April 24, 2000
Faith formed a wedge in
primary politics, observers say
___By Bob Allen
___Associated Baptist Press
___JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (ABP)--The old saying that religion and politics don't mix must have never seemed truer than to Republicans who are trying to rebuild a party fractured by a presidential primary season some pundits dubbed the "Holy War."
___ While scuffles between the Religious Right and fiscal conservatives have grown commonplace in the GOP, not since concerns were raised in 1960 about John F. Kennedy being a Catholic has faith formed such a wedge in secular politics, according to observers.
___ The original Christian-right favorite, Missouri Sen. John Ashcroft, decided not to run for president this year, leaving candidates such as Gary Bauer, Pat Buchanan, Alan Keyes and Steve Forbes vying for votes among religious conservatives.
___ Texas Gov. George W. Bush, a Methodist and political centrist, was not at first thought to be a part of that equation.
___ But the Washington Post reported last August that Bush was conducting a quiet outreach to blunt complaints that he is soft on abortion and family values. The newspaper said Bush was assembling a group of prominent religious leaders to vouch for him. It identified top Southern Baptist leaders in the circle as Southern Baptist Convention President Paige Patterson; former SBC President Ed Young; retired Houston appeals-court judge Paul Pressler and Richard Land, president of the SBC's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission.
___ Land said on his radio program in November that because he is a denominational official, he would not make an endorsement. "It's the George Bush campaign's job to convince Southern Baptists and evangelicals, not mine," Land added in a news story in Baptist Press.
___ Bush's personal faith entered into political discussion in the 2000 presidential race Dec. 13 at a Republican debate in Iowa. Asked what "political philosopher" he most admired, Bush responded: "Christ, because he changed my heart."
___ Asked to elaborate, Bush said it would be hard to explain to someone who isn't a Christian. "When you turn your heart and your life over to Christ, when you accept Christ as the Savior, it changes your heart and changes your life," he said.
___ Skeptics said Bush's answer sounded contrived and accused him of pandering to religious conservatives. Others, however, said Bush's piety resonated with evangelical voters.
___ "I was watching the debate with my wife and daughter in the room, neither of whom are political junkies," Land told the Washington Post. "And when they heard that answer they both stopped what they were doing, looked at me, and said, 'Wow.'"
___ "He talks their language," Land explained. "Most evangelicals who heard that question probably thought, 'That's exactly the way I would have answered it.'"
___ Things heated up in February leading to the South Carolina primary, essentially a two-man race between Bush and John McCain, who was raised an Episcopalian but regularly attends a Southern Baptist church, North Phoenix Baptist Church, in Arizona.
___ Pat Robertson, saying McCain's stance on campaign-finance reform would hurt groups like his Christian Coalition, urged members to oppose the Arizona senator. Bush supporters were accused of "push polling," a form of political solicitation in which phone calls under the guise of an opinion survey made derogatory or misleading comments about McCain. A taped phone message called one of McCain's top advisers "a vicious bigot."
___ McCain blasted Bush for speaking at Bob Jones University, a frequent stop for Republican candidates, and not challenging the fundamentalist school's ban on interracial dating and its position criticizing the Catholic Church.
___ Bush called it a missed opportunity. McCain supporters in Michigan immediately accused Bush of tolerating "anti-Catholic bigotry," a charge Bush denied.
___ Then, in what many viewed as a fatal mistake, McCain in a Feb. 28 speech in Virginia lashed out at leaders of the Religious Right. Criticizing "self-appointed leaders" who were opposing his candidacy, McCain said, "Neither party should be defined by pandering to the outer reaches of American politics and the agents of intolerance, whether they be Louis Farrakhan or Al Sharpton on the left, or Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell on the right."
___ McCain described Bush as "a Pat Robertson Republican who will lose to Al Gore" and later described the two religious leaders as an "evil influence" in the Republican Party.
___ Bauer, who lent his support to McCain after dropping out of the race, said Christians should still vote for McCain but that he was wrong to label Robertson and Falwell as extremists.
___ Exit polls in Super Tuesday primaries March 7, in which Bush all but sewed up the nomination, showed that while McCain did not gain support among Catholics, evangelicals swung strongly toward Bush.
___ The SBC's Land observed: "I predicted when I heard John McCain's outrageous remarks ... that Sen. McCain was going to end up accomplishing what no conservative Christian individual or group has been able to do, and that is fully energize and engage Christian conservatives in the public-policy process."
___ McCain downplayed the impact of his controversial remarks, attributing the losses to negative campaign ads. He said if he had it to do over, he still would make the speech and predicted that identification with the party's right wing would dog Bush into the general election.
___ Regardless of who gets the blame, using religion to manipulate voters hurts the political process, said one religious leader and veteran political observer.
___ "The big losers in this campaign are American voters and religion," said Welton Gaddy, a Baptist minister who is executive director of the Interfaith Alliance.
___ When "religion becomes a political football, religion is hurt and government is hurt," said Gaddy, who wrote a 1996 book titled "Faith and Politics: What's a Christian to Do?"
___ "We caution against the identification of religion with any one political point of view," Gaddy said, adding that "candidates are manipulating religion for their own purposes, and tragically making religion a ballot issue rather than a matter of personal faith."
___ A Baptist ethicist in Nashville, Tenn., however, predicted that voters can expect religion to continue to play a divisive role in presidential campaigns.
___ "Politicians will continue to use religion as a dividing wedge, and religious leaders will use politics as a battering ram for their agendas," said Robert Parham, executive director of the Baptist Center for Ethics.
___ Furthermore, Parham continued, "Conservative Catholics and even fundamentalists will use and be used by Democrats and Republicans for their unholy quest for power."
___ On the Democrat side, religious discussion has been more muted. Vice President Al Gore, a Southern Baptist, has talked about his faith but has not made it a central issue. When Gore received an endorsement from a pulpit during a worship service, however, it led a church-state organization to file a complaint about the church's tax-exempt status with the Internal Revenue Service.
___ Gore's challenger, Sen. Bill Bradley, was active as a young man in the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and once witnessed for Christ at a Billy Graham crusade. But in recent years he has become more private about his faith and refused to discuss it in his campaign.
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