by On the New Republic’s blog, Jonathan Chait has a short post that is overdone but makes a valid point. He notes that Sharron Angle, the tea-party-backed GOP Arizona senatorial candidate, in an interview with the National Review, credits God (and Mark Levin) for her primary win, saying that “[m]ost everything has a providential side in American history.” She then addresses criticisms of her fervent support of questionable prison rehab programs run by front groups for the Church of Scientology, denying that she is a Scientologist but adding: “What we’re seeing here is a very slippery slope. Whenever religion becomes the focal point — we saw this during John F. Kennedy’s race and also, to some degree, in Mitt Romney’s race — whenever this becomes the focus, we Americans should be very, very concerned. We have a First Amendment that guarantees us all the right to worship as we please. We as Americans should, even if we don’t agree, should defend their right to have that right. It shouldn’t come into play in any political arena.” Summarizing her views, Chait writes: “Since the program was essentially created by a religious cult, we can’t question her support for it without threatening the church-state divide. Meanwhile, God wanted her to win.”
As I said, I think Chait’s suggestion of hypocrisy is overdrawn. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have a point. In my view, Angle is welcome to credit God for her victory, and I can hardly say she’s wrong. She is also welcome to invoke God, and does: in a speech at the National Press Club, she said she had brought to Washington her Smith & Wesson, God, and her husband, in that order. When it comes to religion and politics, though, within or beyond the First Amendment, it is not possible to invoke religion as a qualification and then invoke religious freedom as a get-out-of-jail-free card. For one thing, people don’t just question the Scientologists’ rehab program because it derives from Scientology: they also doubt its efficacy and even its safety. For another, if she believes voters have a right to know about her faith, and that she has a right to tell them, then voters must be equally free to question her faith. They must be free to question whether she is a Scientologist, and even to vote against her on that basis, although I think that charge seems unfair (it is more accurate to say that Scientologists have their own, perhaps valid and certainly constitutionally protected, reasons for supporting politicians of all religious stripes). And they must be free to question why she supports either that faith or its programs. For that matter, they are welcome to question whether any Christian in good standing would do so.
I am not encouraging these questions. I am suggesting, however, that you can’t take the sweet without the bitter. If, I as I believe is true, one is and must be free to invoke religion as a qualification for office and as a vital part of one’s background and character, then it must be equally permissible to engage in either sectarian or generalized criticism of a candidate’s religious faith, from an internal or an external perspective. We do religion no favors by excluding it from public discourse; but we do it no favors either by treating it with kid gloves.
I largely agree, though I do think we need to be careful to keep the focus on the efficacy of the prison rehab program, rather than on the perceived wackiness of the Scientologists (or Mormons or Catholics or evangelicals) running the program. Often the politicians invoking God are doing so in a very general way, and I’m not sure that should open up a full political debate on the theological tenets of their faith tradition. (I’m talking about best practices, not some sort of formal prohibition on such debates.) In the prop 8 aftermath, I found the anti-LDS rhetoric disturbing because it went far beyond the merits of the political issue at hand.
I wonder how Sharron Angle would explain Barack Obama’s victory. Was God asleep at the wheel? And do athletes who lose games ever give glory to God?
According to St. Paul, Christians are to “do all to the glory of God.” I like hearing successful athletes thank God and/or Jesus for their victories, in part because it breaks through the secular-sanitized reporting that goes on in sports these days–to see the media’s “personal profiles” of Olympic, Super Bowl, or World Cup athletes, one would think that professional sports is as secular as the legal academy. Of greater importance than support in victory is the comfort that God gives in the losses, athletic and otherwise, in this life.
I get nervous when a politician credits God with his or her success. God is likely to get the blame for their failures. He seems to have gotten more blame in recent years.
Is God on Sharron Angle’s side or her opponent’s side? I prefer the Lincolnesque notion that God’s purposes are likely to be different from those of either side.
It seems appropriate for us to ask where a candidate’s faith will take him or her on issues that might arise in their offices, but this creates the risk that the faith of a minority-religion candidate (whether Catholic, Jewish, Mormon, Pentecostal, or atheist) will be so questioned in order to marginalize the candidate. It is a complex issue. I would hope for respectful, thoughtful discussion of such questions in the public square, but that might be too much to ask.
I emphatically agree with Rob and Robert in part — perhaps in whole, although I would put a slightly different emphasis on things. I agree with Rob that it would be better (at least in my view) to focus on the efficacy of the program rather than what to many is the alien (pun somewhat intended, for those who are informed in such matters) nature of Scientological belief. And I would agree with him that the prop.8 debate — and Mitt Romney’s candidacy — ended up with some very broad anti-LDS statements. I would similarly agree with Robert that we should both hope for and work for respectful, thoughtful discussion of such questions to the extent they arise in the public square. My view at the same time is that, although in practice we may have special reason to dislike and be concerned about a failure of nuance or respect in these kinds of public discussions about religion, in principle they are subject to the same kinds of rules that would apply to our arguments about other issues and values — say, support for or opposition to the war in Iraq, or support for or opposition to a political candidate who has been divorced or engaged in an extramarital affair. We want, or should want, discussion on those issues to be respectful and nuanced; we know, and should expect, that it won’t always be so. I think we should treat this as cause for concern, and as a good reason for thoughtful people to make sure they are part of the discussion. I can even sympathize with those who believe that because religion *is* a sensitive subject, candidates should not invoke it lightly and respondents should not lightly support or condemn it; that, if they don’t want religion to bear the heat of public criticism, perhaps they ought not bring those views into the public square in the first place. But I do think religious views are by no means out of place in the public square; and that means, for me, that those who invoke religion in public debate should not be surprised if their religion, or religion in general, ends up as a subject and target of criticism, and should not treat that criticism as somehow being out of bounds or impermissible. Stupid or careless, yes, in some cases, just as some public discussions of other issues and values will inevitably be stupid or careless; but not illegitimate, and certainly not for constitutional reasons. With religion as with other issues, bad public debate may be the price of good public debate.
I think a failure of nuance or respect as to a candidate’s religion is different from a failure of nuance or respect as to a candidate’s support for or opposition to the war in Iraq or his or her divorce or extramarital affair. A candidate’s previous policy positions and family choices may (or may not) provide us with helpful information about a candidate’s character and future policy choices. They are fair game for the rough and tumble of political discourse. It may be that someone’s religious faith will give us insight into someone’s character and future policy choices, but such discussion makes me nervous. There is too much danger of misuse. Note that members of minority faiths generally are not the ones who bring up their religious faith during campaigns, their opponents or their opponents’ surrogates do. I think that underlying our Constitution’s “no religious test” is a wise principle.
Maybe religious faith should be more like race. We are rightly sensitive to the dangers of racist comments during political campaigns. Sen. McCain avoided racial comments in our most recent presidential campaign, probably in accord with both his personal convictions and the evolving public ethos. I hope that a similar ethos will evolve as to the religious faith of a candidate. If it is relevant, my hope is that discussion will be respectful and thoughtful.
I should add by way of correction that she is actually in Nevada, not Arizona. Mea culpa.