Nevertheless, a full-page advertisement in the New York Times during the 1992 Democratic National Convention raised eyebrows because a few prominent Democrats endorsed “A New American Compact: Caring about Women, Caring for the Unborn.”

One name in particular jumped out in this list — Kennedy.

“The advocates of abortion on demand falsely assume two things: that women must suffer if the lives of unborn children are legally protected; and that women can only attain equality by having the legal option of destroying their innocent offspring in the womb,” proclaimed ad’s lengthy and detailed text.

“We propose a new understanding, one that does not pit mother against child. To establish justice and to promote the general welfare, America does not need the abortion license. What America needs are policies that responsibly protect and advance the interest of mothers AND their children, both before AND after birth.”

Near the end, the statement added: “We can choose to reaffirm our respect for human life. We can choose to extend once again the mantle of protection to all members of the human family, including the unborn.”

It really wasn’t a surprise that Eunice Kennedy Shriver — who died on Aug. 11, after a series of strokes — was among those who signed the document, along with her husband Sargent Shriver, the 1972 Democratic nominee for vice president.

Yes, she was the sister of President John F. Kennedy, Sen. Robert Kennedy, and Sen. Edward Kennedy and part of a family dynasty that changed how Americans view progressive politics and Catholicism.

But Eunice Shriver also attended convent schools, considered becoming a nun and remained a daily-Mass Catholic throughout her life, while teaching the Rosary prayers to her five children and 19 grandchildren. She was a public supporter of Democrats for Life, Feminists for Life and the Susan B. Anthony List, which supports pro-life women who seek public office.

“She was pious, I think, a very, very pious woman,” said Robert F. Kennedy Jr., stating the obvious during a six-hour public wake and Mass for his aunt at Our Lady of Victory Church on Cape Cod.

An official tribute went further while connecting her faith with the issue that dominated her public life.

“Inspired by her love of God, her devotion to her family, and her relentless belief in the dignity and worth of every human life, she worked without ceasing,” said the family’s public statement. “She was a living prayer. … She set out to change the world and to change us, and she did that and more. She founded the movement that became Special Olympics, the largest movement for acceptance and inclusion for people with intellectual disabilities in the history of the world. Her work transformed the lives of hundreds of millions of people across the globe, and they in turn are her living legacy.”

The mainstream obituaries and media tributes that followed her death also connected Shriver’s work with the poignant life of her older sister Rosemary Kennedy, who was mentally disabled. In a historic 1962 article for the Saturday Evening Post, Eunice yanked one of Camelot’s most tragic secrets into the open — under the stark headline, “Hope for Retarded Children.” In the decades that followed, she worked tirelessly to pull Rosemary into the family circle.

Nevertheless, elite journalists failed to connect the dots between Shriver’s fierce activism on behalf of children facing disabilities and her commitment to defending the lives of the unborn, including babies with Down syndrome and other genetic flaws.

For Eunice Kennedy Shriver, the sanctity of life was a Catholic issue, a political issue and an intensely personal issue.

“She was preeminently pro-life, against abortion and there to protect and underscore the dignity of every person. This, of course, manifested itself in her love for children with disabilities,” noted Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley of Boston, in a reflection posted online.

“While Eunice’s works were remarkable, I don’t want to lose sight of the fact that her Catholic faith and education was a very important part of what motivated her and helped her to interpret reality. … It was certainly the soil out of which grew her passion and dedication to the less fortunate and those who are challenged by disabilities and mental retardation.”

Send article as PDF to

“May this be the beginning of a new dawn for America as we humble ourselves before you and acknowledge you alone as our Lord, our Savior and our Redeemer,” said Graham, the fiery son of evangelist Billy Graham. “We pray this in the name of the Father, and of the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.”

Four years later, the word showed up again.

“Now, unto You, O God, the One who always has been and always will be, the one King of kings and the true power broker, we glorify and honor You,” said the Rev. Kirbyjon Caldwell of Windsor Village United Methodist Church in Houston. “Respecting persons of all faiths, I humbly submit this prayer in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.”

