LUCKY SEVERSON, correspondent: He was to the United Kingdom what John Kennedy was to many in the United States: a dashing, young, urbane leader who embodied hope and change and who could put words together like no other politician of his time.

Prime Minister Tony Blair speaking in Parliament: And I may say if we take the whole period of this government, we have spent far more on our national health service than the Liberal Democrats ever asked us to.

HUGH O’SHAUGHNESSY (Author): He is a master of rhetoric and the spoken word, and he uses that for his own very prosperous interests.

SEVERSON: When Blair left office five years ago, after serving longer than any other Labor prime minister, he was almost as out of favor as he had been popular when he was elected, largely because of the Iraq war. But his name could open doors and pocketbooks around the world—and has.

Blair moved from Number 10 Downing Street to this mansion in central London, where John Adams once resided as U.S. ambassador. Now this place doesn’t have enough space to house Blair’s multiple endeavors and charities. But none seems more important to Blair than the Tony Blair Faith Foundation.

His business ventures and philanthropy range from consulting with developing countries about how to improve systems of government to programs designed to get more young people involved in sports. But Blair appears especially energized by what he calls his “counter-attack” against religious radicalism.

TONY BLAIR: The big issue of our time actually is this, is trying to deal with this extremism based on a perversion of religion and how you get peaceful coexistence between people of different faiths and cultures.

SEVERSON: How do you?

BLAIR: Well, I think by establishing platforms of understanding between people of different faiths and cultures so that they learn more about each other and through knowledge I think, comes the possibility of peaceful coexistence. I think where there is ignorance there’s usually fear, and where there’s fear there could be conflict.

SEVERSON: Blair serves as the international community’s envoy to the Middle East, a place divided by, among other things, religious extremism.

BLAIR: Now some people take the view, including many people I know, that, well, the best thing is take religion out of everything. But you won’t take religion out of everything. Religion’s there. It’s a fact. Faith is a fact. And many people are motivated to do immense good by their faith.

SEVERSON: The Faith Foundation in central London is fairly buzzing with young do-gooders out to save the world. One program they’re coordinating here is called Face-to-Faith. It’s now in 400 schools around the globe, connecting high school kids of different faiths by video conferencing. Face-to-Faith is now in 20 countries, including the U.S.

RUTH TURNER (CEO of the Tony Blair Faith Foundation): Some of our schools in Utah have had incredibly meaningful encounters talking to young people, for example, in San Francisco, and even within the same country there’s such a diverse set of views about religion.

SEVERSON: Blair has a connection with the poverty stricken nation of Sierra Leone dating back over a decade to the horrible bloodshed of that country’s civil war. He sent in British troops who were successful in quelling the violence but not ending the poverty, the misery, or the death rate from the plague of malaria.

Dr. Josephine Muhairwe is a team leader for another branch of the Tony Blair Faith Foundation operating in third world countries like Sierra Leone.

DR. JOSEPHINE MUHAIRWE: Every third child who dies dies of malaria, and for every four adults who are admitted one of them is admitted because of malaria.

TURNER: So we decided to put together a program that could literally save lives so that religion was saving lives rather than taking them. We train imams and pastors and priests. They give sermons on Friday or Sunday to their congregations, they pick key people from their congregations, we train them, they train others, so it’s a cascade training program, and these multifaith teams of Muslims and Christians go door-to-door in their local communities teaching the families as to how they can protect their children from malaria.

SEVERSON: Sierra Leone has a population of about eight million with only about a hundred doctors to treat them all. But many thousands could be saved with something as simple as a malaria retardant net to cover their beds at night.

It takes more than just specialized nets to beat malaria. It’s education in their proper use and other basic health measures like getting rid of stagnant water. That education now begins with pastors and imams. To back up their message, the Blair teams rely on passages from the Quran and the Bible.

DR. MUHAIRWE: Over 95 percent of people in Sierra Leone are affiliated with either church or mosque. So the networks are wide and they are people of authority within their community, so the people listen to them, so that in itself, the model in itself is quite sustainable.

SEVERSON: Blair says so far the program has reached over 800,000 people in Sierra Leone.

BLAIR: This is not just about promoting action on the anti-malaria front. It’s also about trying to give a sense of faith as something that motivates people to acts of compassion rather than acts of conflict.

