Ignite the Pulpit
Faith and politics
A Texas pastor opened a hornet’s nest this week when he commented on Mitt Romney’s Mormon faith. Although many think Mormonism is a cult-like religion, Mormons (like Jews and Christians) uphold the Mosaic Code and the principles of Christianity.
Questioning someone’s faith
Governor Rick Perry (R-TX) addresses the 2011 Conservative Political Action Conference. Photo: Gage Sizemore, CC BY-SA 2.0 Generic License.
Is it fair to question a politician’s faith? The answer is YES! But not for the reasons many may think.
Faith and politics are a sure way to break up social (especially family) gatherings. But they are perhaps the exact topics we should speak about incessantly. Very few issues affect our daily lives as these two Taboo subjects do. However, the purpose of examining a politician’s faith is not to promote one’s creed.
The Judeo-Christian faith clearly sets standards of right and wrong. The Old Testament standard is the Ten Commandments. The New Testament embraces the Old Testament Mosaic Code and adds the Golden Rule – love your neighbor as yourself. When candidates who are true to the tenets of their faith get elected, the rest of us should be able to trust what principles they bring into government. This is not to say that those who do not embrace Judeo-Christian moral codes have no moral code. But without the clear standards that have stood for millennia, those codes and their worldview might not be clear. They are free to decide whatever is right or wrong in their own eyes and create their own moral standards.
Faith in a republic
Knowing a person’s faith is especially important in a republican form of government where decisions are made every day that affect the lives of many. Our founders understood this when they stated on many occasions and in many different ways that we should “prefer” Christians in government. These are the same men that wrote the First Amendment that protected our freedom to practice religion as we see fit. Their preference wasn’t based on their wish to convert the nation to Christianity. They understood that for anyone to be able to worship as they see fit, they must assure that everyone can worship as they see fit. Their preference was based on practicality – or an understanding that people of faith bring (or should bring) the principles of their faith into their decision-making process.
Conclusion
During campaign season, candidates must answer many questions about the issues of the day. People want to know where these men and women stand on a variety of issues. The problem is that the issues in the forefront today most likely will not be in the forefront tomorrow. Additionally, our elected officials will face a multitude of decisions that never make the news or receive public attention. A republic works best when we can trust our representatives to do the “right” thing. In order to be able to trust that they do what’s right, you should know what they consider to be right vs. what is wrong. And what better indication is there to know how a person thinks than their faith?
You may or may not agree with the Texas’ pastor’s opinion about Mormonism. But in my opinion it is entirely proper to examine the faith of those asking for your vote – especially in a republic such as ours.
Featured image: a solid-gold menorah, symbol of an imperishable faith, stands in Jerusalem’s Old City, awaiting its use in a dreamed-of Third Temple. Photo: CNAV.
RoseAnn Salanitri is a published author and Acquisition Editor for the New Jersey Family Policy Council. She is a community activist who has founded the Sussex County Tea Party in her home state and launched a recall movement against Senator Robert Menendez. RoseAnn is also the founder of Veritas Christian Academy, as well as co-founder of Creation Science Alive, and a national creation science speaker.
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From the United States Constituion, Article VI:
“no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.”
I think that says it all…..
You know perfectly well that that does not forbid a voter to vote for or against someone on account of his religion, or lack of it. Or do you desire to invalidate the votes of people of faith precisely because they have faith, and would know the faith, or lack of faith, of any who ask for their votes?
Terry wrote:
“You know perfectly well that that does not forbid a voter to vote for or against someone on account of his religion, or lack of it.”
Geno answers:
Absolutely. We are free to vote for whoever we want (except here in Oklahoma) for whatever reason we want. For example, you might choose to vote against Obama because he’s black. That is your constitutional right.
The issue here is a specific claim made that:
“Our founders understood this when they stated on many occasions and in many different ways that we should “prefer” Christians in government.”
I merely pointed out that Article VI of the Constitution of the United States of America is in direct contradiction to the claim. Given what is explicitly stated in the constitution, this article is little more than an attempt to make religious bigotry somehow an exercise in patriotism that would be supported by the founders of the nation.
