In these pre-ecumenical days, any discussion of religion would have been divisive. As the big tent party, Democrats stressed what united members not what divided them. Secularists found this silence comforting but misread it as an ideological commitment rather than a pragmatic political decision.

Lyndon Johnson’s civil rights laws were the beginning of the end of this coalition. Nixon and Wallace played the race card in the South, but Republicans also used religious language to woo Southerners. Democrats were at a loss on how to respond to this religious rhetoric. Jews as a minority were fearful of “Christian talk.” Catholics, who on arriving in America had been treated as idolatrous foreigners, had been trained to use natural law philosophy in political talk because their faith was not acceptable to mainstream America. And secular elites thought religion was for dummies.

At the presidential candidates forum on religion, values and poverty, Democrats decided that it was time to show America that Democrats can be good Christians, inspired by Christian values, but not willing to impose their faith on others. The candidates showed themselves to be tempered, moderate and ecumenical. The forum was sponsored by Sojourners (a liberal evangelical group) and Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good (even though none of the candidates was Catholic).

Many of the questions from the moderator were personal and obnoxiously intrusive. “What was the greatest sin you ever committed?” “Did your faith help you deal with your husband’s infidelity?” This has nothing to do with the intersection of faith and politics.

Faith matters in this country. The country will be uncomfortable with a party that is uncomfortable with faith. But the country will also be uncomfortable with any faith that is not respectful of others who believe differently. America has embraced ecumenism not relativism. Can the Democrats do the same?