Politicians Shouldn’t “Wear God”
I’m trying to think of a more superficial assessment of American religiosity than this Washington Post piece about Romney capturing the “God vote” at the debate, but nothing comes to mind. Zack Beauchamp calls the post “the stupidest thing you’ll read on the debate.” Its author, Sally Quinn, tells how Romney snatched away the God vote from Obama by–wait for it–mentioning God during the debate. And owning it! Because, had Obama mentioned God and had Romney remained mum on the glorious subject, the president surely would have netted the God vote the other night.
Quinn describes the America’s religious landscape in an attempt to explain why Romney’s God talk matters:
This is a religious country. Part of claiming your citizenship is claiming a belief in God, even if you are not Christian.. We’ve got the Creator in our Declaration of Independence. We’ve got “In God We Trust” on our coins. We’ve got “one nation under God” in our Pledge of Allegiance. And we say prayers in the Senate and the House of Representatives to God.
An atheist could never get elected dog catcher, much less president. (Democratic Rep. Pete Stark of California is a nontheist but doesn’t talk much about it).
Up until now, the idea of being American and believing in God were synonymous.
Let me get this straight: we’re a religious country because artifacts and practices of our political culture name God? I’d say that makes American religiosity thoroughly nominal. Thanks be to God, the many religious faiths of Americans go much deeper. I want to believe Quinn recognizes this, but the evidence suggests otherwise. She writes that claiming citizenship implies a claim to a belief in God, not because citizenship is some kind of profound, transcendent religious exercise, but because a handful of our national cultural artifacts feature a particular word. Her advice for Obama in the next debate is to “wear God.” Then he can win!
Yeaaah.
I don’t know even what to do with her notion that “the idea of being American and believing in God were synonymous.” Did that work in reverse? Is belief in God synonymous with being an American? Are all religious believers American by way of synonym? Never mind.
Truth is politicians shouldn’t “wear God” or treat the divine and sacred as a vote-catching fashion. There’s an ancient name for that practice: using God’s name in vain. And if this is a free country, as we like to believe, then politicians shouldn’t have to be “believers” to win elections. If a candidate’s religious beliefs will inform and influence her political reasoning and decisions, then she should explain them and how they will affect her performance and public service. An atheist candidate should lay out her non-religious beliefs and principles and how they will motivate her. Beliefs matter and they should matter, and not just superficially.
Excellent post, Kyle.
Great post Kyle. Sally Quinn is a moron.
We’ve got “In God We Trust” on our coins. We’ve got “one nation under God” in our Pledge of Allegiance.
Both of these were 1950s additions, relics of the Cold War included to remind the world that we weren’t like those godless Commies in Russia.
FIFY.
FTR, In God We Trust has been on US coins since the Civil War, when we sure needed Him.
“And if this is a free country, as we like to believe, then politicians shouldn’t have to be “believers” to win elections.”
To paraphrase: All countries are free. Some countries are free-er than others.
Although I agree with what Kyle writes, or at least with the diversity endorsing sentiments suggested by what Kyle writes, I also think that any argument with Sally Quinn’s suggestion that an avowed atheist would have no chance of being elected POTUS is still true. It may not always be true, but it is today. If anyone can show evidence of this not being the case, I would like to see that evidence. I would further suggest that only Romney’s Mormonism and Obama’s equally suspect religious views (is he a Muslim? or is he clandestinely still devoted to some militant African American liberation theology cult?) have kept religion from becoming a major factor in this election.
“the stupidest thing you’ll read on the debate.” Its author, Sally Quinn
I admit that I stopped reading there. I mean, you’re right, but life is too short.
The true story of our Christian heritage has been savaged by the secular religionists of the 20th century. Take a look at this–this isn’t fringey right-wing david barton stuff, this is Tom Kidd of Baylor.