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Terry claims:
” Or do you desire to invalidate the votes of people of faith precisely because they have faith, and would know the faith, or lack of faith, of any who ask for their votes?”
Geno answers:
Unfounded implication noted.
Nowhere have I ever so much as suggested anyone’s vote should be “invalidated.” Terry knows I have dedicated much of my life to defending our constitutional freedoms. That he should even imply I would support their violation is offensive.
Perhaps I’m more sensitive to religious discrimination in presidential politics because my denomination of Christianity (Roman Catholic) was discriminated against for most of the nation’s history.
I don’t know any such thing about you. All I know about you are your remarks, and their tone. And by that tone, I draw certain inferences. You may deny them. But you have made a number of statements that, absent any such motive as I have imputed to you, would be “incompetent, irrelevant, and immaterial” as they say in a court of law. So I am left to conclude that you are either (a) making non sequitur arguments and failing to recognize them as such, or (b) hiding the truth about what you really want to see, or make, happen.
Terry says:
“All I know about you are your remarks, and their tone. And by that tone, I draw certain inferences.”
Geno replies:
Then you know, by my remarks, that I spent over 12 years in the military defending the constitutional rights of all Americans.
You infer, by me having documented the founders of this nation EXPLICITLY included in the Constitution a prohibition of religious tests for office that I would support “invalidating” someone’s vote. That’s quite a stretch, Terry.
I infer that because never once did I suggest making any candidate ineligible, a priori, for office on the basis of faith, or lack of faith. So that was never an issue. The issue was whether a candidate’s campaign ought to mention the subject, and what a voter ought to make of it. But along you come, and say, “No, no. That’s wrong. Any campaign that did that, and any voter who so voted, would violate Article Six of the Constitution. You’re trying to set up a religious test for office.”
Terry claims:
“The issue was whether a candidate’s campaign ought to mention the subject, and what a voter ought to make of it. But along you come, and say, “No, no. That’s wrong. Any campaign that did that, and any voter who so voted, would violate Article Six of the Constitution. You’re trying to set up a religious test for office.””
Geno points out:
Like it or not, this article specifically suggests a religious test for office. I have pointed out this is not in keeping with what is explicitly written in the Constitution. On the other hand, those who seek to support their religious discrimination have no Constitutional support at all.
Make what you will of it.
A voter has the absolute right to apply any test he wants. You have just confirmed that you want to preclude a voter from applying a particular test. Then again, neither you nor any other leftist has ever been comfortable with allowing voters to do anything. Once they vote against you, you stand against them.
Terry writes:
“neither you nor any other leftist …”
Geno replies:
Which goes to clearly show you ass-u-me far too much. I would only be a “leftist” when compared to someone who is to the right of Atilla the Hun.
Just as a for-instance, I’ve voted in some 11 presidential elections and not once has a democrat gotten my vote.
I find that extremely difficult to accept. Secular humanism is the semi-official anti-religion of the Democratic Party. And the sort of open criticism of voters for examining the faith of a candidate, that you left on this comment space, is part and parcel of secular humanism.
I therefore know you by the company you keep. And that company is distinctly unsavory.
Terry said:
“Secular humanism is the semi-official anti-religion of the Democratic Party.”
Geno points out:
I’m a Catholic, not “secular humanist.” While I am registered to vote as a Democrat, that is a fairly recent thing (since I moved to Oklahoma) and was done for one reason only.
As I said, in Oklahoma, we aren’t free to vote for anyone of our choice as write-ins are not allowed. Further, one cannot cannot cross party lines in primary elections. Republicans field few, if any, candidates in local elections. Therefore, local elections are almost always decided by the winner of the Democratic primary. In order to participate in any meaningful way in local elections, it is necessary I be a registered Democrat. In virtually all state and federal elections, my votes go to Republican candidates.
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Terry claims:
“the sort of open criticism of voters for examining the faith of a candidate, that you left on this comment space, is part and parcel of secular humanism.”
Geno comments:
Irrelevant. If I happen to agree with someone on one issue doesn’t mean I have to agree with them on all issues. For example, we share a disdain for Obama and what he has been trying to do to us.
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Terry claims:
“I therefore know you by the company you keep. And that company is distinctly unsavory.”
