SEPT. 9, 2008

ELECTIONS 2008
They’re off! God and politics in the presidential campaign

With the party conventions over and the Democratic and Republican tickets set, the two-month sprint to Election Day on Nov. 4 begins – and in that race, religion is playing a major role. Among the factors at play in the coming political drama: Barack Obama’s publicly professed Christianity and the controversy over the former pastor of his Chicago church; the abortion-rights, social-justice record of his Catholic running mate, Joseph Biden; John McCain’s feud and reconciliation with the religious right; and his running mate Sarah Palin’s strong but nondenominational Christianity, as well as her rejection of abortion while facing the birth of a special-needs child and the pregnancy of her unmarried teenage daughter.

This edition of ReligionLink aims to frame the issues and provide an easy-to-use database of resources that will be updated throughout the campaign.

Why it matters

Religious faith and religious culture remain core components of the nation’s political dynamic, and of discussions in the public square about public policy. These characteristics are never more salient than during a presidential election campaign.

The candidates

The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life has extensive resources at its 2008 campaign site. Pew also provides detailed biographies and religious background profiles for each candidate.

Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois is the Democratic nominee for president. A Christian, Obama attended Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago for most of his adult life. In May 2008, he left that congregation after an uproar over comments and sermons by the church’s controversial former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. The Obama family has not settled on a new congregation. In the Aug. 7, 2008, edition of Time magazine, Obama wrote a brief essay, “Changing Hearts and Minds,” which sets out his personal faith story.

Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware is the Democratic nominee for vice president. Biden was born and raised Catholic in Scranton, Pa. He is considered a moderate supporter of abortion rights, and his stance on Roe v. Wade has brought him into conflict with some church leaders. An Aug. 27, 2007, Christian Science Monitor profile of Biden, “A Frank and Abiding Faith,” is a good starting point for exploring Biden’s personal religious views.

Sen. John McCain of Arizona is the Republican nominee for president. McCain was raised an Episcopalian but in recent years has gravitated toward North Phoenix Baptist Church. McCain said his wife and two of their seven children have been baptized there, but he has not, though he is weighing the possibility. In the Aug. 7, 2008, edition of Time magazine, John McCain wrote a brief essay, “A Light Amid the Darkness,” which sets out his personal faith story.

Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska is the Republican nominee for vice president. Palin was reportedly baptized Catholic as an infant but then attended Assemblies of God churches while growing up, though she says she does not identify as a Pentecostal. Palin attends a number of nondenominational Protestant churches in Anchorage. A post at Christianity Today’s “Election 2008” site rounds up what is known of Palin’s religious upbringing and affiliations. Also see a Sept. 3, 2008, interview with her biographer, Kaylene Johnson, conducted for Beliefnet by the editor of the God-o-Meter site, Dan Gilgoff. The biography is Sarah: How a Hockey Mom Turned Alaska’s Political Establishment Upside Down.

The platforms

The Republican Party platform for 2008 is available at the party’s Web site in a 67-page PDF file.

The Democratic Party platform for 2008 is titled “Renewing America’s Promise.” Read the draft of the 56-page document in a PDF file.  

The voters

An August Pew Forum survey showed that a majority of Americans (52 percent) now believe churches should stay out of “day-to-day social and political matters,” a change from a decade earlier. Much of the shift has come from conservative voters who may have become disillusioned with the track record of the Bush administration.

At the same time, voters say that faith is important to them and that they want their leaders to be people of faith. Moreover, McCain’s selection of Palin, a conservative Christian, energized voters on the religious right, demonstrating how important religion is, especially to the Republican Party.

• Read a survey, “Religious Voters in the 2008 Election,” released in June 2008, from the Henry Institute for the Study of Christianity and Politics at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Mich. The study gauged the political attitudes and preferences of mainline Protestants, Roman Catholics, evangelicals and religiously unaffiliated voters.
• ReligionLink has links to the major polling organizations that will be tracking voter views through Election Day. Public Agenda, a nonprofit research organization, posts “20 Questions Journalists Should Ask About Poll Results,” as well as other resources for reporters.
• Note also that on Sept. 20, 2008, in Washington, D.C., there will be a session on “Surveying Surveys” as part of the Religion Newswriters Association annual conference. The session is designed to help journalists interpret polls and determine what they say and which are trustworthy.

