Faith and Politics
Nowadays, more so than ever before, religion plays a significant role in American presidential elections. As citizens, our job is to examine that role and decide how it will affect our vote. The Bush/Gore campaign has been very much influenced by religion. Joseph Lieberman, Gore’s running mate and the first Orthodox Jew to run for vice president on a major party ticket, has been extremely vocal about his faith. Both George W. Bush and Al Gore, a Methodist and Baptist, respectively, have also referred to their religious beliefs during this presidential campaign ("Anti-Defamation League Criticizes"), raising several questions about the part religious faith plays in presidential elections.
First, what role does religion play in the campaigning process? A new poll reveals that while seven in 10 Americans prefer a president with a sound religious beliefs, they say they don’t want to hear candidates vocalize their faith (Lester). This majority belief doesn’t seem to effect the opinions expressed by the current presidential and vice-presidential hopefuls, especially by Lieberman. At a speech at the Fellowship Chapel in Detroit, Lieberman expressed his desire to find "a place for faith in America’s public life.
The current Connecticut senator went on to say "As a people, we need to reaffirm our faith and renew the dedication of our nation and ourselves to God and God’s purposes" ("Anti-Defamation League Criticizes").
The Anti-Defamation League, who already criticized both Gore and Bush in the
spring, issued a warning to Lieberman after his comments in the Detroit church. Gore, who called himself a born-again Christian; and Bush, who referred to Jesus as his favorite philosopher, have both shi...
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...ress. 20 September 2000. 5 October 2000. . Offers findings from a poll that show Americans don’t want politicians to talk about their faith.
Lopatto, Paul. Religion and the Presidential Election: American Political Parties and
Elections. New York: Praeger, 1985. Offers extensive statistics about religion and political choices, focusing on who people of different religions specifically voted for.
Pellegrini, Frank. "Politics and Religion still and Uneasy Mix. Time. 29 August 2000.
Explains how politics and religion don’t mix well in the 2000 election, and expands on Lieberman’s warning from the Anti-Defamation League.
Simon, Paul. "Vote Not for the Best Faith, but Faith in the Best." Chicago Sun-Times
15 August 2000. 12 September 2000. A brief persuasive essay encouraging people to vote for the best man for the job, regardless of his faith.
The message of political alignment is a vast and varying concept, one that will be debated for as a long as party divisions exist. This divide however exists in not just the Christian community. We begin with the metaphor of a shepherds flock, blindly following what an individual says over ones own thinking. Boyd furthers this concept of alignment and how “many who left sincerely believe there is little ambiguity in how true Christian faith translates into politics. Since God is against abortion, Christians should vote for the pro-life candidate, they believe- and the preacher should say so” (Boyd 2). This blind adherence to one topic, one issue is unfortunately a failure on an intellectual level of all people, whether Christian or not. The
"I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say: " you helped this happen. This could be if we all fast and pray this could be god's call to revival"
The Republican Primary was a race between Vice President George Bush and Senator Bob Dole because President Reagan had reached his term limit and could not run again. Bush was Reagan's Vice President, so he started the race as the Republican front-runner. Bush's campaign was startled after its loss to Dole in the Iowa Caucus. Bush stepped up the campaigning, uttering his famous line, "Read my lips, no new taxes." Dole soon ran out of steam when Vice President Bush won every state in the Super Tuesday Primaries. Bush's strong victories are attributed to his ability to gain the support of the religious fundamentalists, mainly in the South. Bush's ability to establish a strong Southern base helped him in both the primary and general elections.
In the 2011 article ‘The True Meaning of Separation of Church and State’ by Bill Flax, “Faith is no civil contract, but a personal matter not to be profaned by politics.” These are the exact intentions of the US Constitution and the federal government. The goal is to allow citizens religious freedom that is uninhibited by federal regulation. This essay describes the fundamental reasons why faith groups and institutions should not be allowed to form political parties. This will be done by defining what religion is and how it applies to moral living. Second, this essay will cover the US Constitution and why it also defines moral living. Finally it will define why religion and government in the United States do not belong together. This essay is designed to only examine the US government.
...al religious journey provides a powerful narrative to support his ideas, and explains some of his beliefs regarding the role of religion in politics, such as the idea that religion can provide unique solutions to difficult problems. However, his failure to approach the public role of religion with the same uncompromising commitment as his personal beliefs leads to contradiction, which raises doubts concerning the effectiveness of his approach of compromise and calls into question the strength of his beliefs as a Christian. Furthermore, a closer examination of Obama's vision unveils the fundamental uncompromising nature of Obama's religion, which is incompatible with his idea of a pluralistic democracy. Because of these contradictions, Obama's vision of a democracy in which religion and politics are connected and function effectively together is ultimately impossible
Lofgren, Mike. "Religion Destroyed My Party." Salon. Salon, 5 Aug. 2012. Web. 14 Dec. 2013. .