Geno responds:
Likewise, I’m sure.
A nominal Catholic can still be a secular humanist. Then again, the Catholics these days are very weak on the fundamentals of the faith. They ceded the high ground of “science” to the evolutionists. Which, I remind you, was totally inappropriate and unnecessary.
And you still are in an indefensible position. You might as well have said that any voter who wants to apply his own test for higher office, which test happens to be religious, should not vote.
Article Six says that no candidate should be precluded from running on faith grounds. That does not say that anyone is obliged to vote for an atheist just to prove his fidelity to Article Six.
Knowing a political candidate’s religious views is certainly an important variable, but at the same time shouldn’t be the only variable.
Though I do wish that there would be some emphasis in the American educational curriculum concerning world religions, it would clear up a lot of ignorance in this country.
I suspect that you highly overestimate your own ability to detect someones true faith based on their outward expressions of faith. How many pastors over the years have wrapped themselves in the flag and the bible while stuffing their pockets with filthy lucre?
The “pastors” you’re talking about are the ones who build television empires. When a regular pastor does that, his congregants fire him. And of course, all you hear about are the scandals.
Speaking of which: aren’t you, perhaps, overestimating your ability, as a voter, to detect someone’s true intentions based on his outward expressions of ideology during a political campaign? When you voted for Barack Obama (as I assume, from your tone, that you did), did you know that he would be funneling money to political favorites who ran failing companies that happened to be in the “right” industries? Or running guns into Mexico for the ostensible purpose of busting up drug cartels, and not coming anywhere near to tracking any of those guns?
Well eventually yes, but the regular pastor can steal a lot of stuff and steal for decades with out getting fired. i remember a pastor in a 500 seat church stealing something like 1.3 million dollars over the course of 20 years from his church.
I am not overestimating my ability to determine someones ideological stance based on their campaign, I recognize how very weak it is. I tend to vote based on perceived competence. If someone really can’t do a good job of making it look like their head is screwed on straight I assume that it isn’t.
I wrote in Ron Paul, I couldn’t bring myself to vote for McCain/Palin, especially not after the Couric interview, After Palin was brought on board I did sport an Obama pin for a while while I was trying to woo an Obama campaigner, boy was she good looking. To some extent ideology can be inferred from voting record, which is nice. However the open declaration of faith is the easiest thing to fake.
Such cases as yours are rare. Your argument suffers from a common flaw: lack of a denominator. What matters is the proportion of pastors who steal, and to a lesser degree the proportion of money that gets stolen from the offering plate.
As regards ideology, it’s past time that students got solid groundings in economics, and in basic moral philosophy. Then you wouldn’t get an Obama, because everyone would recognize that he is (a) a thief and (b) one who incites others to steal, or to want the government to steal for him.
In your place, I would never have bothered to woo the Obama campaigner. That’s a perfect example of the mind-body dichotomy.
—Ayn Rand.
And from the Bible itself, comes this rule: don’t get into the yoke with someone who doesn’t believe as you do. One of you will always want to gee when the other one wants to haw.
What did Obama steal? Or are you talking about thief in the social parasite sense?
I am a fan of Ayn Rand. I even took a date to Atlas Shrugged Part I, a girl who I was interested in because she liked Ayn Rand. However Ayn had some pretty peculiar views of sexuality that I just don’t cotton to. She had a great body, and really nice skin and really great hair, totally woo worthy. Long term marriage material? Not so much.
Yes: thief in the social parasite sense. I could indict him for the Solyndra Incident alone, but that’s small potatoes in comparison to his wholesale theft of human liberty. Still, Solyndra did rather look like the Interneighborly Amity and Development Corporation (see Atlas Shrugged, Part III, Chapters 4 and 5).
I do find it a bit ironic that you are using Ayn Rand in your defense of religion as a means of judging politicians.
I think you misunderstood that. I use Ayn Rand in the defense of certain particular commandments with which she would wholeheartedly agree:
Do not murder.
Do not steal.
Do not lie.
Do not covet somebody else’s stuff.
