For today, Ash Wednesday, our seminary chapel reading was from Matthew 6:1a: “Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them.” Jesus said that’s hypocrisy.

The kind of faith that sustains a person through the demands of public service can be deeply and profoundly important, but the bible thumpin’ to garner votes is the antithesis of faith. In fact, it is so completely and utterly wrong that Jesus, in that text in Matthew, goes on to say that these hypocrites who stand around praying “on the street corners, so they can be seen by others” are not going to get a reward in heaven. They have had their reward on earth. In other words, the hypocrites who trumpet their faith before others just to be seen being pious are going to hell in a hand-basket. That sounds about right.

This kind of hypocrisy is why secularism has become such a difficult, even a taboo subject in this presidential campaign season. One way for the hyper-pious politician to prove his or her piety is to demean or dismiss concerns of secularism.

A genuine commitment to pluralism is required for democracy. The only way to protect pluralism is to have a public square that is free from religious control. That is the idea of secularism.

Not all people of faith who are campaigning for the presidency are hostile to secularism. Indeed, I would say that Barack Obama not only “gets it”, but is able, as both a devout Christian and a constitutional lawyer, to articulate the proper relationship between faith and the public square.

“Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values. Democracy requires that their proposals be subject to argument, and amenable to reason. I may be opposed to abortion for religious reasons, but if I seek to pass a law banning the practice, I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or evoke God’s will. I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all…Politics depends on our ability to persuade each other of common aims based on a common reality.”

Obama’s position is 180 degrees apart from that of Mike Huckabee who wants to “amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards” as we have previously discussed in On Faith.

Obama’s view protects democracy and religion; Huckabee’s position imperils both. The idea of secularism doesn’t just protect humanists, it protects people of faith. You may have noticed that people of faith do not agree with each other. The idea of secularism is that there is a legitimate sphere that is free of religious control. This means that I, as a religious progressive, am not prevented from raising my voice in the public square by religious conservatives (or vice versa). All religions and all viewpoints within religions are welcome in our democracy because of the idea of secularism. Secularism protects the freedom of religion as well as the freedom from religion.

This does not mean that people cannot offer their moral and ethical reflections on the crucial issues of the day; indeed, a promising development especially since the progressive religious revolt after the election of 2004 is the plurality of religious voices now engaging the public square.

It is a cheap and ugly business when faith becomes political pandering, and it is a threat not only to democracy, but also to the freedom of religion.