The issues

The following is a guide to some of the principal issues likely to influence the campaign, along with links to ReligionLink resources. For a general overview of issues and sources, read the February 2008 ReligionLink edition “Beyond Super Tuesday: religion in the presidential campaign.” Also note that the Pew Forum biographies allow a side-by-side comparison of the candidates’ views and track records on an issue.

Another useful tool is a “Faith 2008 Database” hosted by the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace & World Affairs at Georgetown University. The database “tracks religious rhetoric in the campaign by candidate and theme, and features historical and international comparisons.”

EVANGELICALS
The emergence of the “new evangelicals,” who include issues such as the environment and poverty reduction among their electoral concerns, was expected to diminish the power of the traditional, GOP-leaning religious right, which has also lost some of its old guard leaders to death and scandal. The nomination of McCain, who had a history of conflict with conservative Christian leaders, raised further questions. Two key events appear to have turned that around: One was the Aug. 16, 2008, appearance of both presidential candidates in consecutive one-hour conversations with Saddleback Church Pastor Rick Warren, a best-selling author and perhaps the best-known evangelical leader in the country. McCain was expected to have a difficult time but seemed to impress the audience and won kudos from many religious conservatives. (Read a transcript of the two interviews from CNN.) The second development was McCain’s choice of Palin, who appears to have galvanized the GOP’s evangelical base.
• Read ReligionLink’s “Guide to evangelicals and politics.”

RELIGIOUS LEFT: COMING TO LIFE?
Will this election be the last hurrah for the religious right – and herald the rise of the religious left? Or, if Obama loses, will it doom the religious left to irrelevancy? Both sides say much is at stake. The so-called religious left has been tracked for several years now, but the diminished stature of President Bush and the wide appeal of Obama, a Scripture-quoting Christian and Democrat, may be the confluence of factors that brings this new religious movement to national prominence.
• Read a ReligionLink edition, “The religious ‘left’ reasserts itself.”

COMMUNION WATCH, REDUX?
Obama’s selection of Biden, a lifelong, practicing Catholic who supports Roe v. Wade, has renewed the furious debates from the 2004 campaign as to whether John Kerry should receive communion, or whether Catholics could in good conscience vote for him and consider themselves in good standing with the church. Since Catholics make up nearly one-quarter of the electorate, and since they are a “swing vote” that tends to side with the winner in most elections, their attitudes are crucial. Biden’s selection drew an initial warning from Denver Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, one of the most outspoken American prelates on this topic, who said Biden should not receive communion. (Read an Aug. 25, 2008, Washington Times article.)

Few other bishops have followed Chaput’s lead, but activists on both sides have been clashing sharply over the issue. This year, they include groups like Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, which emphasizes “the fullness of our Church’s teaching on a range of social issues – from poverty, war and torture to health care, immigration and the environment.”

• The controversy over House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s remarks (on Meet the Press in August; transcript here) about when, as a Catholic, she believes life begins drew clarifications and rebukes from several church leaders, including Washington Archbishop Donald Wuerl and New York Cardinal Edward Egan. Pelosi later issued her own clarification.
• ReligionLink has a number of editions on Roman Catholics, including a 2006 edition specifically addressing the Catholic vote, “Will Catholics swing back to the Democrats?”

FAITH-BASED FUTURE
Both Obama and McCain have come out in support of government funding for faith-based programs. That seems to ensure that the policy shift to funding such programs, undertaken by Bush, will endure no matter who is elected. But there are some important differences. The principal one was set out by Obama in a July 1, 2008, speech in Ohio in which he backed the expansion of faith-based programs but said organizations that accepted federal money could not discriminate in hiring based on religion.

• Read a New York Times article about the speech. See also a Jan. 29, 2008, New York Times op-ed, “The Faith to Outlast Politics,” by two former officials of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, David Kuo and John J. DiIulio Jr.
• The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life posts a comparison of McCain’s and Obama’s views on faith-based initiatives.
• Read a ReligionLink edition, “Faith-based social services: the human factor.”

GOD AND THE IRS
Death and taxes are the two sure things about life, but an Internal Revenue Service investigation of the tax-exempt status of houses of worship is coming in a close third, at least during an election year. Although 70 percent of registered voters say it’s inappropriate for clergy to speak publicly on behalf of or against a specific candidate, politicians continue to court such support – and it sometimes backfires, as McCain’s brief alliance with pastors John Hagee and Rod Parsley showed.