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2012/september/willamericakeepthefaith.html?start=1#
I would also add that Jefferson and Franklin were more outliers than typical of the theological landscape of the Founding. Still, their theism meets what Avery Cardinal Dulles called “The Deist Minimum” in this semi-famous essay. In short, you cannot get to unalienable rights and the fundamental equality of man except via the Judeo-Christian view of the creator-God and natural law.
http://www.firstthings.com/article/2008/08/the-deist-minimum–28
[Well, secularism attempts to via the completion backwards principle, but it fails to complete backward all the way to first, foundational principles.]
The founders of America were men of their time. They were slave owners. They almost committed genocide against the native population. They were misogynists. They were ant-Semitic, anti-Catholic and generally xenophobic. They burned witches and were the spiritual brethren of today’s American Christians to about the same degree as Osama Bin Laden. There interpretation of Christian scripture must have been somewhat different to that of modern Christians.
The declaration of independence should more accurately have said “that all white Anglo-Saxon males are created equal”. We, of course, are inclined to read our idea of noble human aspirations back into a romanticised history.
YMMV, but frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn.
….and still, (at the time), dedicated to the proposition that all white, Anglo-Saxon, protestant males are created equal.
“The founders of America were men of their time. They were slave owners. They almost committed genocide against the native population. They were misogynists. They were ant-Semitic, anti-Catholic and generally xenophobic. They burned witches and were the spiritual brethren of today’s American Christians to about the same degree as Osama Bin Laden.”
Gordon, this is really awful.
SOME of the founders were slave owners. Some were strongly anti-slavery.
“Committed genocide”? DISEASE wiped out most of the native population. That was not a plan on anyone’s part. The common opinion of what the Indians should do was that they should mix into the European population as agriculturists. That is hardly equivalent to the Holocaust!
“They were misogynists”
They thought women had a different role in society than men. That does NOT mean they hated women! (And Aaron Burr was an early feminist.)
“They burned witches…”
OK, do you also think Columbus was one of the founders? Because you seem to have mashed all early American history into one period. Witches were burned in Salem in the 1600s. At the time of the founding that had not been a trial for witchcraft in the colonies in decades.
OK, obviously what I said was a generalisation. I would have done better to use the phrase ‘irretrievably patriarchal’ rather than misogynistic. My aim was to point out the absurdity of identifying modern people and modern Christians in particular with the mindset of those who formulated the constitution. They were mostly Anglo-Saxon protestant white male landowners and they believed they were creating a state for more people like themselves.
OK, cool. Suitably modified your point is correct.
Misogyny and hating of women are two entirely different spectrums. Many a misogynist loves his mother, his wife, his daughters. Just doesn’t think those ladies should have as big a say in things as he has.
But otherwise, yeah. Mashing history.
From dictionary.com: misogyny: hatred, dislike, or mistrust of women.
Gene, I stand corrected; and thank you for making me read the dictionary.
So what’s the word for a man or woman who thinks woman, while perfectly nice, shouldn’t have an equal voice in running the world? That’s what I view as misogyny; but it’s hatred. Most folks I’d thought were misogynists aren’t women haters, they just think women aren’t as capable of some stuff; driving cars, balancing bank accounts, etc.
Witches were burned in Salem in the 1600s.
I believe that witches were burned in Europe but, here in the US, they were hanged.
DEAR SALLY QUINN:
Shame on you for implying that those of us who have given up our childhood superstitions are somehow less patriotic or less “American” than good Christians like yourself.
Frankly it makes me nervous when people like Mitt Romney invoke “God” and “The Creator” in framing his vision for America. It is not the government’s job to enforce the Bible or the Book of Mormon; it is the government’s job to uphold the CONSTITUTION without preference for any particular religion or lack thereof.
And if I WAS a Christian, I would still wonder why GOD, in His wisdom and omnipotence, could not be just a bit more media-savvy in this day and age. I mean, we’re talking about the same God that allegedly created the Universe (just 6,000 years ago, according to some people), flooded the entire Earth, parted the Red Sea, and whose Earthbound avatar came back to life after having assumed room temperature for three days. Why does He insist on taking such a hands-off approach? We have one Book which has been translated and re-translated, interpreted and re-interpreted, until hardly anyone can agree on what it means. We have dozens of Christian denominations, each with its own unique take on what God expects of us. Wouldn’t God be a little more effective in getting us to behave decently toward one another if He would just put together a website or a television channel or at the very least a 1-800 number? There is a wide variety of contemporary social and economic issues I sure would like to get His opinion on.
