Faith in the Voting Booth by Corwin Smidt

The influence of religion is inescapable in American politics

PAUL STOUB

Professor of political science and director of the Henry Institute at Calvin College, Dr. Corwin Smidt ’68 has served as an investigator for five national surveys on religion and politics conducted during presidential elections. Author or editor of 12 books, including Pews, Prayers and Participation: The Role of Religion in Fostering Civic Responsibility (Georgetown University Press), he is currently co-editing the Oxford Handbook on Religion and American Politics (Oxford University Press). During the 2008 presidential campaign, he has been quoted in many national and international newspapers. Smidt received Northwestern’s Distinguished Professional Achievement Award in 1996.

According to the reams and streams of 2008 election coverage, Republican presidential candidate John McCain says prayer sustained him as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. An un-baptized Baptist, he acknowledges his church attendance is at times spotty. Barack Obama, the Democratic nominee, was forced to defend his faith, calling it “both a personal commitment to Christ and a commitment to my community,” after inflammatory rhetoric by his pastor hit YouTube.

Senator Joe Biden is a devout Catholic, and Governor Sarah Palin, a committed Protestant. Both have had their Christian convictions praised—and called into question—by fellow believers.

These and other stories about the candidates’ faith, values, ethics and morals have resulted in religion being a large part of the commentary around the 2008 election. Has it always been like this?

The Classic asked religion and politics expert Corwin Smidt ’68 to explain some of the history of the relationship between faith and citizenship, especially when the convictions of both accompany us into the voting booth. His essay may also help readers answer the question: Why don’t all Christians vote the way I do?

The separation of church and state: Certainly.

The separation of religion and politics: Impossible.

Religion and politics are intertwined in such a way that no strict separation of church and state can ever disentangle the two.

According to our Constitution, there cannot be religious tests for holding public office. Churches are not to be financially supported by the state, and the state can’t dictate membership in a religious denomination or congregation. These constitutional laws can be strictly enforced.

But no strict enforcement of a separation of church and state can prevent people from entering a voting booth and pulling the lever according to their religious beliefs, identity or affiliations.  

Belief in America

Americans have long been recognized as being highly religious. When the religious beliefs and practices of Americans are compared with people from countries industrially and culturally similar to ours, the distinctive quality of American religious life is particularly evident. 

This religious character of the American people has important consequences politically. For many Americans, religion is the foundation of our basic beliefs and values—even our identity. Religion shapes our pattern of social interaction, influencing our decisions about those with whom we talk politics. It also affects where and how we get information for making political decisions—including voting.

Americans’ religious character also shapes our expectations about the kind of presidential candidate we think is worthy of consideration. Surveys reveal Americans want our president to be religious and, by extension, our presidential candidates to be people of faith.

The specific nature of that religious faith is less important than the need to have some kind of faith. National surveys have consistently revealed—both before and after 9/11—that Americans are more willing to vote for a Muslim than an atheist. Similarly, most Americans welcome presidential candidates who talk about their faith and share the ways in which their religious views may guide their political thinking and policymaking. 

Since the founding of the United States, religion has played an important role in American political and electoral life. But religion in the U.S. is a multifaceted and complicated phenomenon. And as people’s patterns of religious beliefs, belonging and behavior change, so does the way in which religion and politics are linked in our country.

Historically, the main way in which religion affected politics has been through religious affiliation. During the American Revolution, Baptists and Presbyterians were mostly strong supporters of independence, while Anglicans (Church of England) were more likely opposed. As immigrants came to American shores, they also sorted themselves out politically: German immigrants who were Roman Catholics tended to align with the Democratic Party, while Germans who were Lutherans aligned with the Republican Party.

Following the Great Depression, religious groups still tended to align differently. Most Northern “mainline” Protestants were Republicans, while most Southern evangelical Protestants, Catholics and Jews were Democrats.    