Scholars who keep watch over the rites of American civil religion took note of the firestorms caused by these prayers. Clearly, it was becoming dangerous to use the J-word — the name of Jesus — in the public square.

But it’s old hat for Republicans to use explicit God-talk. This year, Sen. Barack Obama and his team went out of the way to invite progressive and even mainstream Evangelicals to the Democratic National Convention — including taking a turn at the podium. This was cutting-edge prayer in an age of theological tolerance.

One lesser-known voice backed out at the last moment — Cameron Strang, the 32-year-old editor of Relevant Magazine and son of publishing magnate Steven Strang of Charisma magazine. Nevertheless, Strang the younger was willing to arrange for a rising star to take his place — Donald Miller, author of the spiritual memoir “Blue Like Jazz.”

Miller ended his prayer with a call for unity within diversity, but also found a way to say “Jesus” without causing trouble.

“God we know that you are good. Thank you for blessing us in so many ways as Americans,” said Miller. “I make these requests in the name of your son, Jesus, who gave his own life against the forces of injustice. … Amen.”

The key was that Miller stressed the word “I,” making sure that his listeners knew he was claiming this was his own prayer — not asking them to share his embrace of the second person of the Christian Trinity.

Still, when it comes to church-state strategy, the most groundbreaking prayer was offered by the Rev. Joel Hunter of the giant Northland Church near Orlando — especially since his benediction ended the mile-high rally that included Obama’s acceptance speech.

A self-identified “pro-life Republican,” the preacher offered a conventional prayer that included appeals on behalf of infants, children, the poor, the persecuted and those who are enslaved, as well as for peace and for the environment. Then, at the end, Hunter paused to interject a unique “closing instruction.”

“I want to personalize this,” he said. “I want this to be a participatory prayer. And so therefore, because we are in a country that is still welcoming all faiths, I would like all of us to close this prayer in the way your faith tradition would close your prayer. So on the count of three, I want all of you to end this prayer, your prayer, the way you usually end prayer. You ready? One, two, three.”

Hunter, on his own behalf, spoke into the microphone: “In Jesus’ name, Amen.” Meanwhile, 80,000 or so other people were free to name their own God or gods.

After fielding questions about his actions, the pastor stressed that it would be “taking the Lord’s name in vain” if he created confusion in such a setting. The goal was ensure that participants did not believe they were being asked to accept a prayer that forced them to “compromise their core beliefs.”

Thus, “I did not ask people to pray to another god; I asked them to finish a prayer according to their faith tradition,” argued Hunter, on his church’s website. “This may be a small point linguistically, but it is a huge point theologically. …

“As you may imagine, I prayed long and hard before feeling like God had given me the precise words for this prayer. I believe that He in His sovereign way will use it to bring people to Himself.”

Send article as PDF to

RUSSERT: When do you think life begins?

GORE: I favor the Roe vs. Wade approach, but let me just say, Tim, I did —

RUSSERT: Which is what? When does life begin?

GORE: Let me just say, I did change my position on the issue of federal funding and I changed it because I came to understand more from women — women think about this differently than men.

RUSSERT: But you were calling fetuses innocent human life, and now you don’t believe life begins at conception. I’m just trying to find out, when do you believe life begins?

GORE: Well, look, the Roe vs. Wade decision proposes an answer to that question —

RUSSERT: Which is?

Liberal critics said this line of questioning veered out of journalism into hostile territory, especially when Russert probed Gore on laws banning the execution of any pregnant woman on death row, somewhere, someday. Gore defenders defended his stunned, befuddled silence — what one called a “pregnant pause.”

But the Gore showdown raised other questions. Was the host of NBC’s “Meet the Press” asking this question because of his own Catholic beliefs? Or was Russert pressing hard because he knew that, as a U.S. senator from Tennessee, Gore had an 84 percent positive National Right to Life voting record and he wanted to hear the candidate describe his change of heart?

“Tim wore his Catholicism proudly. He talked about it all the time,” noted NBC anchor Brian Williams, who stepped in, after Russert’s death, as the featured speaker at a recent Catholic Common Ground Initiative forum in Washington, D.C.

