The Politics of Faith

by Rohan Parker

As the race for the White House continues in the United States, presidential candidates are becoming more vocal about their faith. Baptist minister and former Arkansas Governor, Mike Huckabee, once a relative unknown who was credited with little chance against the big names, is now under the media spotlight as religion becomes a talking point in the build up to the US election.

“In both political parties, to be a viable candidate, one has to be able to talk about faith publicly,” asserts Mark J. Rozell, professor and co-author of ‘The Values Vote’. “There’s just an overall comfort factor associated with somebody who attends religious services and believes in God.”

He may be right, as candidates from both parties are increasingly including faith as a key topic in their bids for election. While Huckabee heads into the pious southern states to drum up support from his campaign, Democrats Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama continue to speak at length about their own faith histories.

But while the topic of religious and personal faith begins to heat up in earnest, resistance to perceived religious pandering is also being expressed. Calls to put faith in perspective, from both secularists and church-and-state separatists, are increasingly insistent.

For now though, with so much still up for grabs, the presidential candidates are clearly leaving nothing to chance.

Discuss this in the Interfaith forums

Story link: The Politics of Faith

Add to Bookmarks: