Religious politics: The dangerous facts

Street Prophets Blog
By David Domke

Lots of establishment types like to say there's nothing new under the sun with respect to religion and politics. In December 2004, White House speechwriter Michael Gerson told journalists that George W. Bush's religious rhetoric was the same old thing we'd always seen: "I don't believe that any of this is a departure from American history." Three months earlier Rev. Richard John Neuhaus, editor of the ecumenical journal First Things, declared of Bush's religious politics: "There is nothing that Bush has said about divine purpose, destiny and accountability that Abraham Lincoln did not say. This is as American as apple pie."

If this is apple pie, the fruit is rotten.

Both of these men were wrong, and their position is dangerous. As in end of the American experiment in democracy dangerous. How do I know? My colleague, Kevin Coe, and I ran the numbers. Enough speculation, anecdote, uninformed opinion, and partisan posturing. At PastorDan's strong (Goodfellas-like) encouragement, I'd like to take a minute to introduce you to our book, The God Strategy: How Religion Became A Political Weapon in America (just published by Oxford University Press), and some of the hard facts.

On average, presidents from Franklin Roosevelt — commonly viewed as the beginning of the modern presidency — to Jimmy Carter mentioned God in less than half of their major addresses. In contrast, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush (through year six of his tenure) all did so in more than 90% of theirs. Further, the total number of references to God in the average presidential speech 1981-early 2007 was an astounding 120% higher than the average speech 1933-1980. References to broader religious terms, such as faith, pray, sacred, worship, and crusade increased by 60%.

To gain perspective, here's a graph that shows how much presidential religious rhetoric increased in four important contexts, from FDR through six years of GW Bush:

1. when the nation goes to war (compared to times of peace)

2. whether presidents are Republican (compared to Democratic)

3. whether a president faces re-election (compared to not)

4. whether the president served 1981 or later (compared to 1932 to 1980)

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

Those lines on the far right? They show that the past four U.S. presidents -- and today's presidential candidates, hello! -- have developed a new religious politics unlike anything we've seen in modern history. Coe and I document this shift across dozens of different measures in our book.

Here's one more example of this God and country cocktail.

Mitt Romney in his "Faith in America" speech on Dec. 6 made one thing crystal clear: he believes liberty is granted by God. Romney said that "Americans acknowledge that liberty is a gift of God" and assured that, as president, he "will not separate us from 'the God who gave us liberty.'" He also referenced the Declaration of Independence's claim that people are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, among them liberty, and concluded by giving "thanks to the divine 'Author of liberty.'"

If these claims sounded familiar, it's because they are. Presidents beginning with Reagan have made them to a degree unprecedented in modern history. To declare that liberty (or freedom, a term used interchangeably by presidents) is a gift from God is to position oneself as a prophet: that is, the wording suggests that one has knowledge of divine wishes and desires.

But the prophetic approach is not the only way to link God and liberty/freedom. Pre-Reagan modern presidents more often spoke as petitioners, asking for God's blessing or guidance. Franklin Roosevelt, for example, in his famous "Four Freedoms" address in 1941, used this approach when he spoke of the nation's "faith in freedom under the guidance of God."

This petitioner style used to be the norm in presidential politics, but no more. Here's a graph containing all linkages of freedom or liberty with God in presidential speeches from FDR's 1933 inauguration through George W. Bush's first six years in office, with the linkages classified as either petitioner or prophetic in speaking style:

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

This time, those lines on the far right show that the past four U.S. presidents often acted as if they were spokesmen for God when linking America with the values of freedom and liberty. Romney was merely -- but dangerously -- talking that talk in his speech.

This convergence of faith and politics is exactly what the nation's Founders sought to avoid. Many of these men were deeply religious, but they were only an ocean removed from the religious strife that had plagued Europe for centuries. With these experiences in mind, they created a Constitution that doesn't contain a single mention of God and prohibits religious tests for those seeking office.

Their vision is at serious risk today. History has shown with tragic consistency that an intimate relationship between religion and politics does irreparable damage to both -- from the crusades of medieval times to the terrorism of modern times. Constant use of the God strategy by political leaders encourages just such a relationship. When George W. Bush justifies the Iraq War by saying that liberty is "God's gift to humanity" (2003 State of the Union) and that America's "calling" is to deliver that gift to the Iraqi people (countless times), he is offering something quite like a divine vision for U.S. foreign policy.

It is precisely this conflation of abstract claims about God with the concrete goals of the state that led esteemed religion scholar R. Scott Appleby to call the administration's rhetoric about spreading freedom and liberty "a theological version of Manifest Destiny." At a minimum, this approach risks repeating the errors of the original manifest destiny: unduly emphasizing the norms and values of white, conservative Protestants at the expense of those who will not or cannot conform.

Just as important, pairing religious doctrine with public policy encourages moderate citizens to conclude that the U.S. government's actions are the will of God -- or at least congruent with such wishes -- and therefore beyond question. Dogmatic political voices and hints of divinely inspired policy are not the ingredients of a robust republic; they're the recipe for hubris, jingoism, and the decline of democracy. These are disquieting possibilities, but the words of our political leaders in recent decades have moved America toward them. Both the Gospel of John and the record of evils past teach one thing: in the beginning, always, are words.

To concretely grasp what is at stake, we might recall John Kennedy's address before conservative Protestant clergy in September 1960. Unlike current candidates, the Catholic Kennedy declared: "I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute," "I believe in a president whose views on religion are his own private affair," and that he would make decisions "without regard to outside religious pressure or dictates." Such a presidency was essential, he said, because "Today, I may be the victim, but tomorrow it may be you — until the whole fabric of our harmonious society is ripped apart."

At this rate we'll soon be there. Tragically, we may already be.

_