In fact, Russert’s faith was not “an elephant in the room. It was the room. It was the room he was raised in. It was one of his great charms, as was how he dealt with it in life and in our public discourse. … Catholicism was his base. It was never his bias. I think that’s absolutely crucial and I will debate anyone who contends to the contrary.”

Russert scheduled speech was called “Learnings from the Political Process for Common Ground in the Catholic Church,” a natural topic drawing on his lengthy news career and his earlier brass-tacks political work with two major Democrats — Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan and New York Gov. Mario Cuomo.

In the days after the 58-year-old Russert’s shocking heart attack, the focus changed for this event at the Catholic University of America. Williams, who is also Catholic, said the key question was theological and journalistic: Was Russert’s relentless search for the truth a result of his Catholic upbringing?

Williams argued that it was impossible to understand Russert’s “beautiful mind” without taking seriously the Catholic life and education that formed him. The newsman was who he was, an Irish Catholic guy from south Buffalo, N.Y., who loved his family and always sang the praises of the Mercy Sisters and Jesuit teachers who inspired him enter public life. In April, he openly brought his rosary to a meeting between elite journalists and Pope Benedict XVI, during his visit to Washington.

Russert vowed to never miss Sunday Mass if his son, Luke, was born healthy and kept that promise. While he had strong ties to Catholic progressives, Russert also admired the work of Pope John Paul II. He once told Sister Mary Ann Walsh, a veteran Catholic writer, than when he died he hoped John Paul would meet him at heaven’s gate — wearing the white NBC News baseball cap that Russert gave him.

There were tensions in Russert’s life and work. In particular, the clergy sexual-abuse scandals left him angry and shaken. The newsman saw the crisis as “a test of his Catholicism,” said Williams. But he also believed that covering the story required him to do the “job of a journalist.”

Russert always “understood that the stakes were high. He knew that better than most of us,” added Williams. “He knew that the civility of our dialogue was under attack. He knew that diversity in the public square takes work every day. And he knew that our standards of journalism were being attacked. ?

“He understood what it meant to be ‘called’ to be Catholic, and I think that’s very important. He took the call.”

Send article as PDF to

Other staffers called Mara Vanderslice the “church lady” and reminded her that the loudest cheers at Dean rallies followed attacks on the Religious Right. But what really stung were her candidate’s answers to religious questions.

Round one: Dean confessed that he left the Episcopal Church when his parish blocked the construction of a bike path. Round two: He names the Book of Job as his favorite New Testament book. Round three: Asked about his plans to woo religious believers, Dean said he was waiting until the campaign hit the Deep South.

Ouch. That was business as usual until the “values voters” carried President George W. Bush back into office, said author Dan Gilgoff, who dissected the trials of Vanderslice in “The Jesus Machine,” his book on James Dobson and the Christian right. That election shook the Democrats and helped them realize that they needed some candidates who were not afraid of faith.

Meet dyed-in-the-wool United Methodist Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, who openly testifies about making his profession of faith at a United Church of Christ altar. God talk is back, for the Democrats, while key Republicans face unique faith challenges.

“Part of it is the candidates in the field this time,” said Gilgoff, politics editor at the Beliefnet.com website. “In particular, with Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton you have two people who have been very vocal about their faith and don’t mind talking about it. For Democrats, you could say this was just the luck of the draw.”

Meanwhile, in the Republican pews, Rudy Giuliani has a troubled Catholic past, Mitt Romney is struggling to answer Mormon questions and various GOP kingmakers — sacred and secular — have questions about Fred Thompson, John McCain and the Rev. Mike Huckabee. The Republicans are trying to preach to a powerful, but troubled, choir.

Everyone knows the stakes are high. Voters who reported attending services more than once a week supported Bush over John Kerry by a margin of 64 to 35 percent and, for those attending once a week, the gap was 58 to 41 percent. Americans who never attended services backed Kerry, 62 to 36 percent.