• A survey released in June 2008 by Calvin College shows that only 28 percent of Americans agree that “clergy should be permitted to endorse political candidates during worship services.” Support for political activism by clergy is highest among Latino and black Protestants.
• IRS investigations have targeted liberal as well as conservative churches. In an article, “IRS: Bipartisan Tool,” in the spring 2008 edition of Religion in the News, Marc Stern, a church-state expert and general counsel of the American Jewish Congress, explains the issues at stake. See also a Sept. 2, 2008, New York Times story, “Pastors’ Web Electioneering Attracts U.S. Reviews of Tax Exemptions.”
• Read a January 2008 ReligionLink edition, “Religious leaders’ political endorsements.”

ABORTION
No issue has more third-rail potential to divide religiously minded voters than abortion rights. This election has seen efforts by Obama and the Democrats to scramble the usual pro-life/pro-choice categories by changing the party platform’s language on abortion and making an effort to focus on policies that would reduce abortions rather than arguing over Roe v. Wade. Will it work? Or will it be seen as more of the same, only in nicer language? And will the Republicans respond with policy initiatives of their own? There are ballot questions related to abortion in California, Colorado and South Dakota, according to a roundup at a Wiki site, Ballotpedia.org.

• Read the Pew Forum’s synopsis of McCain’s and Obama’s views on abortion.
• ReligionLink has a number of editions addressing the various issues of abortion, birth control, public policy and the courts.

GAY MARRIAGE
Actually, the issue of gay rights (and gay marriage in particular) runs a close second to abortion in terms of galvanizing and polarizing voters. Both Obama and McCain have said they define marriage as the union of one man and one woman, but Obama would support some form of civil unions. There are ballot measures on marriage in three states this year: California, Arizona and Florida, according to a roundup at a Wiki site, Ballotpedia.org.

• See the Pew Forum’s comparison of the candidates’ views on gay marriage.
• A number of ReligionLink editions address homosexuality.

WAR AND PEACE
The war in Iraq and its attendant issues mark a bright dividing line between the two presidential candidates. Obama opposed the American-led invasion of 2003, and McCain supported it. Obama would like to withdraw U.S. troops quickly, while McCain would keep them in place as long as it takes for certain goals to be reached. The decrease in violence in Iraq after the troop surge and the prospect of a recession at home have pushed the war down the list of voter priorities. Still, the war remains a volatile topic, and one with no easy answers.

• See the Pew Forum’s comparison of the candidates’ view on Iraq.
• Read a February 2007 ReligionLink edition published for the fourth anniversary of the invasion.

WOMEN AND THE WHITE HOUSE
Many women are deeply disappointed that Hillary Clinton did not win the Democratic nomination and was not chosen as Obama’s running mate. McCain’s choice of Palin was aimed at drawing some of those voters. As The New York Times reported Aug. 29, Palin said during her introduction at a rally in Ohio that “Hillary left 18 million cracks in the highest, hardest glass ceiling in America, but it turns out the women of America aren’t finished yet, and we can shatter that glass ceiling once and for all.” In fact, Palin is only the second woman on a presidential ticket (Geraldine Ferraro ran with Walter Mondale in 1984, losing to Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush), and if elected she would be the first female vice president. An irony, some have said, is that Christian conservatives bar women from holding leadership positions in church but would vote for Palin for second-in-command of the country. At the Newsweek/Washington Post site “On Faith,” contributor David Waters rounds up some of the commentary and explanations for this seeming paradox.

• Read a February 2008 ReligionLink edition on this debate, “A female ‘pastor in chief’?”

ECONOMICS AND POVERTY
McCain and Obama both support policies to reduce poverty and revive the economy. But their respective policies are quite different in terms of tax policies, budget reductions, spending and programs to lift people out of poverty or near-poverty. They also differ on items such as increasing the minimum wage.

• See Pew’s comparison of their views.
• ReligionLink has several editions addressing these issues, including affordable housing and hunger.

IMMIGRATION
Immigration reform is a controversial topic and a top priority for both religious communities and the candidates. McCain co-sponsored, with Sen. Ted Kennedy, a 2007 comprehensive reform package. But it was defeated and McCain has since toughened some of his positions in response to that experience. The topic is of course critical to recent immigrants, most notably Latinos, who are changing the political and religious demographics of the United States.