And in the particular case that you mentioned, I used Ayn Rand to defend the proposition that one does not enter into relationships with “significant others” who loathe and despise everything one stands for. Not, that is, unless one remains convinced that mind and body are two separate things that are at constant war the one against the other. Maybe you could bring yourself to unite in intimacy with one who would like to steal everything you have worked hard for. I could not.
Terry said:
“Catholics these days are very weak on the fundamentals of the faith.”
Geno answers:
If by that you mean we aren’t fundamentalists, you are absolutely right. We also don’t accept “sola scriptura.”
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Terry said:
“They ceded the high ground of “science” to the evolutionists.”
Geno answers:
Yeah…. we learned our lesson with Galileo… a couple hundred years before your denomination of Christianity even existed. The turn of fundamentalism will come and it will be at the hands of physics, not evolution.
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Terry said:
“You might as well have said that any voter who wants to apply his own test for higher office, which test happens to be religious, should not vote.”
Geno answers:
I guess you missed this explicit statement made by me:
“We are free to vote for whoever we want (except here in Oklahoma) for whatever reason we want. For example, you might choose to vote against Obama because he’s black. That is your constitutional right.”
That said, just because it is your constitutional right doesn’t mean it’s the right thing to do. Further, as I have pointed out, my specific objection was with the claim made by the author that:
“Our founders understood this when they stated on many occasions and in many different ways that we should “prefer” Christians in government.”
Again, I point out this statement is at odds with what is clearly stated in the Constitution. In other words, I have constitutional authority for my position that we should not use a candidates religious beliefs as a qualifier for public office. Do you have a right to do so? Yes. Is it right to do so? No.
I said it before, and I’ll say it again. This article is nothing more than an attempt to justify religious bigotry using alleged but undocumented claims of support for such descrimiination by the Founding Fathers.
This whole exercise reminds me of what happened when my mother moved to Oklahoma and neighbors would recommend workmen to help remodel her house. She got ripped off by so many “fine Christian gentlemen” that she finally told people she doesn’t care if a worker is a devil worshiping
pagan as long as he did good work.
It is my opinion that the only LEGITIMATE test for public office is how well a candidate will do the job. JFK proved a couple generations ago the religious bigotry practiced by the exclusion of Catholics from the presidency was wrong and it’s just as wrong for fundamentalist “Christians” to engage in such behavior today.
Well, Geno, that is why I am not a Catholic. Had I been alive at a certain era, I would have been the one nailing nine precepts to the churchhouse door. In a sense more true than you imagine, Martin Luther “nailed” it.
You took the wrong lesson from Galileo. The RCC made the mistake of accepting Aristotle’s science as settled. That included geocentrism. The earth isn’t the center of the universe—but the galaxy is. And the evidence for that is mounting already.
All right. So you concede that, as a voter, I have a constitutional right to examine a candidate’s faith. But you decry it. Of course, the reason that you decry it is that you disagree with the political positions of almost every Republican in the field. Note what I said: almost. I wouldn’t be surprised to find you changing your registration next year, to participate in the Republican primary. If so, you’ll have your candidate, and I’ll have mine.
You used Ayn Rand at all, and that makes it ironic
A broken clock tells the correct time twice a day. I find specific flaws in her philosophical system, but it reaches some of the same conclusions I do. Invalid reasoning can sometimes reach a true conclusion. And valid reasoning, from different premises, often reaches the same conclusion.
If she is correct but her reasoning is false then why cite her? You cite someone as shorthand for their argument.
She used good reasoning in the particular context in which I cited her. Which is to say: I don’t “slum,” or “pick up” my political opponents.
If you saw what kind of body she had I don’t think you would be giving me this much guff about my choices.
Besides, I’m an Atheist Republican with Austrian Economic leanings. there are exactly 5 women in the world who I are my age, single, in moderately good health, and who I can consider complete political allies, I have yet to locate any of those 5. I’ve got to compromise somewhere or be very very lonely.
Yes, I would, and I still do. A person’s intimate associations should and ought to reflect his deepest values. I wouldn’t expect you to make a romantic choice for political convenience (to land an interview with the candidate, for example). But neither could I lower myself to climb into bed with someone with the morality of a thief, no matter how “hot” she looked.