The Piety Parade

During this month’s GOP debate in Iowa, George W. Bush named Jesus Christ as his favorite political philosopher. Fellow Republican candidates Gary Bauer and Orrin G. Hatch, on the stage with Bush, quickly declared Christ to be their favorite too. In recent interviews, Al Gore defined himself as a born-again Christian whose decisions are often guided by thoughts of what Jesus would do.

Nearly a year before voters go to the polls, candidates are showcasing their piety as a measure of their presidential mettle as never before in American politics. The anti-Communist bellicosity of candidates past, each jostling for distinction as the toughest, has given way to ever more emotional professions of religious faith. No matter how deeply felt their beliefs, the candidates’ declarations are still political pandering.

Discomfort with these declarations goes well beyond the obvious exclusion of non-Christians and nonbelievers. This sort of pietism leads Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, agnostics, shamanists and others to see themselves as on the outside. As Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith put it, “I felt left out, and I think a lot of Americans felt left out.”

Bush later said he thought he was being asked who had the most influence on him. But still, he insisted, Christian belief “is what George W. Bush is all about.” That’s an even more troubling statement, taking for granted the intrusion of deeply private religious beliefs into the political discourse of a nation self-consciously founded on principles of religious freedom and toleration.

There’s plenty to talk about in this campaign, pressing meat-and-potatoes issues like health care, Social Security, education, even civil ethics and morality. Let’s hear more on them and less about which candidate is more personally religious.