SEVERSON: Blair raises money for his foundations through fundraisers like this event in New York. It was organized by Blair team members who are Jewish and Christian. In this case they’re working with Sikhs as well in support of a Sikh-based project in Africa. But most foundation funds come from direct contributions small and large and from himself. He collects huge fees as a consultant to corporations and to countries and can command $200,000 for a speech. Blair’s name has cache, although perhaps not what he imaged as a guitar-playing student who modeled himself after Mick Jagger.

As prime minister his duties included participating in the appointment of Anglican bishops and archbishops. Six months after he left office, Blair converted to Catholicism, his wife’s lifelong religion. He says during his 10 years in office, he prayed about decisions and found solace in church.

(to Tony Blair): I’ve always been fascinated by yours and President Bush’s relationship, and I’ve always had the impression that faith had a lot to do with it, that the two of you were both men of faith, and that that in many ways drove you in your decisions.

BLAIR: We are both people of faith. But your faith can give strength when you’re taking a very difficult decision to try and do what you think is right. In that sense it can be of assistance to you. But it can’t tell you what is right, unfortunately.

SEVERSON: Did you ever talk about your faith, or did you ever pray together when you were making these decisions?

BLAIR: No. No, we didn’t. I mean, we talked about faith more generally, just as two people who know each other well, but no, not in relation to the decisions.

SEVERSON: He says he holds former President George W. Bush in very high regard.

BLAIR: Whether people agree or disagree with him, or with me indeed, is another matter, but as a leader to deal with, and I think you’d find most of the leaders who dealt with president Bush at this time, again, whether they agree with him or disagree with him, found him to be someone of genuine integrity.

SEVERSON: Unfortunately for the former prime minister, many in his own country would not say the same of him. It’s been almost ten years since the Iraq invasion, and still there are newspaper stories with negative headlines about Blair’s role in the Iraq war.

O’SHAUGHNESSY: I will never forget what he’s done, and you would have to hold me over hot coals several times before you get me to vote for him again.

SEVERSON: Hugh O’Shaughnessy is a noted British author on developing-world issues who, like many, felt betrayed when Blair led the country into war.

O’SHAUGHNESSY: People still keep in their minds the way he treated public opinion. He brushed public opinion aside and launched into this illegal, cruel and lawless war.

SEVERSON: Blair continues to believe that history will vindicate him on Iraq and is convinced that his Faith Foundation will help calm a troubled world.

BLAIR: It’s not political ideology that‘s going to disrupt us, but it could well be religious or cultural ideology. And that’s why the concept of people across the faiths working together is so vital and so fundamental to a peaceful and successful twenty-first century.

SEVERSON: And that’s what you mean by religious “counter-attack”?

BLAIR: Correct.

SEVERSON: Whatever his critics say of him, the former prime minister hopes his legacy overall will be that he contributed to world peace, not war.

For Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly, I’m Lucky Severson in London.

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KIM LAWTON: For more than five years, Michael Gerson wrote policy speeches for President George W. Bush. Now he’s advocating a policy of his own, something he calls “heroic conservatism.”

MICHAEL GERSON (Author, HEROIC CONSERVATISM, and Senior Fellow, Council on Foreign Relations): That’s a different kind of conservatism, a conservatism of the common good that argues that we need to orient our policies towards people that might not even vote for us — need to make sure that we’re inclusive and hopeful and oriented towards opportunity.

LAWTON: Heroic conservatism, Gerson says, is an expansion of compassionate conservative ideals.

Mr. GERSON: Since 9/11 I, you know, needed a broader concept to also encompass a commitment to human rights and dignity abroad. I was very involved in the AIDS program in the administration, in Africa, in genocide in Sudan, in malaria programs. Conservatism is not just pro-life, and I am pro-life, but it’s also pro-poor.

LAWTON: A lot of faith-based liberals might say, “Well, we’ve been involved with human rights. We’ve been involved with poverty.” What makes this an essentially conservative idea?

Mr. GERSON: Well, I want to argue that those things need to be important to conservatives. And I see a shift taking place. It’s a broadening of this religious prospective of conservative Christians, and they’re looking for a new model of social engagement.