The most important aspect to consider is why political parties split when it comes to religious battles in the first place. Glaeser (2005) starts this argument by explaining that when you attract the median-voter there is always a high voting turnout. If this is true, then why do politicians take both ends of the spectrum in most cases when it comes to issues like same-sex marriage and abortions? Glaeser (2005) contends that there are statistical evidence that supports the connection between religious attendance and religious extremism. Exit polls from the 2004 Presidential election show a strong rise in the correlation between religious attendance and party affiliation. This happens because religion as a whole becomes a medium for discussion, much like major news organizations. The only difference is that religion is singular in its method, as Glaeser (2005) points out, in that the people focus on one issue and decide politically based on the preferences shown. The political parties differ for two majo...
Donald Trump’s hypocritical claim to be a Christian is conspicuous as he holds up Grandma’s bible and mispronounces 2 Corinthians, etc., as if to make a joke of the whole thing. When 60 minutes first interviewed with Donald Trump and his new running mate, Mike Pence, interviewer Leslie Stahl contrasted the difference between the two, saying Trump was brash and Pence was quiet and religious. Trump butted in, “Oh, I’m religious.” The proof he offered? “Well, I won the evangelicals.” Trump said.
Religion plays an important role in political modifications during the 1980s. The Moral Majority was an evangelical Christian political action committee who had a major part in Reagan's election victory. This caused tension wit...
When you vote I think you should vote for George Bush. George Bush doesn't have as much experience as Gore, but He is highly educated and does still have a lot of political experience. George Bush’s plans on certain subjects such as social security and Medicare, gun control and education are better that Gores and are more realistic.
A report by Pew Research last year showed, “The majority of Americans would be less likely to vote for a presidential candidate who doesn 't believe in God. Unsurprisingly, this is higher among Republicans – 70 per cent of whom would be less likely to vote for an atheist, in comparison with 42 per cent of Democrats” (Christian today). These statistics show that faith really does matter when voting for the next president. All of the individuals running in this year’s presidential election either identify with the Protestant or Catholic faith. These different faiths effect the presidential candidates’ views on abortion, taxes, gay marriage, etc. As the Christian Church and presidential election relate it is important to remember your standards and views, when considering who to vote for. The current presidential election will test the strength that the Christian Church still has in America. “America 's faith and culture leaders agree that what makes 2016 possibly the most important election in American history is not the severities of its socioeconomic problems, but rather the depth of spiritual decay into which the American people have fallen (Christian
My major area of study is Political Science, and even if you haven’t majored in political studies you know that there are few things left untouched by politics. Religion, of course, is no exception. Issues concerning religion are some of the most hotly contested topics in politics today. Consider as an example, the seemingly never-ending conflict in the Middle East over rights to Israel. It can be argued that this conflict has as much to do with politics as it does with religious beliefs. However, I think the way in which politics most closely relates to the study of world religions is in its creation of so- called “civil religion.”
Obama uses religious references multiple times in his speech, referring to Scripture as source of deliberation. He said, the scripter tells us: ‘There is a river whose streams make glad the city
The role of religion in politics is a topic that has long been argued, and has contributed to the start of wars, schisms (both political and religious), and other forms of inter and intra-state conflict. This topic, as a result of its checkered past, has become quite controversial, with many different viewpoints. One argument, put forth by many people throughout history, is that religion and the government should remain separate to avoid any conflicting interests. This view also typically suggests that there is one, or several, large and organized religions like the Roman Catholic Church, which would be able to use their “divine” authority to sway the politics of a given state by promising or threatening some form of godly approval or disapproval. By leveraging their divine power, individual figures within a religion, as well as the religion as a whole, could gain secular power for themselves, or over others. A second view, which was developed by many theologians through history, suggests that that without religion there would be a general lack of morality in the people and leaders of a given state, which would give way to poor political decisions that would not be in the interest of the people and perhaps even God (or the gods). This argument, however, does not address the fact that morality can exist without religion. In sociology, it is commonly accepted that social norms, which include morality, can result from any number of things. Religion, laws, or the basic desire of survival can all create these norms, so it suffices to say that as a society, our morals reflect our desire to live in relative peace through the creation of laws that serve to help us to survive. The argument of whether or not religion and politics should mix...
Albright felt that religion played a prominent role in the way things work. She felt that religion should not be separated from state, but incorporated within it. Albright looked into how religion plays a role in the diplomatic community, and she realizes how vital it really is. “Effective foreign policy requires that we comp...