Religious Values: The Higher Ground

Last updated on: May 9, 2013 at 6:20 am by Faithful Democrats

Religious Values: The Higher Ground 2013-05-09T06:20:47-06:00 Faithful Democrats

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Ultimately, religious faith is the

most important way that most Americans have to talk about commitments
that reach beyond self-interest, that shape their ways of looking at
the world, and that guide their choices even when the results of those
choices arenât immediately realized. They understandably want to know
whether the men and women who would lead them through difficult times
can talk about their commitments in those terms, too.

Religious
values have become part of politics. My fellow Democrats were surprised
by this fact in 2000 and confused by it in 2004, but it needs to be
part of our planning for 2006 and beyond. We would be mistaken to see
this as just another clever stratagem dreamed up in the offices of Karl
Rove and Tom DeLay. Faith has entered the language of politics because
people want to hear about it.

Democrats have found it hard to get
that message, for reasons that are rooted in our partyâs history.
Democrats pioneered religious diversity, providing a base for Jewish
and Catholic voters at a time when American politics was overwhelmingly
Protestant. We have been most successful when we have appealed to a
broad coalition of economic interests, and everyone remembers when it
was âthe economy, stupid.â

But voters want to know that
candidates are committed to something that lasts longer than a
campaign, and they want to know that a party has a vision beyond
reclaiming a majority in Congress. They may be disillusioned by the
discovery that the Republican legislative agenda is driven by narrow
interests, but they havenât learned to expect anything better from
Democrats.

Ultimately, religious faith is the
most important way that most Americans have to talk about commitments
that reach beyond self-interest, that shape their ways of looking at
the world, and that guide their choices even when the results of those
choices arenât immediately realized. They understandably want to know
whether the men and women who would lead them through difficult times
can talk about their commitments in those terms, too.

Of course, there are risks in mixing
religion and politics, especially for a party that takes pride in its
diversity, whether that diversity is ethnic, economic, or religious. We
donât need a campaign in which the language of faith becomes code for
specific policy choices, as though candidates could answer complex
questions about abortion, poverty, or international relations by
telling you where they worship. We wonât solve the problems of âred
statesâ and âblue statesâ by creating âred faithsâ and âblue faiths.â

That doesnât mean we should treat
faith as something that polite Democrats just donât discuss. Dialogue
about religious values and what they mean for law and policy has to be
a part of our public life. Without it, itâs hard to set directions that
go beyond immediate problems, find points of agreement that bridge
partisan divides, and identify leaders whose commitments will last
beyond the next round of fundraising. We need to learn how to have open
discussion of faith commitments without turning an election into a test
of religious purity.

These discussions are most important
at the points where politics has a chance to rise above the staking of
claims and the trading of favors to create a new understanding of the
common good. Think of Franklin Roosevelt, redefining freedom to include
freedom from want. Think of Martin Luther King, Jr., envisioning a
society where people âwill not be judged by the color of their skin,
but by the content of their character.â Todayâs politics requires that
same kind of moral imagination.

We need a global vision of peace that
can unite people of the three Abrahamic faiths and connect peace with
their shared zeal for justice. We need a domestic understanding of
economic security that is social and not just individual. We need a
practical idea of what it means to care for our neighbors that will
make access to health care, if not quite a right, at least less like
luck. Itâs not clear that any of those visions can even begin to grow
without the language of faith to inspire commitment to goals that canât
be stated in terms of self-interest alone.

If weâre going to speak of faith in
2006 and beyond, we might as well try to occupy the higher
ground. Places on the lower levels already seem to be pretty well taken.

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