Religion and Politics: A Question of Character

Whenever I'm tempted to think the discussion of religion and politics in the run-up to the 2008 elections can't get worse, a funny thing happens. It gets worse.

One day it's 18 Catholic Democrats in the House of Representatives complaining that the Pope violates separation of church and state in saying Catholic teaching on abortion applies to people like them as much as it does to other Catholics. Then it's three Republican candidates for president telling the world how they feel about evolution. ("If anybody wants to believe that they are the descendants of a primate, they are certainly welcome to do it," one contender remarked, apparently bidding for this year's William Jennings Bryan award.)

And to think — we've got months of this to go.

Worthy of note, too, is the proliferation of staff people doing religious outreach on behalf of the 2008 presidential contenders. In case this is being read by children below the age of reason, religious "outreach" means hustling votes by pitching faith as part of your campaign.

Writing in The Washington Post after a Democratic faith forum sponsored by the liberal evangelical group Sojourners, Ruth Marcus remarked that the Democrats this year are "on a mission." To convert the pagans? No, to cut into the GOP advantage among churchgoing voters — which, come to think of it, may be considered by Democrats a form of converting pagans.

None of this is wrong in itself, mind you. But as the antics reveal, we still haven't got the relationship of religion and politics quite right. Permit me to suggest three ways in which the candidates' faith-based commitments can play an appropriate role in how voters judge them.

First, religious commitment is a measure of character — hardly the only one but an important one just the same. We don't expect our politicians to be saints. But we can and should expect that they will be men and women of good character, precisely because character is relevant to the performance of public duties. Sincere religious faith sincerely lived out is one indicator of it.

Character was the issue in the Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky episode. The president's defenders sometimes argued that personal behavior doesn't matter where fitness for office is concerned. Whether it was true in this case remains an open question. But there is no reason to reject the intuition that, on the whole, not only competence but character counts.

Second, consistency and inconsistency in regard to fundamental moral values tell a great deal about a candidate's approach to issues. That's why the "personally opposed, but…" line on abortion expressed by someone like Rudolph Giuliani in itself raises questions about suitability for office going beyond abortion itself.

Just how far, after all — at least in the candidate's mind — can "personally opposed, but…" be stretched? Is somebody who says this prepared to say the same, for example, about torture as an interrogation tool, recreational drug use, capital punishment, legal approval of same-sex unions or marriages involving more than two persons, and other such issues?

Third, along with good character and deeply held convictions undergirding policy stands, mature religious faith involves a welcome capacity to make prudent applications of moral principles to facts. Religious authorities have a right and duty to teach principles and norms. Political authorities have a right and duty to decide how principles and norms apply to factual circumstances. It's a healthy division of labor that should be maintained.

By all means, then, let the discussion of religion and politics continue. But please — with genuine respect for both.