Democrats Getting Religion, but Doing It the Wrong Way

by Mark Ellingsen

Good to see the Democrats are finally getting religion, according to Time Magazine (in its July 23 cover story). But if the account is accurate, Democratic leadership and the first-tier Presidential candidates are doing it the wrong way, making the same mistakes that the Right has in manipulating religion for its political purposes. The Time article also doesn't have the whole story. Typical of most media accounts, along with its 'experts' it concentrates only on Evangelical voters, when in fact a coalition of a mainline Protestants, African-American Christians, and Catholics far outnumbers Evangelical voters by 2.5 to 1.

Here's the deal: Republicans have succeeded in getting the religious vote by linking their policies to Puritan dispositions (those of the Mayflower Pilgrims) which have dominated religious life and the way in which most religious Americans of influence view religion. Among these Puritan dispositions, inherited from the movement's origins in 17th-century England include high standards of conservative individual morality, openness to the free-market and aversion towards the poor, as well as the belief that Christian values should directly impact society. By simply speaking of religious values shaping their politics and even implying that the values of faith should impact American society, the old Puritan-like way of the Right, the Democrats not only run the risk of losing their secular and Jewish base as well as of being dismissed by the secular media for violating First Amendment suppositions. More seriously, using such Puritan-like rhetoric just plays into the conservative strategies of developing legislation that favors a free-market, individual accountability approach. It will be heard that way by the public and implemented that way by most American political leaders, because, immersed as they are in Puritan dispositions, most Americans hear religious rhetoric as values to foster individual accountability and the free market. The new Democratic version of religion will just undergird the Neo-Conservatism which has influenced American politics since the Reagan era.

It will take a new/old way of doing religion in politics. The heritages of the African-American, Lutheran, and Catholic churches offer a way to go. Until the Reagan era these three branches of American religion voted Democratic, and at least the first of them still do. What is different? In part it relates to the historically ethnic character of these bodies, a sense that their faith was about all the members of these churches so that politics rooted in these traditions was aimed at upbuilding the community, not just individuals. Also, especially in the case of Lutherans and Catholics, as well as the heritage of the Civil Rights Movement, faith was brought to bear on politics, not so much by appealing to distinct Christian principles, but by appealing to the common morality shared by all human beings and embodied in America's founding documents. Such an approach will appeal to a broad constituency of Americans, will not alienate the Democrats secular base. It will also lead to a progressive politics, because study of the way traditional Christianity has interpreted humanity's common morality (expressed in the final Commands of the Ten Commandments) reveal that the most ancient versions of these faiths believe we kill and steal if we are not helping our neighbors with the basic necessities of life.

This is how the Democrats need to get religion. It will help them keep the good will of a broad constituency, and allow religious claims to be heard as supporting a progressive politics. And if the Democrats combined this with a strategy of building a mainline Protestant, Catholic, Black church coalition, the voice of religious conservatives who could not buy into progressive politics for whatever reason would not matter much (as the numbers of religious conservatives are small compared to this coalition).

Mark Ellingsen is an active speaker at seminaries, churches, and conferences where he is sought out as an expert and spirited champion of authentic Christian faith and politics. Ellingsen is associate professor at the Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta. His new book When Did Jesus Become Republican?: Rescuing Our Country and Our Values from the Right is publishing this month.