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• Q & A with Mr. Danforth
• Excerpt from Faith and Politics
• Article on Mr. Danforth
• Mr. Danforth's biography

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Tavis: Senator John Danforth served in the U.S. Senate from Missouri for nearly 20 years before retiring back in 1994. He has been asked back into public service on more than one occasion since then, including a stint as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. He is also an ordained Episcopal priest whose latest book is called 'Faith and Politics, How The Moral Values Debate Divides America, and How to Move Forward Together.' Senator Danforth, nice to have you on the program, sir.

John Danforth: Thank you very much, good to be with you.

Tavis: Glad to have you here out in Los Angeles. When I saw this book for the first time it came across my desk, I looked at the title, and particularly given that the word and is italicized, did you intend to say - I assume you did - faith and politics, or faith in politics, and is there a difference for you, because there is for me.

Danforth: Well, I don't know. I intended to say faith and politics. They certainly relate to each other. It's not an either-or situation, so I intentionally did not say or politics, because religious people have been involved in politics ever since Moses. But I think that the real issue is how people of faith engage in politics. Do they do it in an I'm on God's side, you're not, very divisive kind of a way, or do they do it from the standpoint of I'm trying to be a faithful person, but so are you, even though we disagree with each other.

Tavis: I raise that question initially because these conjunctions obviously matter, and, or, in. And specifically to faith and politics, it suggests that while they are connected, they are two different things. Increasingly today, given a litany of examples, which you know as well as I do, persons argue, I think legitimately, that faith is now in politics, and as a result, we are subjected to the kind of cynicism that we get from many Americans now because faith is in politics. You subscribe to that notion?

Danforth: Well, I think that faith informs how we go about our lives, including how we engage in politics. But I think that the problem is when people try to translate religious principles or religious convictions into a political agenda. And when they say in effect, "Okay, my political agenda is God's political agenda," that is my side versus your side, God's side versus your side, I don't think that's the way to go about it.

I think that religion carries with it a degree of humility and a degree of recognizing that as Isaiah said, my way is not your way. My thoughts are not your thoughts, says the lord. And that sort of sense of humility makes it possible for very different people to engage with each other civilly, and to find some common ground, rather than constantly a kind of religious war over political principles.

Tavis: I won't surprise you, Senator, when I tell you that it is, quite frankly, the party that you are a member of that most often does that. It is the party that you are a member of, the Republican Party, that does that. It's your party's base that does that. It's your party in the White House that accepts the support of those, that plays to those in that base who do that. How do we have a conversation without talking about that aspect of your party?

Danforth: Well, I agree with that. I think that one of the problems with politics these days is that each of the parties is appealing to the base of the party and trying to energize the base, rather than competing for people who are undecided, or people who are in the middle of the political spectrum, so that American politics has become more and more polarized.

For the Republican Party, the Christian right has become the base of our politics. And that is why these wedge issues have been so popular among Republicans, whether it's stem cell research or gay marriage or whatever it is, they've hit upon these very, very divisive, very hot button issues, because that is the way to excite people who are in the base, to get the turnout, to get the energy from the base, as opposed to a more centrist position which seeks to find common ground.

Tavis: That answer, then, begs the question as to whether or not, with all due respect to the fine book you've written here, whether or not what America needs, what America needs is a conversation about faith and politics, or whether what is needed is a come to Jesus meeting inside the Republican party, and you guys will reject and tell the folk in this base who've been pushing these wedge issues that we're not gonna be a party anymore that moves at your whim.

Danforth: Politicians do what they hear from the American people. From the public, from the voters. And if what they hear is a thirst for these very divisive issues, that's what politicians are going to do. So I don't know that it does much good to sort of preach to the politicians. I think it does more good to encourage the American people to focus on the issue of religion in politics, to focus on the polarization in American politics today, and to speak out on it.

So I think when people who are concerned about the polarization, and who are concerned about the use of religion to divide the American people, when they become more active and more outspoken, politicians will follow them.

Tavis: When, though, this strategy of playing to this particular base and using these wedge issues works well enough for you to be elected twice and control Congress that entire time, and now you got a lock on the Supreme Court for years to come, when that strategy works, what reason is there for people to change the strategy, no matter how people like you and me, left or right, left and right, might cry about how bad this strategy is for the nation? It works, it wins.

