While the group of 2020 Democratic presidential candidates has already proven to be unusual due its large size and the schisms in policy between the party’s more moderate and more progressive wings, there hasn't been much discussion about religion. However, some, like South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, believe it’s time for Democrats to begin speaking more openly about faith.
“The Republican Party likes to cloak itself in the language of religion. Now, our party doesn’t talk about it as much, largely for a very good reason because we are committed to the separation of church and state, and we stand for people of every religion and no religion,” Buttigieg said during last week’s Democratic candidate debate. “But, we should call out hypocrisy when we see it.”
Though some have applauded Buttigieg’s embrace of his spirituality, others say they find it offputting.
Reverend Emmett G. Price III said that in modern political parlance, references to religion often come across less as a way of genuinely describing one’s faith and more as a tactic to woo a new demographic of voters. Price is the Professor of Worship, Church & Culture and Founding Executive Director of the Institute for the Study of the Black Christian Experience at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.
“For me, it’s increasingly disturbing that a person’s faith becomes a part of their branding campaign,” Price said during an interview with Boston Public Radio on Monday. “If you live the faith, then the people will see what you believe and what you advocate for. If you live that, you don’t have to pontificate and stand on your milk crate and tell everyone what you believe.”
It’s also debatable how much speaking about religion will sway conservative religious voters, given that religious voters have strong representation in both parties. According to the Pew Research Center’s 2014 Religious Landscape Study, while a majority of evangelicals and Mormons said they identified more with Republicans, a majority of Catholics identified with Democrats. More broadly, Pew found that only a minority of people who identified with both parties had no belief in God.
One reason Reverend Irene Monroe, a syndicated religion columnist and a visiting researcher at the Boston University School of Theology, thinks that the reason Democrats are perceived as less religious is because the Republican Party has long controlled the national dialogue around religion and politics.
“It also bothers me the way in which the Christian right has sucked up all the air in the public sphere in talking about faith in the public sphere that it’s toxic,” Monroe said. “They have tied it to extreme patriotism, a form of aggressive war, white nationalism, xenophobia, flag-waving. I mean [it’s] guns, glory and God.”
The other reason perceptions may be skewed, Monroe said, is because when religion is used as a polling demographic, it is often used interchangeably with Christianity, which more heavily leans Republican.
“We've got to look at the way that kind of Christian hegemony keeps a certain kind of people running for president, and by virtue of that, signals that people of a different faith or no faith are welcome to even run or have a possibility of running for president,” she said.
Neither Monroe or Price, however, are fond of the fact that more Democratic candidates are making religion a more publicized parts of their campaigns. Price worries that rather than encouraging complex conversations about the relationship between religion, faith and the public good, it will more likely end up devolving into partisan factionalization.
Monroe said that while there is a place for religion in the Democratic party, it should be coming from the party’s base of activists, not politicians. Remembering the 2000 presidential election, and George W. Bush’s drive to make gay marriage and equality a wedge issue in the campaign, she said she wished more religious liberals had spoken up about the appropriation of their religion.
“To not speak up in incidents like they needed to gives all the oxygen in the public sphere to one particular voice here,” Monroe said. “Where are those liberal Christians or progressive Christians speaking up? They have more clout than anybody else to push back.”