It’s hard for outsiders to follow all of this, which is why Gilgoff and editors at Beliefnet.com and Time have created a digital guide for politicos who want to follow this contest to win the hearts of religious voters. The result is the “God-o-Meter” (blog.beliefnet.com/godometer), which, according to its creators, is pronounced “Gah-DOM-meter.” If readers click on the head of a Democratic or Republican candidate, the site delivers his or her ranking on a 10-point scale between “secularist” and “theocrat.”

“Our definition of ‘secularist’ is someone who sees no role for religion in public life and policy,” said Gilgoff. “The ‘theocratic’ position is pretty much the opposite of that.”

But there’s a theological twist here. The “God-o-Meter” applies this “theocrat” label to liberals who want to see their religious convictions shape public policy (think global warning and health care) to the same degree that it does to conservatives (think abortion and the redefinition of marriage). Thus, at mid-week, theocrat Clinton had a seven rating, the same as Giuliani, and Obama’s rating had soared to nine. Romney, meanwhile, was edging close to “secularist” territory, with a five rating.

The key is that the “God-o-Meter” tracks 20 criteria drawn from campaign tactics, such as whether a candidate “frames issues in religious or spiritual terms,” “delivers a speech … in an overtly religious setting” or openly “discusses his/her personal faith and how it would influence his/her presidency.” A candidate would lose points, for example, by making “a remark offensive to an important religious constituency” or by declining to “discuss his/her personal faith life when asked, e.g. by a debate moderator.”

Right now, words and symbolic actions are enough.

“There is going to be a test later, in terms of whether the Democrats are willing to compromise on any of the hot social issues in terms of actual laws and policy positions,” said Gilgoff. “But all of that is a long way down the road. Right now, the Democrats simply have to find a way to start talking to the evangelicals and listening to what they have to say. … What do they have to lose?”

Send article as PDF to

So Barack Obama caused raised eyebrows when he turned to that page in the evangelical songbook during the 2004 Democratic National Convention.

“We worship an awesome God in the Blue States,” he said, in the speech that made him a rising star. “We coach Little League in the Blue States and have gay friends in the Red States. … We are one people.”

Obama has mixed gospel images and liberal politics ever since and his ability to reach pews without frightening the skeptical elites is crucial to his White House hopes.

Thus, all kinds of people paid close attention last week when he spoke to the 50th anniversary convention of the United Church of Christ, a small flock that has proudly set the pace for liberal Christianity. At the heart of his speech was his own spiritual rebirth two decades ago, when he responded to an altar call by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago.

“He introduced me to someone named Jesus Christ,” said Obama. “I learned that my sins could be redeemed. I learned that those things I was too weak to accomplish myself, He would accomplish with me if I placed my trust in Him. And in time, I came to see faith as more than just a comfort to the weary or a hedge against death, but rather as an active, palpable agent in the world and in my own life.

Send article as PDF to

This would cause any latte-sipping liberal to mutter “Oh my goddess” and worry about legions of Focus on the Family donors invading Wiccan book clubs in Unitarian sanctuaries from sea to shining sea.

Does thinking about this give you sweaty palms? If so, writer Robert Lanham of New York City believes you may be suffering from “Evangophobia.”

“It’s a healthy fear. … The evangelical right isn’t the new counterculture. It’s the new mainstream culture,” notes Lanham, in his book “The Sinner’s Guide to the Evangelical Right.”

“Worst of all, many evangelicals aren’t content watching The 700 Club and attending laser-light projections of the crucifixion at the local megachurch. They want to transform the culture you consume to fit their standards. … And compounded by the fact that evangelicals often share similar goals with conservative Jews, Catholics and Bill O’Reilly, we may soon witness a ratings’ sweeps plotline where Will marries Grace after attending a gay deprogramming class.”

Lanham realizes that evangelical politicos haven’t won many national victories on the hot-button issues that worry him the most — gay rights and abortion. Nevertheless, he is convinced that alliances between conservative believers and secular conservatives have resulted in “trickle down” policies on taxes, health care, environmental laws and strategies in the Middle East.

