Religious Right?

CMC holds Religion and the American Presidency Conference

By Katrina Felon
Staff Writer

The recent Religion and the American Presidency Conference at CMC, held April 5-7, drew 25 scholars from around the nation with 25 different perspectives on the role of religion (among every demographic) in politics.  “Religious Right” was the conference’s dirty phrase.  Keynote speakers David Aikman (print and broadcast journalist and former TIME bureau chief) and Carol Moseley-Braun (former Illinois senator and first black woman in Congress) spoke on different nights, on ostensibly different topics, but their comments posed a coherent dialogue about religion and the George W. Bush presidency.

David Aikman argued that religion is not only an inevitable force in American politics, but that it should be so, and that the government must cater to religious principles in order to represent the principled majority of American people.  Moseley-Braun, on the other hand, recognized the power of religion as an aspect of the “climate of opinion” that shapes politics, but called on the administration to describe an “alternative vision of virtue” that transcends religious differences.  As frightening as the idea of any administration defining morality may be, the former ambassador to New Zealand insisted that it is the pigeonholing of morality in one particular religion, aligned with one particular political party, that threatens the republic.  They agreed on a few things: both postured religion as the determining factor in electoral politics; both reject radicals of any conviction (though they both cry for tolerance); and both understand our nation, our very planet, to be in serious danger of utter demise—unless, of course, we follow their advice.

Aikman’s talk, Media, Religion, and the 2004 Election, was the culmination of the first day of the conference, which addressed “Personal Faith and the American Presidency.”   Announcing that he would speak from a bipartisan perspective, he argued that the Democrats lost the 2004 election as a result of religious “tone-deafness."  He declared that the party’s candidate, Senator Kerry, failed to hear the public's opinion on religion adequately, and failed to translate popular religious opinion into popular politics. 

“Only one party (the Republican party) convincingly portrayed the values that religious people think are important.  The Democrats attributed faith positions to a Republican worldview, forcing voters to choose between religion and politics,” said Aikman, calling the Democrats’ failure to appeal to the religious populace a shame: “More than 90% of the American population, in every poll, says they believe in God.  It’s a religious country, like it or not…I hope the Democrats have the wit to learn from their mistakes and not fall into the bigoted, secularist position so detrimental to them and to electoral politics.” 

The problem for the Democrats, he explained, is that the visible element of the party—the radical activists—are the ones attending election-year conferences, the ones “who make movies and run websites, and create a momentum of expectation and rhetoric which a candidate, willy-nilly, finds himself forced to keep up with.”  The secular party enthusiasts, with a handle on the media, were the downfall of the Democrats last year, according to Aikman.  He cited Howard Dean, the early pacesetter for the candidacy, Micheal Moore, and MoveOn.org as examples of loud activists who raised the rhetorical temperature of the Democratic candidacy to an unhealthy level.

Carol Moseley-Braun spoke on The Religion Factor in the 2004 Election, the last talk of the conference, which concentrated on “Religion, Pluralism, and the American Presidency.”  As for religious pluralism, Moseley-Braun articulated a position that was a strange synthesis of pluralism and monism. Rejecting the tyranny of one religion over the idea of virtue, she advocated instead an “alternative morality,” one propagated by the American government that embraces common virtues. 

Appealing to what a CMC professor of psychology called “superordinate goals” in his talk on Tuesday’s panel on “Religion, Rhetoric, and Presidential Leadership,” the way to a just national unity lies in determining virtues shared by the American people regardless of religious difference, she said.  Sounding like a minister of an American Civil Religion, Moseley-Braun (who is Catholic, but attends an Episcopalian church) acidly denounced the political influence of “Protestant mega-churches, with services that look like rock concerts—18,000 people, all fainting.”  “The climate of opinion, which shapes conduct as well as perspectives, like any other weather system depends on the hot air rising from the ground,” she said, “What we have now is a climate of opinion in which a minority of fundamentalists have grabbed virtue and made it their own, so people are compelled to agree.  Think about it: the candidate of the party opposing the Religious Right stands as a candidate against God.  You don’t stand a chance.”  While Aikman cited the Democrats’ inability to recognize, and manipulate, popular religious beliefs and therefore called for an adjustment of the party’s platform toward faith, Moseley-Braun called for an adjustment of popular religion itself, and its political power.

Question-and-answer sessions gave both speakers a chance to get controversial and, occasionally, funny.  Aikman, in response to a question about atheism and the election, argued that people of religious faith are more likely to be tolerant of other religious faiths than people without conviction. Moseley-Braun replied to a claim that it is not religious fundamentalism, but the left’s contempt for faith in general, that is shifting political power to the right, saying, “African-American politics, typically leftist politics, are by definition politics based on religion—by definition!”  And according to Aikman, “If America is going to continue to lead the world, they will need a religious leader at the front.”               

Both speakers admitted that Bush, with his faith-based politics, is not really unique in American politics: “Bush is invoking the same authority invoked by presidents since the founding of our republic; his rhetoric is hardly unique,” said  Moseley-Braun.  But both admitted fear, saying “Our democracy is more fragile now than ever.”  But while every scholar at the conference had a different plan for saving the country; at least they agree that the country needs saving.