Every time I look at you
I don’t understand
Why you let the things you did
Get so out of hand
You’d have managed better
If you’d had it planned
Now why’d you choose such a backward time
And such a strange land?
If you’d come today
You could have reached the whole nation
Israel in 4 BC had no mass communication
Don’t you get me wrong
Don’t you get me wrong
Don’t you get me wrong, now
Only want to know
Only want to know
Only want to know, now…
“And if this is a free country, as we like to believe, then politicians shouldn’t have to be “believers” to win elections.”
This it a total non sequitur. The fact that someone is *free* to do something does not in the least imply that anyone has to *approve* of their doing so, or that we can’t consider someone unfit for office because they do so. In this country, anyone is *free* to sit on the sidewalk and drink all day. But we can certainly take into account that that is how they live their life when considering whether to vote for them.
@ Gene —
The question here, though, is not whether someone is free to DO something, but rather if he is free NOT to do something. The implication is that an atheist will either need to be a total hypocrite and say (or imply) that he’s something he’s not, or else have no hope of being elected to national office. This would imply a lack of freedom to seek one’s vocation with true integrity. And there is both a distinction and a difference between being “free to do” and being “free not to do.”
But how does that make us “not a free country”? I am not free to become CEO of Pepsi, because I don’t like working the 70 hour weeks I’d need to work to do so. Are we not a free country because of this “lack of freedom to seek one’s vocation with true integrity”?
You obviously think atheism is irrelevant to one’s ability to perform a governmental office. But many voters obviously don’t. You are saying they should not be *allowed* to take this into account. What about their freedom to vote with true integrity?
Yes, I do think that atheism is irrelevant to a candidate’s suitability to do the job of POTUS. Given what most presidents end up having to do, atheism might even be a plus. “Christians” like Dubya give the religion a bad name.
But that is not my point. My point is that the Founding Fathers upon whom political conservatives so dote were every bit as intent on ensuring freedom FROM religion as they were on ensuring freedom OF religion.
A man’s religion, or lack thereof, should not be a factor in this job any more than it is in any other job. It should not enter into the discussion. Kennedy’s Catholicism shouldn’t have. Nixon’s putative Quakerism obviously didn’t. The fact that Reagan talked the talked, but apparently never went to church didn’t matter.
I firmly believe that it mostly unfortunate for RELIGION when it becomes a factor in the dirty political game, and for that reason it should stay far away from partisan shenanigans.
“Yes, I do think that atheism is irrelevant to a candidate’s suitability to do the job of POTUS.”
Obviously. Many people don’t think so. Are they not free to vote their beliefs?
“My point is that the Founding Fathers upon whom political conservatives so dote were every bit as intent on ensuring freedom FROM religion as they were on ensuring freedom OF religion.”
Half of my PhD thesis was on the political thought of the founders. (It was comparative, the other half being Rome.) So I think I am probably more read in their thought than most people. Oddly, I never ran across any discussion of freedom FROM religion. Can you point me to where this is discussed?
People are free, legally, to believe that race is a relevant qualifier to for office, and to vote according to their beliefs. Is expressing the opinion that “politicians shouldn’t have to be [white] to win elections” intruding on those people’s “freedom to vote with true integrity”?
Of course, maybe you think that religion really is potentially relevant qualifier for political office, unlike race. But if so, have the guts to actually say it.
Fnord, do you understand that an argument is aimed at a particular proposition, and not at everything that might pop into your head connected to it? Cupp wrote:
“And if this is a free country, as we like to believe, then politicians shouldn’t have to be “believers” to win elections.”
I am addressing this contention. I don’t see why, if some people won’t vote for atheists, that means we are not a free country. Can you “have the guts” to actually address my query, rather than shooting off on tangents?
