Jerry Brown can on occasion be refreshingly iconoclastic, such as when he acknowledges the essential role that law and order plays in urban health, or when he welcomes, rather than demonizes, developers. But it sounds like he is feeling desperate in his campaign for California governor , if he is grabbing for the most hackneyed of political conceits: the faith card. Following a panel at the San Francisco Christian Center which his Republican opponent Meg Whitman did not attend, he remarked:
I’d like to hear Ms. Whitman’s view, what is her faith stand. I’d like to know just what role religion’s played in her life, and this is the forum to do it.
Is he really serious? What possible relevance could “her faith stand” have in assessing her fitness to take on California’s massive fiscal problems? I suppose it’s atypical for a Democrat to demand proof of religious inclination, but within the larger context of American politics, such a ploy is drearily conventional.
Well, the venue for the forum was the San Francisco Christian Center, so I suppose he felt he had to talk about “faith stands.”
I’d love to see a candidate say, “You know, I don’t believe in God, but I certainly have no objection to other people’s beliefs, provided those beliefs don’t entail a commitment to flying large planes into a big buildings.” I doubt this will happen in my lifetime.
This is true that Brown isn’t always the usual Dem.He had a background of a Jesuit as a young man. Anyway, the worst thing about Brown is he has helped the growth of the power of public employee unions. This makes Whitman more desirable. If Whitman can win hard for a Repub because of the bay area combine with La, she could be another Arnold or the 2016 Republican Candidnate for prez.
First, I think that Susan, as usual, is spot on in her comments. This was a faith center, after all, and one would expect that candidates who would speak at such a place would be talking about the intersection of faith and public life. Now, that talk might be, “well, I’m not religious and therefore I don’t really embrace a role for faith in public life for myself,” or “well, I’m religious but I believe in a strong separation of church and state so I compartmentalize my spiritual beliefs from my political ones,” or “I’m a believer and I believe that my faith compels me to affirm certain principles in public life.” All well and good. From a public policy perspective, the key thing is how will the candidates execute the public trust given to them.
If an atheist candidate is running for office, I think it is a legitimate question for religious believers to inquire about that candidate’s views regarding religious liberty and the participation of religious believers in the public square. I also think that the same is true for atheist voters in regard to candidates who clearly identifies with a religious tradition. Or Methodist voters to inquire of candidates who identify as Presbyterian, etc.
I also think that these kinds of forums are helpful in order to reveal a bit about what the candidates may really believe, or at least reveal a bit about what they think they have to say in order to get elected. A bit of daylight, so to speak.
Thanks for your kind words, Mark. Ever since I was a teenager, I’ve assumed that at least half of the people in public life, especially politicians, who make public affirmations of their “faith stands” do it because they have to and not because of any deep religious commitment. Much as you or I would be cordial in social or professional settings to people we dislike–simply because it’s wise policy to be so. If I have to be civilized to a jerk in order to enhance my paycheck, I’ll be civilized. I won’t grovel. I’ll be civilized.
So it is with politicians. If the statistics are true, most people in the U.S. pay at least lip service to some religion, and for some reason, they want to be assured that their politicians are believers. So it’s just impolitic for a politician not to cater to that desire.
I don’t think the kind of forum you’re suggesting would fly in the northeast, for a variety of reasons. And…such a forum might turn into a knock-down drag-out in parts of the south.
Susan,
Unfortunately, I think you’re right on all counts. It is unlikely that you’d get an honest answer out of politicians in regard to questions of faith, because they are concerned about public fall-out. To a certain extent, I think that’s a good thing — public accountability is part of what our government is based on, and it can keep some truly awful ideas out of serious consideration in our public debates. For example, I very much doubt that a politician who took a Dawkins-style position on Sunday School as the equivalent of child abuse would stand much of a chance of getting elected hardly anywhere.
But it also comes with costs, and one of those costs is an honest airing of the kinds of religious and non-religious diversity in the country with regard to questions of belief or the lack thereof. Which is sad — one of the advantages of a truly secular order (one that is truly neutral in regard to religion and questions of belief) is that it should create space for those kinds of discussions to occur, for genuine freedom of discussion and debate and thought. Unlike theocratic systems or overtly atheistic ones (like Soviet Russia), the neutrality of a secular order should make such a space. It is a sign of how far we have to go that such an approach to secularism has been wanting thus far.
As an addendum to my previous post: I read, very occasionally, a conservative forum dominated by the religious right. They make it clear that not only can one not be a conservative if one is a non-believer or an agnostic, since conservatism comes from God, but that no candidate who isn’t fervently born-again is acceptable. Some of them, indeed, state that they couldn’t vote for a Roman Catholic or a Mormon since neither Roman Catholics nor Mormons are Christians.
I don’t know how big a constituency this is, but I assume it’s one that astute politicians factor into the equation when trying to get elected.
Mark, I have serious doubts that most people are equipped with either the intellectual firepower or the rationality to engage in “an honest airing…etc.” Faith, by definition, is the opposite of reason.
Religion, in politics, is what it is: a tool or a cudgel. In New England, it’s a tool, I would say. Back when John Kerry was pretending to be Irish Catholic on the paternal side, he used his Catholicism not for purposes of faith but as a means of establishing a tribal identification with his blue collar white ethnic constituents. On the other hand, I have no idea what religion Scott Brown professes. It wasn’t an issue.
Whether by intention or no, nominating Jerry Brown was a cagey move for the Democrats. Governor Moonbeam is the Democrat most likely to lose, so the Democrats can dump their financial mess on the hapless Whitman and make the disaster “bipartisan.” Truth be told, the GOP has sort of gotten away with doing the same thing on a national level.
If Brown wins, then, the Democrats can still shrug it off since he’s so far out in left field, his association with them is minimal.
Susan,
First, you are absolute right about the kind of tribal intolerance shown by many religious believers on the Right when it comes to voting. I think that this was a major problem (not the only problem but a major one) with Mitt Romney’s campaign for the presidency. Once the basic question about constitutional fidelity has been asked and answered by a candidate, unless that candidate chooses to make their faith or lack thereof an issue, I would prefer it not enter the discussion. In a society such as ours, I think we wind up limiting the candidate pool when we take such an exclusory (if that’s a word) approach.
I would disagree with you that faith is by definition the opposite of reason. I’m more of a Thomist on this point, viewing it as being different from reason but not necessarily in conflict with it. But that’s a different discussion.
I think that part of the problem with having a kind of measured discussion about faith in the public square is that our political culture has degenerated to the point where having a measured discussion about almost anything is difficult. But I think that the effort is worth a try, and since I’m not running for office, I can make the effort at places like this, or over at American Creation, or at my own blog!
Cheers and thanks for the interesting commentary. I always walk away from my internet conversations with you going, “gee, I’m glad she posted and shared her thoughts!”
Polichinello,
For precisely the reasons you state, I wouldn’t be surprised if Obama was privately rooting for the Republicans in the upcoming mid-term elections…