My Life and Times

News Home - Help

RELIGION AND POLITICS: THE DANGEROUS MIX
Thu Nov 4, 8:00 PM ET
By Richard Reeves
NEW YORK -- Like generals fighting the last war, political reporters almost always cover the last campaign. And so we did this time. Pre-election stories focused above all on voting itself -- registration, turnout, ballot challenges, touch screens -- until we had chads coming out our ears. In 2008, we might be covering the campaign from church pews.
Latest Headlines:
·
Kerry's Votes Key to Bush Win, Rove Says AP - 1 hour, 49 minutes ago
·
AP Poll: Stable Iraq Tops Voter Priorities AP - 1 hour, 55 minutes ago
·
Bush strategist Karl Rove takes victory lap after election win AFP - 1 hour, 56 minutes ago
All Election Coverage
Richard Reeves

Little did we know at CBS News, where I worked this time, that exit polls would show that the 2004 election would not be about war and terrorism, the economy or the demonstrated incompetence of the commander in chief. It would be, for at least half the nation, about "moral values."
We blew it, really, because the important part of President Bush (news - web sites)'s brilliant re-election campaign was not about deeds or even words. It was a campaign of the heart --- as in Bush's 2000 debate declaration that Jesus was his favorite philosopher. "He changed my heart," said the man who would be president. Interesting that, but President Bush did not overdo the religion thing in speeches and appearances. He mentioned his faith on occasion, but why shouldn't he? Faith is obviously important to him.
The real work, we discovered too late, was going on away from the cameras. For a long time, I have hated the stealthy politics of direct mail and telephone banks. I learned that lesson years ago in California when my wife was running for state office. There was no way she could counter truly vicious messages she never saw or heard herself, stuff timed to arrive on the Friday before Election Day.
Bush's mail and phone messages were not vicious, at least not the ones that I heard about or saw. They were in a code. A typical mailing was in Ohio, where this election was decided. A professor at the University of Akron, John C. Green, described one mailer as a beautiful photograph of a church, with the words: "George W. Bush Shares Your Values. Marriage. Life. Faith."
I think that's great, unless you translate the message into political language, directed at church mailing lists, which translates as: "I'm against gay marriage. I'm against abortion. I'm like you." Repeated often enough, those messages are divisive -- if they are broadcast to everyone in the country. But they work magic with a targeted audience. In other words, religion works in politics.
But it is dangerous and divisive. I come from a line that dependably produced ministers for two Protestant faiths, Dutch Reformed and the Church of the Nazarene. My generation, though, opted out. So did the founding fathers of this great country. They had their reasons.
The founders, at least the most important of them, including George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, loved the idea of God but were afraid of Christianity. "During almost 15 centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial," wrote James Madison, the father of the Constitution. "What have been its fruits? More or less in most places, pride and indolence in the clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity, in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution."
John Adams had this to say: "The United States of America governments have exhibited, perhaps, the first example of governments erected on the simple principles of nature. It will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service had interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the influence of Heaven, more than those at work upon ships or houses, or laboring in merchandise or agriculture; it will forever be acknowledged that these governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses."
Those guys chose "E Pluribus Unum" -- "Out of many, one" -- to put on the new country's currency. It was only in 1957 that the words on all our bills were changed to "In God We Trust."
Many of the founders, including those named here, called themselves "Deists," which meant that they believed in God only on evidence from nature or reason -- and they thought of Jesus Christ as a man, a smart and admirable man. Some of them, particularly Jefferson, thought of religion as a useful tool in governing, a way to moderate and discipline the instincts of men. But most of all they worried that fervid Christianity, with all its moral values, could also be used to turn one man or woman against another, a divisive force to be feared. That is why the First Amendment of their Constitution, which is ours, guaranteed freedom of religion -- and freedom from religion.
(EDITORS: If you have editorial questions, please contact Alan McDermott at amcdermott@amuniversal.com.)-->
Story Tools
Email Story
Post/Read Msgs (226)
Formatted Story
Ratings: Would you recommend this story?
Not at all 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 Highly

Copyright © 2004 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.Questions or CommentsPrivacy Policy -Terms of Service - Copyright Policy - Ad Feedback