“Fundamentalists of every kind,” he said, “keep clinging to beliefs that can be very destructive. They are advocating religious teachings that divide people, rather than bind them together. … They are always on the attack and if we don’t buckle down, the next thing you know, they will be running the country — again.”

It helps to understand that Lanham grew up in a non-dancing Southern Baptist home in Richmond, Va. Things got even worse, he said, when he was a teen-ager and his parents joined the kind of Pentecostal flock that “used live camels in the Easter pageant.”

Virginia Commonwealth University beckoned, where Lanham majored in English and religion and soon discovered that his activities on Fridays and Saturdays were trumping beliefs he had been taught on Sundays. Before long he was writing “The Hipster Handbook” and his fiction trilogy “Pre-Coitus,” “Coitus” and “Aftermath.”

The new book on evangelicals contains more of what Publisher’s Weekly called his unique brand of “caricature assassination.” Thus, there are angry mini-profiles of alpha males like Dr. James Dobson (“The Evangelical Pope”), Tim LaHaye (“The Evangelical Stephen King”) and the young Joel Osteen (“The Evangelical P. Diddy”). Along the way, he mocks the doctrine of the Trinity, rips into the Gospel of John and, with a note of sadness, confesses that liberal mainline churches have become fading enclaves for

“old people and pansies” who use hymnals.

Lanham stressed that he really doesn’t hate evangelicals, conservative Catholics, Orthodox Jews and other traditionalists. He does, however, believe that most evangelicals are guilty of “dumbing down the faith” and consuming shoddy Christian consumer goods that deserve ridicule. Thus, his list of modern evangelical commandments includes statements such as:

* “Thou shalt live in the suburbs, eat at the Olive Garden and wear clothes made from polyblend fabrics.”

* “Thou shalt become aware of pop culture trends eight years after the fact and co-opt these trends for Christian culture.”

* “Thou shalt own a support the troops car magnet, a fish bumper sticker and/or an embroidered flag sweater.”

* “Thou shalt not speak ill of they neighbor, unless thy neighbor is gay. Then it’s okay.”

The key, said Lanham, is that he — along with many others on the religious left — cannot accept the ancient belief that the Christian Gospel is the unique pathway to salvation. This is the kind of doctrine

that he believes creates fear and division.

Also, in the wake of the Sexual Revolution, there is one issue that towers over all others today.

“It does seem that the evangelical right has set out to repeal the values of the Woodstock generation,” he said. “The key issue is gay rights. I decided that I couldn’t stand back and let the James Dobsons of this world continue to attack gay people. That’s the issue that has made people like me want to take the gloves off and fight back.”

Send article as PDF to

Talk to Democrats as they exit voting booths and you will almost always find voters who pulled levers to elect candidates who oppose these compromises.

The vast majority of Democrats want change on abortion. That’s one of messages in a new study on politics, faith and social issues produced by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life and the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. Yet harsh political realities make it almost impossible to find middle ground.

“If you ask Democrats, ‘Would you like to see some compromises on abortion?’, you will see high numbers” of people saying “yes,” said veteran researcher John C. Green of the University of Akron, who is working at the Pew Forum during this election year. “But if you ask them if they want to see Roe v. Wade overturned, you will get a totally different set of numbers.”

For millions of Americans it is “impossible to reconcile their emotional attachment to Roe with what they believe about finding middle ground on abortion,” he said.

The Pew report provides plenty of evidence that Americans are hard to pin down. They lean right on gay marriage, but are beginning to lean left on embryonic stem cell research. On abortion, small camps of true believers dominate both parties, while millions of average Americans say they want compromise.

“Abortion continues to split the country nearly down the middle,” according to the Pew team. Still, “majorities of Republicans (62%), Democrats (70%) and political independents (66%) favor a compromise. So do majorities of liberals, moderates and conservatives. More than six-in-ten white evangelicals also support compromise, as do 62% of white, non-Hispanic Catholics.”

It’s hard to define “compromise” in terms of legislation, said Green. Study participants were asked if abortion should be “generally available,” “allowed, but more limited,” “illegal, with few exceptions” or “never permitted.” As expected, Republicans were more conservative than Democrats.