Danforth: If it works, they will do it. That's just as simple as that. Politicians, like people in business, will do whatever works. Whatever sells the product. So the real issue is how long is this gonna work? I don't think it'll work forever. I think that when the American people think about it, the American people basically do not think we should have a religious political party.

The American people do not think that our country should be divided on the basis of religion. The American people think that we're all in this together. And so I think that this strategy of appealing to a religious base of a political party can only work for so long, but it cannot really see the light of day. And the more light that we shed on it, the better off we're gonna be.

Tavis: If there is, then, to borrow a biblical phrase, if there is another voice in this wilderness that needs to be raised, it has to come from the left, politically, that is. 'Cause we're hearing a voice from the right. There's no voice coming from the left. What do you make of the fact that we don't hear that kind of voice where people on the left are unafraid to express their faith? Bush did a whole lot more of that than Kerry did.

Danforth: Well, I don't think it's a matter of the left versus the right, because I think that's what American politics has come to now. And I think that the key is how about everybody in the center? How about people who do not feel that they're being represented by either extreme of American politics? And I think that those are the people who have to really speak out, and have to become more active, and have to consciously attempt to rebuild the center of American politics, and to make it clear that this appealing to the base doesn't really speak to all Americans.

Tavis: But that assumes though, Senator, that the folk in the center, the folk in the middle that you're referencing, have faith as a major issue on their agenda. Is there evidence to suggest that?

Danforth: Well, I think that there is evidence, but just anecdotal. Just what I've seen in response to what I'm trying to do. There are a lot of people who think that something has gone wrong with American politics. There are a lot of people who believe that we have become too polarized. There are a lot of people who believe that religion should not be allowed to divide America. And what I am trying to do, and really the reason for writing the book, is to encourage all of these people to be more outspoken than they've been to date.

Tavis: Let me ask you a question that I know you get asked all the time. But as an African-American, it is particularly of interest to me, I confess that up front. Clarence Thomas, Supreme Court justice, you sponsored him, you supported him. We all remember those Thomas hearings 20 or so years ago now. It seems to me that these persons who you have suggested that have hijacked this conversation, this religious right, they've hijacked this conversation about faith and politics.

The vehicle that they intend to use, clearly, to press their agenda, they've been using it and want to continue to use it, is the Supreme Court. So I'm glad now that you've written this book, but could not one argue that it was your support of Clarence Thomas that helped tip this Supreme Court in such a direction that gives these folk on the right now the vehicle they need to press the agenda that you want us to rail against?

Danforth: Well, I'd like to give an answer longer than what the program will allow, but I am a friend of Clarence Thomas. I hired him right out of law school. So personally, I'm close to him, and I was very distressed about what happened to him, about the destruction of a human being. But I think that the politicization of the court system, and particularly the Supreme Court, is just wrong.

Courts should not be yet another policy-making branch of government. The purpose of courts is to interpret the law and interpret the Constitution. Not to try to shove their political views on the American people, whether left or right. And I think what's happen in these confirmation hearings is that they've given the impression that the Supreme Court is a third political branch of government, results-oriented. Are you for this policy or against this policy? And that's not what courts should be for.

Tavis: We agree on that. That's not what they should be for. But that's what this court is, and that's exactly what this political wing of the Republican Party is using to advance its agenda. That's the reality of what we live with now, yes?

Danforth: I do not believe that that is the role of the courts, and I think that if you were to ask Thomas or Alito or Roberts whether courts should be used to push forward a particular political or social agenda, they would say no. So I think that the real question for the courts has to do with how strictly and literally do you construe the Constitution? Not are you just absolutely determined to come out with one result or another.

Tavis: Let me ask in 30 seconds where you think this all-important - here again, we agree on this notion - where this all-important conversation is headed in America.

Danforth: I'm an optimist. I believe most people want the center in American politics. Most people do not want religion to be a divisive force in American politics. And the more people think about it and talk about it and shed light on the subject, the better off we're gonna be as a country.

Tavis: Former distinguished U.S. Senator and ambassador to the U.N., John Danforth out of the show-me state of Missouri. The new book is 'Faith and Politics, How The Moral Values Debate Divides America, and How to Move Forward Together.' Senator Danforth, an honor to have you on here.

Danforth: Thank you.

Tavis: Thank you, sir, for the opportunity. Up next on this program, 'Sesame Street' star Gordon is in the house. Roscoe Orman in a moment. Stay with us.