An “ethnoreligious” link between religion and politics basically prevailed from the early years of the republic through at least the early 1980s. The different lifestyles and worldviews of people of different faiths determined what political party—and governmental policies—they preferred. And with highly religious groups on both sides of the partisan divide, of course, highly religious individuals could be found on both sides too.

The God Gap

Increasingly, Americans are seeing a new interplay of religion and politics. Now, it appears, people’s religious beliefs, rather than their religious group affiliations, are largely shaping the way in which religion influences political thought and action.

Instead of our membership in a particular group determining our political loyalties, they are more determined by individuals’ religious perspective as it relates to “traditionalist/modernist” positions and the conflicting worldviews that underlie them.

Religious beliefs and behaviors align religious traditionalists on one side of the partisan divide and secularists and modernists on the other. The result is a “God gap” in American politics, and one’s religious affiliation is much less relevant.

After the 2004 victory of Bush over Kerry, much was made of the religious divide in the election. Exit polls revealed that large numbers of voters said moral values were the most important issue of the campaign and that high percentages of those “values voters” voted for Bush. The mobilization efforts of conservative Christians, particularly in states with gay marriage initiatives on the ballot, received a lot of media coverage.

But the election divide was perhaps best captured by the relationship between worship service attendance and candidate choice in 2004. As voters went to church more, they became less likely to vote for Democrats. And, following the election, a series of polls found that only a small minority of Americans thought the Democratic Party was “friendly to religion.”

Americans continue to vote according to their religious tradition (affiliations); evangelical Protestants, for example, have become and largely remain heavily Republican. But now Americans also increasingly vote according to religious traditionalism (beliefs). These different means by which religion can impact political alignment are not mutually exclusive—religious tradition and traditionalism can both matter at the same time.

What is unclear is what will happen next. Will the new order (beliefs) erase the old order (affiliations), or vice versa? Or will they continue to operate in conjunction with one another?

One Nation … Indivisible?

AP PHOTO/CHRIS CARLSON

The 2008 presidential campaign has brought a renewed enthusiasm to the electoral process.

It’s likely the 2008 election will provide some answers to these questions. Various political changes over the past four years provide new opportunities for religious affiliations, rather than religious beliefs, to shape this election.

For example, the presidential primary process has been marked, in part, by efforts of Democratic candidates to appeal to religious voters. The Christian Right is seemingly more fragmented, as old leaders such as Jerry Falwell and James Kennedy have passed from the scene. And the ongoing conflict in Iraq, rising oil prices and a stagnant economy have largely replaced social issues like abortion and gay marriage as major campaign concerns.

All of these changes suggest people of faith will be more likely to be found on both sides of the political divide following the 2008 presidential election. On the other hand, if the 2008 election and its outcome resemble the 2004 presidential election, then it would suggest that the “God gap” has remained relatively strong and that it may replace the more group-based link between religion and politics in the United States.   

Whether the old affiliations-based order of religion and politics or the new beliefs-based order prevails is not simply a matter of academic curiosity. It has important consequences politically.

Since Americans as a whole are fairly religious, if parties or candidates appear to be “anti-religious” in their position or policies, it is likely to be politically disadvantageous. But the consequences of this religious divide in American politics move far beyond the relative partisan advantages or disadvantages associated with it.

When one party is perceived as the religious party and the other as the nonreligious, it magnifies the political stakes for many of those who take their faith seriously. Elections become almost a “holy battle” pitting good against evil—appearing to be a matter of ultimate, rather than relative, concern. Political debate becomes much more heated, relationships with those affiliated with the opposite party become much less civil, and political abuses are likely to occur as the ends begin to justify the means.

As in the past, when Americans enter the voting booth in November, religion will likely shape the election’s outcome. Whether religious affiliations or religious beliefs will drive the relationship between religion and politics in the 2008 election remains to be seen. Nonetheless, the ways in which religion shapes politics will continue to have important implications for us as American citizens and Christians.