Nevertheless, 10 percent of “liberal” Democrats chose the most anti-abortion option and 13 percent said abortion should be illegal, except in cases of rape, incest or to save a mother’s life. Then, 14 percent said abortion rights should be restricted with new laws, which Green said might include a “partial-birth” abortion ban, parental-notification laws, mandatory waiting periods and even a ban on late-term abortions.

“Many of those liberals are black Democrats who are frequent church goers,” said Green. “But those Democrats are still out there.”

Meanwhile, 12 percent of “moderate” and “conservative” Democrats backed a complete abortion ban, while another 39 percent said abortion should be “illegal, with few exceptions,” the choice that Green called a “modern pro-life stance.” Another 20 percent backed legalized abortion, with more restrictions. Once again, church attendance seemed to influence these views.

In all, 37 percent of liberals and 71 percent of centrist Democrats said they supported policies that would not be allowed by the U.S. Supreme Court under current interpretations of Roe v. Wade and other decisions defining abortion rights.

However, the modern Democratic Party is led by liberals who lean left on abortion and hot social issues, according to Peter Steinfels, the veteran religion columnist of the New York Times. But this creates a problem, since the centrists make up 67 percent of the party and the liberals only 31 percent. “The ideologically dominant group — certainly on abortion, less so on same-sex marriage — is the numerical minority,” he noted.

The Republican Party has internal rifts of its own on religious and cultural issues. For example, 44 percent of white evangelicals now support embryonic stem-cell research, which is a 12-point increase over the past year alone. Democrats are split over whether to push gay marriage, but Republicans are split over the issue of whether to amend the U.S. Constitution to ban it.

Green stressed that most Americans, especially those who frequent pews, want to affirm what they believe are “traditional,” even conservative, positions on these kinds of moral issues.

“But they also want to affirm personal freedom and the right of individuals to make their own choices,” he said. “So they are not so sure how to put all that together, when it comes to deciding what to do about an issue like abortion.”

Send article as PDF to

And all the people said: “It’s the economy, stupid.”

But what if an elite team of Democrats ventured outside the Beltway to talk to rural and red-zone voters in Arkansas, Wisconsin, Colorado and Kentucky and learned that the economic bottom line was no longer the political bottom line?

Focus-group researchers from the Democracy Corp in Washington, D.C., found that voters in Middle America are worried about Iraq and they are mad about rising health costs. That’s good for Democrats. Many of them fiercely oppose abortion on demand and gay marriage. That’s good news for Republicans. But the researchers also mapped a political fault line that cuts into the soul of Middle America.

“Regardless of voters’ attitudes on the role of religion in public life or their position on touchstone issues such as abortion and gay marriage or even their personal religious faith, they all see Republicans as a party with a clear and consistent position on cultural issues and an abiding respect for the importance of faith and traditional social norms,” said the researchers, in sobering document released earlier this month.

“Democrats’ lack of a consistent stance on cultural issues leaves a vacuum that is clearly being filled by voices on the right. Most referred to Democrats as ‘liberal’ on issues of morality, but some even go so far as to label them ‘immoral,’ ‘morally bankrupt,’ or even ‘anti-religious.’ “

This kind of verbiage is old hat among GOP conservatives. But it’s stunning to see this language in a report produced by a trinity of Democratic campaign strategists like Stanley Greenberg, Robert Shrum and, lo and behold, Carville.

The new bottom line: “It’s the values, stupid.”

Democrats are getting used to hearing about a “pew gap” between the political parties. This has caused tension between moderates and liberals as Democrats focus on defending abortion rights and working with gay-marriage strategists. Party leaders must have been thinking about the “pew gap” when they rejected Naral Pro-Choice America’s blistering media campaign that said U.S. Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr. — a traditional Roman Catholic — had winked at “violence against other Americans.”

Politicos on both sides can quote the numbers and then bicker over what they mean. Everyone knows that 22 percent of the 2004 voters said they yearned for “moral values,” with evangelical Protestants surging to George W. Bush. The president won 52 percent of the Catholic vote and nearly 60 percent of the total Protestant vote. Bush won a two-thirds majority among Orthodox Jews. Among Hispanics and African-Americans, the most active churchgoers began drifting to the GOP.

