have focused the vast majority of their
\nattention on these matters.  Yes, personal morals are of concern
\nto each of these religions.  But the greater concern of these
\ngreat religions (and to some extent in all the world religions) has
\nbeen for how a society treats its weakest and meekest.  Not only
\ndo these have a basis of appeal to religious believers, but also they
\ncan help appeal to non-believers in a language of political ethics.<\/p>\n

Religious Democrats (and there are a number of us) know that our
\nopposition to this war draws heavily on the moral teaching of our
\nfaith.  We believe that we proclaim our moral values most loudly
\nwhen we take care of the poor.  We believe that God made a world,
\nand to treat that world badly, to harm that creation demonstrates a
\nlack of love and gratefulness to that God and ourselves. We believe
\nthat our Creator has made us all good, unique, and equally valued,
\nwhich is why we believe that we must minimize the effects of inequality
\nand discrimination on racial, ethnic, sexual, and religious
\nminorities.  Even when we act in ways that seem to discriminate
\nagainst some of the religious (opposing prayer in schools, for
\nexample), we do this at least partially out of our religious concern
\nfor the inherent dignity of all God’s human children and the different
\nunderstanding of God that a different religion teaches – and even
\nrespect for no belief in God. <\/p>\n

When Democrats explain that such policies above are traditionally the
\nhighest Christian values, Jewish values, Muslim values, and religious
\nvalues, they will present a coherent philosophy that tells the voters
\nthey can trust Democratic politicians to make decisions.
\nIt has become something of a clich<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I wrote this about a month ago and shopped it around, but I haven’t heard anything back yet.  So I publish it here. “Don’t panic.” That’s the first action that the Democrats need to take, in light of the election returns.  Then they need to get to the business of addressing the role that religion […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":709,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[46],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politicks"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5G3PH-q5","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/709"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1617"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1617\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}