And fnord, don’t you think that race, which you are born with, is a little different from a freely chosen belief you have adopted?
“Are they not free to vote their beliefs?”
No, they’re not, because they will never have that opportunity. A man who announced up front that he was seeking the nomination of either viable party for the presidential election would not stand a snow ball’s chance in hell of getting enough support or funding to even run in a primary, much less as either party’s candidate. He would have been eliminated, based on his honesty about the dictates of his conscience, long before you, or anybody else, ever had a chance to vote against him on that basis. He is not, therefore, free, to the extent that theoretically every citizen should be able to run for office.
I’m sorry, I did strip a little bit of the context off. But to put the context back in, you would disagree with the statement that “if this is a free country, as we like to believe, then politicians shouldn’t have to be [white] to win elections”? Your contention is that a de facto bar that prevents minority groups from holding office, for reasons that are objectively irrelevant, has no bearing on whether we might consider a country free?
Before you answer, keep in mind that “country” and “government” are not synonyms. As Mr. Van Dyke is fond of remarking, culture matters. It’s true that there’s no de jure religious test for public office, just a de facto, cultural one. But the change Mr. Cupp calls for is cultural as well, not legal, as is obvious from the context you pulled that quote from.
Also, it was clever the way you refused to answer the question, then used the question of race to make another insinuation without committing yourself to a position.
Appears we’re working with conflicting conceptions of freedom. You seem to be using it to mean the ability to act as one pleases, which is certainly one definition, but I’m using it more in the sense of the ability to choose the good. Freedom isn’t determined by the range of choices, but what can be and what is chosen. If all I can do is pick my poison, then I’m not really free. If a country’s political culture prevents the rise of a good candidate because he or she doesn’t believe in God, then I’d say that’s a mark against the country’s freedom.
I’m afraid your post is confusing. First we have: “Freedom isn’t determined by the range of choices” then we have: ” If all I can do is pick my poison, then I’m not really free”. To most people that would mean a larger range of choices is necessary.
I think you live in a truly free society if you can make any choice, (good or bad), which does not involve restricting the choices of others. So it seems to me that insofar as choice is a mark of freedom, freedom is indeed determined by the range of choices.
@ GordonHide —
But, in this country, the voter is not ever offered the choice of voting for an avowed atheist for president. Such a would-be candidate–regardless of his professional and other personal qualifications–could never obtain the necessary backing or party support (even as a Democrat) to run for national office as the candidate of a viable party. That preemptive disqualification limits both his freedom and that of voters who might want to have such a choice as an option.
@Rodak
I think it’s a bad example but you merely make my point I think.
@Chuck: “Shame on you for implying that those of us who have given up our childhood superstitions are somehow less patriotic or less “American” than good Christians like yourself.”
Chuckie, the fact you consider the ideas of people like Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, Augustine, Averroes, Maimonides, Aquinas, Descartes, Leibniz, Whitehead, and so on to be “childhood superstitions” is a pretty good one sentence summary of why many Americans would not elect an atheist president!
@ Gene —
Right. Okay. And here’s the vice versa:
http://www.examiner.com/article/gop-member-of-house-science-committee-believes-earth-is-only-9-000-years-old
There are very dumb believers. I agree.
How is that the “vice versa” of what I said?
“How is that the “vice versa” of what I said?”
I think there was an assumption that the reader would take the next step.
You took one atheist’s comment and used it to paint all atheists with a very broad and unflattering brush. The unspoken point from Rodak was that if you’re going to do that, you have to be willing to have all people of faith judged on their own weakest link.
At least that’s the way I read it. If I am incorrect, Rodak, feel free to correct me.
“You took one atheist’s comment and used it to paint all atheists with a very broad and unflattering brush.”
Not at all! What I was saying is that *Atheists who make comments like that* tend give all atheists a bad name, which many of they don’t deserve.
“You took one atheist’s comment and used it to paint all atheists with a very broad and unflattering brush. The unspoken point from Rodak was that if you’re going to do that, you have to be willing to have all people of faith judged on their own weakest link.”