Looking back, Voter News Service found that 14 percent of the voters in 2000 said they attended worship services more than once a week and 14 percent said they never went at all. Among the devout, Bush won by 27 percent and, among those who avoid pews, Democrat Al Gore won by 29 percent.

According to the Democracy Corp report, Democrats are making progress with highly educated, upper-income Americans. But they have lost a key element of the old Democratic coalition — voters in rural areas and blue-collar neighborhoods, especially in Middle America. The researchers were mystified that these voters continue to act “contrary to their own economic self-interest.”

Up is down. In is out. Many upper-crust Americans are also voting contrary to their own economic self-interest and backing Democrats, even though this may mean more taxes and business regulations. Why? They support the Democratic Party’s stance on social issues such as abortion, gay rights and the role of religion in public life.

These moral issues are steering heartland voters, serving “as a proxy” for other concerns, according to the Democracy Corp report.

“With most voters expressing little understanding of the differences between Democrats and Republicans or the relative merits of their positions on economic policy, health care, retirement security, and other issues, they felt it safe to assume that if a candidate was ‘right’ on cultural issues — i.e. opposed to abortion, but most importantly opposed to gay marriage and vocal about defending the role of faith and traditional Judeo-Christian values in public life — that candidate would naturally also come closest to their views.”

Send article as PDF to

The Democratic National Committee chairman was visiting Capitol Hill for a chat with Sen. Harry Reid, followed by a photo-op scrum with the minority leader and 50-plus journalists. That’s when Fox News correspondent Brian Wilson did the math and asked the inevitable question.

The logic was simple. Since Dean had said (a) that he hates Republicans and (b) that the GOP is full of white Christians, did these statements imply (c) that he hates white Christians?

For once, Dean held his tongue.

That’s the way things have been going ever since the San Francisco forum in which Dean said that the problem with Republicans is that they have “a pretty monolithic party. They all behave the same. They all look the same. It’s pretty much a white Christian party.”

There was more. “The Republicans are not very friendly to different kinds of people,” he said. “We’re more welcoming to different folks, because that’s the type of people we are.”

When offered a chance to soften his “white Christian party” remark, Dean told NBC that “unfortunately, by and large, it is. And they have the agenda of the conservative Christians.”

And all the people said: There he goes again.

It was hard to hear red-state Democrats grinding their teeth because of all the Republicans screaming “Hallelujah!” This was the best news for the GOP values-voter strategists since candidate Dean, during the 2004 White House race, proclaimed that Bible Belt people should stop being so obsessed with “guns, God and gays.”

Dean’s latest barrage did annoy religious conservatives. Some wondered how mainstream journalists and politicians would have responded to similar statements targeting social or religious groups on the left.

Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan, a Catholic conservative, asked what would happen if President Bush ever stood at a podium and said these words:

“The struggle between the Republican Party and the Democratic Party is a struggle between good and evil and we’re the good. I hate Democrats. Let’s face it, they have never made an honest living in their lives. … They have no shame. But why would they? They have never been acquainted with the truth. You ever been to a Democratic fundraiser? They all look the same. They all behave the same. They have a dictatorship, and suffer from zeal so extreme they think they have a direct line to heaven.”

This was not a real speech, of course. What the former Reagan White House scribe had done was weave together threads from recent speeches by Dean and by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. It is unusual, she said, for top party leaders to use this kind of rhetoric in the public square.

The biggest problem is that Washington, D.C., is more “politically segregated,” than the rest of America, she said. “Democrats by and large hang out with Democrats, Republicans with Republicans. This is true in consulting, in think tanks, in journals, in Congress. If you work for a Democratic senator, the office is full of Democrats. The people with whom you share inside jokes and the occasional bitter aside are Democrats. … The same is true for Republicans.”

She could have listed one more reality. The generals and dedicated soldiers in the two parties certainly do not worship in the same kinds of sanctuaries. Dean keeps shining a spotlight on this religious schism.

