Land: Cultural divide causes furor over religion in politics
- Sep 1, 2004
Expressions of faith by presidents and presidential candidates are more controversial because of a growing divide in American society between the religious and nonreligious, not because those statements are more numerous, ERLC President Richard Land said recently.
The “God talk has been around for a long time,” Land said during a Sept. 9 panel discussion of religion in this year’s presidential race.
“The people themselves, if anything, are getting more religious, not less religious,” Land said, citing polls commissioned by the British Broadcasting Co. and the Pew Forum. At the same time, he said, surveys show “there is a growing, pretty rabidly secular segment of the population that is not only nonreligious [but] gets pretty irritated with people who are religious.”
As Yale University law professor Stephen Carter has written, Land said, the legal, social, cultural and religious elites “want to marginalize and trivialize religious faith and make it something that’s purely devotional and purely personal [and] that has no impact on public policy, and I think that that’s why religious expressions have become controversial.”
“It’s not that there are more [religious expressions by public officials and candidates],” Land said. “It’s just that people who are reviewing them and people who are seeking to be the social arbiters are more offended by them” than in the past.
When asked if President George W. Bush had gone too far in talking about his faith, Land contended the current president trails his predecessor in public religious statements.
Through 2003, Bush mentioned Jesus or Christ in 14 separate, public statements, Land said, citing statistics from a new book, God and George W. Bush: A Spiritual Life by Paul Kengor. In Clinton’s eight years in the White House, he mentioned Jesus or Christ 41 times in public statements.
A candidate should not practice self-censorship but should have the right to express his deeply held beliefs, Land said. He should say his religious faith “is part and parcel of who I am. This will help to explain to you how I will approach these public policy issues,” Land said. “And then it’s up to the American people to decide whether that’s the kind of president that they want.”
The First Amendment Center and Youth for Justice cosponsored the panel discussion. The discussion was held at the Arlington, Va., offices of The Freedom Forum, which funds the First Amendment Center.
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