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On Friday I devoted 99% of my 20/20 vision to a peculiar question asked by a participant in the CNN YouTube Republican presidential debate. You remember the one—a fellow named Joseph from Dallas dangled a King James Version of the Bible directly in front of the camera and asked: “Do you believe every word of this book? And I mean specifically, this book that I am holding in my hand.”
Mitt Romney is scheduled to give a major address about Faith and Values this Thursday. What with all the "Kennedy in Houston" spin and parallels being bandied about it might be helpful to take stock of what we have learned about his campaign thus far.
Media representations of Mitt Romney’s religiosity have oscillated between two opposing themes. The first might be called Romney the Mormon.
No shortage of journalistic angles here. Will anti-LDS prejudices surface as White Evangelicals (among others) consider a candidate who enthusiastically shares their agenda? How closely does the former governor of Massachusetts live by the precepts of his religion? And what exactly are the precepts of his religion, anyhow?
Sometime in the coming weeks I will point out that far from being a speech in the Kennedy mold (as advertised and as spun), Mitt Romney’s Faith and Values address marks a complete and long-coming reversal of JFK’s (and 20th Century America’s) understanding of the proper place of religion in public life. The Golden Age of American Secularism, as I call it in my forthcoming book, is over.
But rather than dwell on these troubling verities, permit me to momentarily bask in my own wonkish glow. In a radio interview with the Washington Post’s Emily Freifeld on Wednesday I was asked what I thought Romney might speak about on Thursday.
For months now, I have been sort of waiting for a (GOP) presidential candidate to play the secular card. He would, I always imagined, cast all of those decent, hardworking, non-believing Americans and believing ones who advocate separation of Church and State in the role of public enemies. He would charge that they are unraveling the nation’s moral fiber. He would depict them as Willie Hortons with advanced degrees, furloughed by the Democrats and a liberal judiciary.
My hesitant response to Ms. Freifeld was to suggest that Romney just might--who knows?--take on the secularists. Think, after all, of how much mileage the old Moral Majority got out of the boogeyman of “secular humanism.” That worked pretty good.
Well, yesterday Mitt Romney done went and did it!
I once had a student--oh what a funny kid!--who when called upon to read passages aloud would recite them in a thick, nearly incomprehensible, Scottish brogue. He first stumbled upon this innovation during a discussion of John Locke’s A Letter Concerning Toleration (about which more anon).
His attention to historical detail led him to speak like a seventeenth-century Scottish guy (even though Locke was born in Britain). His comic sense led him to speak like an old seventeenth-century Scottish guy. What led him to pronounce certain gutturals with those harsh, mucusy inflections one hears in modern Schweizer Deutsch is anyone’s guess.
My students and I loved it. So much so that by mid-semester we implored him to unleash his impersonation on all the theorists we studied in the “Introduction to Secularism” seminar. Gentle reader, you have not glimpsed joy until you hear the sentiments of Voltaire, Marx, Nietzsche, Weber, Arendt, Russell and Sartre (especially Sartre) being spoken by a fellow who sounded like a sheep herder from the Mormaerdom of Angus.
Why am I mentioning all of this? I have found myself thinking incessantly about Locke since Mitt Romney’s Faith and Values speech last week.
Precious little was said about Faith and Values during last night’s Republican Presidential Candidates Debate held in Johnston Iowa.
Mike Huckabee cited Matthew 25:40 (It wasn’t his first time and it won’t be his last). The former governor of Arkansas also insisted that faith must drive a politician’s judgment and value system. A clear sign, indubitably, that he: 1) does not share John Kerry’s concerns about candidates wearing their faith on their sleeves, and, 2) can be expected to thump the Bible hard in the coming weeks.
Then there was Alan Keyes. When he wasn’t chastising the moderator (and others) he reminded us that the Constitution is subservient to the Creator. Not an uninteresting formulation, actually. Article II, Section 1 demands that a president must “preserve, protect and defend” the Constitution. Call me a talmudist, if you must, but Keyes raises a good theoretical question: if God Himself were to come down to earth and wreak havoc with our cherished constitutional liberties would an American president be obliged to take Him on?
Aside from that, there was little God Talk at last night’s encounter. The proceedings were civil and sedate, though not overwhelmingly substantive.
And this is where my post would conclude had not my wife--a New York fashion stylist currently living in exile--wandered into the room. Her impromptu comments on the sartorial strengths and weaknesses of the men assembled on stage livened up an otherwise dull evening. Our shared observations are noted below:
The God Talk was kept to a cathedral-like whisper at Thursday’s Democratic Debate in Iowa.
Joe Biden cited one line from a Catholic hymn. Barack Obama referred to his church in passing. Hillary Clinton spoke of children reaching their “God-given potential.” And that was the sum total of religious rhetoric at an event which, in terms of set design, graphics, and color schemes, looked like it could have been staged circa 1983. Aesthetically speaking, this was the garage band of presidential debates.
Mike Huckabee knows a thing or two about garage bands. At Wednesday’s GOP debate (sponsored by the same news organization) he showed that he also knows how to collapse the distinction between the private and the public. During that segment of the broadcast where candidates aired their promotional videos he opined as follows:
I know many registered Democrats who are exemplary, civic-minded Americans. They do not view national elections as mere contests, games in which their “team” must emerge victorious at any cost.
No! For them, the electoral process is about gaining acquaintance with the two most qualified candidates for the presidency. Their sincerest hope is that the GOP selects the best person for the job. This assures that the issues which most concern our citizens will receive their most serious hearing.
The question I am about to pose is not for this type of Democrat:
Which of the current front-runners do you want to win the GOP’s presidential nomination, if only because he will be trounced by either Hillary or Barack or John? Put differently, who do you want the Republicans to designate as a winner, knowing full well that he will be a loser come Election Day?
As always, when it comes to ethically dubious endeavors, I am here to help. What follows is a brief analysis of the most glaring Faith and Values liabilities of the leading Republican contenders (A Democratic version of this exercise will follow shortly):
In my last post, I asked Democrats to identify the GOP presidential aspirant who had the greatest chance of being crushed like a vulgar mosquito by either Clinton or Obama or Edwards on Election Day.
Now it is your turn, esteemed Republican voter. Who is your cherished McGovern? Your beloved Mondale? Your hard-to-top Dukakis? Your oh-so-kind Kerry?
Who do you want to see grinning unsuspectingly, drenched in a cascade of balloons and confetti, arm draped around a running mate, swaying a-rhythmically to music piped in over the massive sound system (Led Zeppelin's "Fool in the Rain," perhaps?) at the Democratic National Convention in Denver this August?
My contribution to this discussion about the biggest potential loser consists of risk-assessing the candidates’ Faith and Values liabilities. And let me stress that for the first time in recent memory the Democrats have far fewer of these than their GOP counterparts
I suppose this top-ten list should be prefaced with a disclaimer -- something to the effect that I loathe top-ten lists, that they simplify a complex reality, that they are the solvent of critical thinking skills, that they pose a national security threat, etc., etc. But the truth is that I rather fancy them. In small quantities -- like those cookies that come in seasonal gift baskets with oddly doughy consistencies and 73 grams of saturated fat per serving.
What follows is my list of the nine biggest Faith and Values developments of the 2007 campaign (plus one facetious question):
» Jacques Berlinerblau: Finding, inspecting, analyzing and understanding The God Vote 2008.
» Katherine Marshall: Faith in Action
What Islam Really Says About Violence, Rights and Other Religions
Gomaa, Fadlallah, Mubarak, Khan, Siddiqi, Ellison, others | On Faith
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