This is strange since Dean is white and he has openly said he is a Christian. He also keeps insisting that the Democratic Party must lose its fear of moral language as it strives to regain its old foothold among traditional religious believers.

But if this is his goal, asked Howard Fineman and Tamara Lipper of Newsweek, why does the Democratic Party leader keep making these kinds of hostile remarks?

“Dean’s real problem may not be his mouth but his mind-set,” they wrote. “He and his aides seemed genuinely mystified at the idea that his characterization of the GOP was a political mistake. But by labeling the other party a bastion of Christianity, he implied that his own was something else — something determinedly secular — at a time when Dean’s stated aim is to win the hearts of middle-class white Southerners, many of whom are evangelicals.”

Send article as PDF to

But this does not mean that he backed President Bush.

The University of Notre Dame scholar is concerned about health care and fair wages. But this doesn’t mean that he marched into a voting booth and picked Sen. John Kerry. During a year in which religion and politics constantly made headlines, MacIntyre published an essay that frayed nerves on the religious left and right.

“When offered a choice between two politically intolerable alternatives, it is important to choose neither,” he said, writing for the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture. “When that choice is presented in rival arguments and debates that exclude from public consideration any other set of possibilities, it becomes a duty to withdraw … so as to resist the imposition of this false choice by those who have arrogated to themselves the power of framing the alternatives.”

While some argue that good citizens must vote, MacIntyre said that the only vote worth casting in 2004 was “a vote that no one will be able to cast, a vote against a system that presents one with a choice between Bush’s conservatism and Kerry’s liberalism, those two partners in ideological debate, both of whom need the other as a target.”

These are fighting words for many politicos.

Late in the 2004 race, some religious activists spoke out against “single-issue voting,” a phrase often used to condemn those who cast votes based on a politician’s stance on abortion. Other activists said MacIntyre and other writers who advocated political abstinence were naive and irresponsible for focusing on so many issues.

In one of his “BreakPoint” radio commentaries, evangelical apologist Charles Colson said Christians must vote in order to take part in God’s work in this culture. In this case, Colson was specifically rejecting the views of historian Mark Noll of Wheaton College in Wheaton, Ill.

Colson said that some Christians seem to yearn for a return to the past, when fundamentalists retreated from politics rather than face the temptation to sin through compromise. Is this retreat what Noll and others seek?

“That position is dead wrong and damaging to democracy,” said Colson. “It’s the utopian notion which assumes divine perfection in fallen humans. His assumption that we can support only candidates who have perfect scores according to our reading of the Bible makes me wonder how he votes at all. And if that9s the standard, all of us should stop voting.”

Obviously, Noll disagrees, arguing that it is not wrong to seek consistency on faith-based issues. Here is his short list — race, taxes, trade, health care, religious freedom, the international rule of law and “life issues,” such as defense of the unborn.

“Each of these issues has a strong moral dimension. My position on each is related to how I understand the traditional Christian faith that grounds my existence,” writes Noll, author of “The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind.” Yet neither the Democrats nor the Republics have made “a serious effort to consider this particular combination of concerns or even anything remotely resembling it.”

MacIntyre agrees and cannot imagine embracing either major party, right now.

“Try to promote the pro-life case … within the Democratic Party and you will at best go unheard and at worst be shouted down,” he said. “Try to advance the case for economic justice … within the Republican Party and you will be laughed out of court.”

The philosopher has, in recent weeks, declined to defend his essay or to state how a Bush win or a Kerry win might affect his political views.

One thing is certain: religious believers will face similar choices again, or worse. It’s hard to imagine how the religious left can compromise on abortion or same-sex unions. It’s hard to imagine how the religious right will cope with the rise of cultural progressives such as Rudy Giuliani and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

“I don’t feel that I need to elaborate on what I have written at this time,” said MacIntyre. “Besides, I plan to write about this subject again at greater length. These issues are not going away because I do not believe that major parties have the right answers. I also don’t believe they are asking the right questions.”

Send article as PDF to