| Panelists
agree, religion must be a ‘uniter’ not a ‘divider’
BY
ADRIENNE FRANK
Last
Monday’s Washington Post proclaimed, “Evangelicals Say
They Led Charge for the GOP,” and American University professor
Lucinda Peach agreed, kicking off the day’s Table Talk discussion—“Religion
and Politics: Combustible or Compatible?”—with statistics.
Seventy
percent of Protestants who attend church weekly voted for Bush,
Peach reported, as did 55 percent of Catholics.
Copanelists
Douglas Tanner of the Faith and Politics Institute and Rabbi Jack
Moline, former president of the Washington Board of Rabbis, joined
Peach, focusing their remarks on the impact of religion on the recent
U.S. presidential election. Tanner and Moline stressed that religion
should act as a uniter, not a divider, when it comes to politics.
“Religious
values are supposed to bring people together,” said Tanner,
noting that, in reality, religion is often polarizing in the political
arena.
Moline
added that if places of worship are going to be of influence in
the voting booth, people of different faiths need to be open to
one another’s opinions.
“The
division of this country to red and blue is no more healthy than
the division of this country to black and white,” he said.
Moline
also said that religion is a vehicle for reconciliation and healing.
“I call it the Kumbiyah factor—the idea that I can put
my left arm around someone whose theology I can’t stand and
my right arm around someone whose theology I happen to agree with
and proclaim, ‘We’re all in this together.’”
Moving
the discussion to “religious law making”—the idea
that people of faith often make public policy decisions based on
their religious convictions—Peach noted that using religious
grounds for political decisions is alienating and fractures political
collaboration.
“Lawmakers
who rely on their faith are potentially infringing on the rights
of other citizens,” Peach, professor of philosophy and religion
at the College of Arts and Sciences, said. “On the other hand,
if we tell lawmakers they must vote on secular reasons, we infringe
on their First Amendment right to freedom of religion.
“Religious
beliefs do play a very important role in public life,” she
concluded, “but they are inappropriate in public policy.” |