I’ll play that game if you let me judge all Democrats, liberals, progressives, etcetera by their weakest link. (Hell, we’re already playing that game as far as Republicans go.)
Ah. Well, that was my best guess; clearly even if I am correct about the intent, it was misplaced.
“I think it’s a bad example but you merely make my point I think.”
I don’t know how a simple description of the way things are can be a “bad example.” But I am certainly not making your point. Your point is that anybody should be free to vote for whomever they want to vote for. I agree with that. But if I want to vote for an atheist for president, that choice is not available to me, and never has been and never will be–unless there is a radical sea change in our national politics. If an atheist A wants to run, or if voter B wants to vote for an atheist, A is NOT free to run, and B HAS NO CANDIDATE to vote for. A and B are both excluded from the whole system. They have no say, and to that extent they are not free.
@Rodak
Your point appears to be that your choice is restricted and you are therefore not free. This makes my point which was that if choice is one determinant of freedom then the range of that choice does determine degree of freedom contrary to Kyle’s statement: “Freedom isn’t determined by the range of choice.”
Your example is a poor one because increasing your range of choice would involve trying to control the criteria the majority of the population uses to determine who to vote for. Such control represents a reduction in their freedom. So we have a conflict of freedoms. Either the comparative few who want an atheist option gets one or the comparative many who want to use candidate religiosity to determine electability can continue to have the freedom to do so.
Oops, “many of them.”
Yes, that was my point with the vice versa thing.
How does that make the country not free? If it is not possible for a candidate to run for the office in question without at least pretending to be a religious person, then a large pool of potential candidates are either eliminated from contention, or are coerced in running in bad faith in order to achieve their goal. This is not freedom for all.
What Kyle is saying, I think, is that–right or wrong–it is IN FACT impossible for an atheist to be elected president in this country. And that FACT is unAmerican if freedom of conscience is a fundamental American constitutional right.
“if freedom of conscience is a fundamental American constitutional right.”
Freedom of conscience means people are free to believe what they want. It doesn’t mean others have to approve of their belief.
I am free to believe that Elvis, JFK and Marilyn Monroe are all living together on Mars. If I announce this publicly, I will never be elected to any office. Is America also not free because of this?
The idea that freedom of conscience means that no one else can judge you based on what you believe is, in fact, insane.
The point that I think that Kyle was making, and that I know I am making, is that it shouldn’t be the case that an atheist has no chance of becoming president. It shouldn’t be the case that a person belonging to any group whatsoever–Hell’s Angels, the Harvard Club, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, Shi’ite Islam, whatever–should be a priori eliminated as a viable candidate on that basis alone. It can be factored in, but it shouldn’t be a deal-busting factor. But it is. And that is not freedom of conscience.
I think what is missing here is that atheists & others who disapprove of religion based politics aren’t responding to the fact that an open atheist has no chance by asking why that is. The reason is, in short, people have come to believe Atheist = Inherently Untrustworthy Bastard.
We have minds to change, persuading to do.
@b-psycho —
I think it’s a bit more complicated than that. After all, it was nearly 200 years before a Catholic was able to run for president. We still haven’t had a Jew. We still haven’t had a woman. We have only just now had an African American. We haven’t had an Hispanic. I really think that the exclusion is a tribal “he’s not like us” thing, more than it is a negative value judgement. It’s becoming more clear all the time that there is a “buyers’ remorse” reaction setting in on Obama, based largely on “he’s not like us.”
@Rodak
I notice you didn’t mention a gay alternative here. Perhaps you are unconcerned about this non-possibility?
b-psycho is right. Instead of wringing your hands about some imaginary reduction in your freedom you should be involved in changing perceptions about atheists. One could try to make the general population aware that their view of atheists as untrustworthy is at odds with atheist’s under-representation in the prison population for instance.
Do you think Sally Quinn will blame Obama for the shift Pew just discovered: one in five Americans do not identify with any organized religion?
That’s as many folk as claim to be evangelical. Who’d a thunk, given what our pennies say?
(If only they’d polled The Force.)