Politics and religion: two subjects, one conversation

October 22, 6:21 PMNewark Independent ExaminerPhilip Rachlis

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AP photo/ Max Rossi, Pool

The American politician always works in a reference to a higher power in public speeches and other media events.  Even a politician who is not really religious must partake in paying lip service to God for the sake of political expediency. All politicians want to get elected and that means appreciating that human nature dictates voters will pick someone they think shares their values.

America values religion. In 2002, the Pew Global Attitudes Project did a study that reveals the unique American attitude toward religion. The US was the only developed nation in the survey where a majority of citizens reported that religion played a "very important" role in their lives. In the United States, 59 percent said religion "plays a very important role" in their lives whereas in Great Britain only 33 percent, Italy 27 percent, Germany 21 percent, France 11 percent proclaim this significance of religion.

Real religious conviction is not the only reason every speech made by our presidential candidates has phrases like “God Bless America” peppered throughout. Being a person of religious faith has also become connected with being a moral person.  This can be seen in our dialect where a phrase like “God fearing American” is often used to portray a moral person and “He’s not of the church going variety” is used to describe an immoral person. Displaying faith has become just another way for politicians to publicly assert an image that communicates they are a good person who shares the voters’ values.  

 If you are running for national office in the United States of America, you must constantly publicly affirm that you are a person of faith. At the same time, if there is one subject Americans are not comfortable debating candidly in public, it is religion.  It is popular to say that a person’s religion is personal. We say things like “a man’s faith is between him and God.”  When we are electing a president, however, a man’s faith is clearly between him and the American voter. This became clear in modern history during the election of John F Kennedy.  

John F. Kennedy struggled with the American public’s acceptance of his faith. Kennedy was a Roman Catholic and he had to convince the public not to be concerned about his religion. Kennedy faced opposition from groups like The National Conference of Citizens for Religious Freedom who set out to convince the voters that a Catholic man should not be president. 

Kennedy addressed the subject of faith three times during the 1960 election. The most notable was a speech he gave in September of that year at the Houston Ministerial Association, in which Kennedy laid out his case that his faith would not affect his presidency, nor should faith be a relevant issue to consider when electing a leader. Kennedy distanced himself from strict Catholicism and moved toward a more liberal practice of the faith. In the speech he asked that he not be judged based on his religion and emphasized that he believed in the separation of church and state.  Kennedy had to be careful to distance himself from the Vatican but not from religious conviction.  Their religious conviction is something politicians always seem to want to emphasize.