• The Pew Forum has a side-by-side comparison of the candidates’ stands.
• See a July 2007 ReligionLink edition looking at immigration in the wake of the reform bill’s defeat. Also see a previous edition, “Religion informs immigration debate.”
• ReligionLink’s “Guide to Hispanics and religion in the U.S.” offers a wealth of sources.

AFRICAN-AMERICAN CANDIDATE, BLACK PREACHER
The historic ascent of Obama as the first African-American (his mother was white, his father black) on a major-party ticket, and potentially the nation’s first black president, has put a spotlight on the faith of African-Americans. Black churches have always been admired as pillars of the black community and often the only refuge for African-Americans in troubled big cities. Politically, they have been an important bloc of voters, always overwhelmingly in the Democratic camp. Obama’s candidacy highlights the difficult issues of race that Americans face both in society and in their houses of worship, and his own faith and the controversy over his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, have put distinctively black Christian concerns and theology front and center – uncomfortably for Obama, at times. (His speech on Wright and race in March 2008 in Philadelphia is considered a landmark in American discourse on the topic. A transcript is posted by The New York Times.) Yet part of Obama’s appeal – his ability to deliver an inspiring speech – is also directly traced to his experience with black preaching.

• ReligionLink has several editions on African-Americans, notably a January 2007 source list, “A guide to African-Americans and religion.”

YOUTH ARE THE FUTURE
The 2008 race, especially the campaign of Obama, has energized young voters in a way few other contests have, experts say. On both sides, young voters of faith are particularly involved and enthusiastic. Experts say these voters may not only spell the difference in the election’s outcome, but this experience could define how they view politics for the rest of their lives. Moreover, young voters seem to define their faith and values in significantly different ways than previous generations. How will this affect the fall campaigns and the winner’s priorities in office?

• See a June 2008 ReligionLink edition, “Young voters of faith.”

ENVIRONMENT
The debate over global warming, the energy crisis and the record of the Bush administration have all put a particular focus on the environment in this campaign, and religious groups have emerged as important players here. Both candidates want to be seen as “environmentally friendly,” but there have been differences, such as the recent debate over whether to start offshore drilling for new sources of oil in order to lower gas prices and increase domestic reserves – an outcome that is itself a matter of controversy.

• See Pew’s comparison of the candidates’ records on the environment.
• ReligionLink has “A source guide on religion and the environment” and an edition, “The evangelical divide on global warming,” about the emerging debate within a key voter bloc for McCain and Obama.

JEWISH VOTERS
Jews and blacks were once united in struggles for civil rights and other campaigns, and although they still both vote predominantly for Democrats, there are tensions between the two communities. Obama has said he wants to heal those divisions, and he stresses support for Israel as a centerpiece of his foreign policy if elected. Yet Muslim roots on his Kenyan father’s side (Obama himself is a Christian) have prompted viral email rumors and raised suspicions about his loyalties among some Jewish voters, observers say. Can Obama attract the supermajority of Jews that he will need to win? And what of McCain? Will his pledge to pursue the Iraq war help or hurt with Jewish voters? What of his courting of conservative Christians, who are great supporters of Israel but often differ dramatically with American Jews?

• ReligionLink has a number of editions on Judaism, including a comprehensive source guide.

MUSLIM VOTERS
Similarly, what about Muslim voters? Many political strategists say they don’t want to dismiss any group, especially in a close election. But they also don’t want widespread suspicions about Muslims to attach to their candidate. Muslims have generally been strongly supportive of Obama, but there are complex issues about negotiating the status of ethnicity and religion and politics for this largely immigrant community.

• Read any one of a number of ReligionLink editions on Islam, including “Covering Islam 101” from March 2008.

ATHEISTS — LEFT OUT?
Atheists in the United States have been on a roll, with books blasting religion populating the best-seller lists while the so-called religious right and its champion, George W. Bush, seemed to be on the mat. Now the country has a presidential campaign in which both candidates are courting the religious vote. So, what’s a faithful unbeliever to do on Election Day? A strong majority of atheists, agnostics and secularists still support Obama (along with most in the “unchurched” category).

• Read a May 2007 ReligionLink edition, “Atheist awakening: the appeal of unbelief.”