Religious Warfare Ahead?

Should American political candidates engage in religious/theological debates?

I say no, not in the public arena and not as part of our political process.

Of course, I am interested in the religion of the people asking for my vote. I am interested in a lot of different kinds of information about them, their lives, their convictions. I want to know what I can about where they are coming from.

But they are not running for office in a religious institution. The United States of America is a secular political entity, committed to a particular kind of political structure and order. Religion has played an important role in our history and continues to influence our self-understanding, sometimes to the benefit of the common good and sometimes not. But we are a land of many faiths and non faiths, and we have been able for the most part to live and work with one another across the lines that separate our various deeply-held convictions from one another. We have been able to vote across those lines.

It’s fine with me for a candidate to publicly acknowledge her or his own faith or lack thereof. But a politician’s policies and proposals must be defensible in terms of their political merit.They must stand or fall on their own before the body politic’s court of opinion. While public office holders may be personally committed to serving a deity, their first responsibility as elected leaders is to serve the common good. It’s often difficult to do both, but it’s the job they sought.

We are being distracted by too much already, while issues such as income inequality, immigration, climate change, social security, trade, American’s role in the world, and the like are being managed by tweets and sound bites and who-caught-who saying which incorrect thing. Theological debates about who loves Jesus more and who Jesus loves and how the Bible should be interpreted will only be one more national distraction from what needs to be done politically. Such debates belong in houses of prayer, not in the halls of congress. Candidates should avoid them.