LAWTON: How much resistance is there within the Republican Party, within — even among the religious right to some of these ideas?

Mr. GERSON: Well, I found a lot of resistance. For example, in the faith-based initiative, which some people have dismissed as radical — it’s not at all. Some people thought that they were too liberal because the goal was to help the poor. Some people thought they were too expensive: Why are we spending this money? Some people thought it’s just not our job: We’re Republicans. We’re supposed to just play around with the tax-code.

LAWTON: Gerson is an evangelical Christian and believes religious faith is one important foundation of heroic conservatism. He is highly critical of secularists who would try to keep religious influence out of public life.

Mr. GERSON: Do you really want to say we’re going to take religion out of politics, okay? It wouldn’t just get rid of Osama Bin Laden and maybe Pat Robertson. It would also get rid of Martin Luther King.

LAWTON: Gerson is now a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He says America has a moral calling to spread democracy around the world.

Mr. GERSON: In the aftermath of 9/11, it’s not just a moral mandate that comes from our history. It’s also a national security priority.

LAWTON: During his time at the White House, Gerson helped write some of Bush’s most memorable speeches, speeches that included references to faith, God, good and evil.

(to Gerson): How much of those speeches are you, how much are they the president?

Mr. GERSON: On the major speeches — a speech to the United Nations, a State of the Union address — the president was involved early and heavily. Then, once he had an imprint on the outline, we’d produce a draft, which would go to the senior staff. There’d be a lot of input from other people. It’s always a cooperative enterprise when we do these things. But the president then would start to mark it up. So by the time he delivered a major speech, one of the large ones, every word was pretty much his.

President GEORGE W. BUSH (during speech): …set by the hand of a just and faithful God…

LAWTON: Many of the speeches used allusions to Scripture verses and hymns. Some critics even questioned whether Bush was speaking in code to religious believers.

President BUSH (during speech): Yet there’s power, wonder-working power…

Mr. GERSON: These aren’t code words. They are our culture. You know, millions of people understand them, and just because if some people don’t get them doesn’t mean that there’s some kind of plot. I think that without those things that American rhetoric would be infinitely impoverished.

LAWTON: Why do the words matter?

Mr. GERSON: Well, I saw, for example, after 9/11 in the Washington National Cathedral speech, where the president had to express shock, sorrow, sympathy, and resolve of the nation, all in 12 minutes –

President BUSH (during speech at Washington National Cathedral): This world he created is of moral design. Grief and tragedy and hatred are only for a time. Goodness, remembrance, and love have no end.

Mr. GERSON: These were fresh wounds in America, and I sat there in that cathedral and realized the words really counted at that point. They don’t always. You know, you do a lot of speeches when you’re at the White House, hundreds of them. But at a few moments the words really matter.

LAWTON: In his new book, Gerson isn’t critical of Bush. He does criticize other administration officials, especially former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, for his strategy in the Iraq war.

Gerson says his worst time at the White House was watching the lack of progress after Hurricane Katrina.

Mr. GERSON: In the aftermath of that disaster, Republicans were focused mainly on the cost of recovery, budget. Democrats were mainly focused on the apportionment of blame. Very few people in our political system took the broader issues of race and poverty seriously.

LAWTON: He says his proudest moments were Bush initiatives to help AIDS victims in Africa and to stop the spread of malaria – policies, he says, that have been overshadowed by the situation in Iraq.

Mr. GERSON: Government can do good under the right circumstances, with the right theory, with the right approach. I think conservatives need to recognize that. I think there are moral reasons to recognize that. And I also think there are good political reasons, too.

LAWTON: Politicians who don’t recognize that, he says, don’t deserve to win.

I’m Kim Lawton in Washington.

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Q: What is heroic conservatism?

A: Well, I had a lot to do when I worked on Capitol Hill with the creation of the idea of compassionate conservatism. That was very much domestic-focused. It was trying to find ways to use conservative and free market ideas in the Republican Party to help the poor and the addicted and children at risk. But now, since 9/11, I needed a broader concept to also encompass a commitment to human rights and dignity abroad. I was very involved in the AIDS program in the administration, in Africa, in genocide in Sudan, in malaria programs. I think these things are good for America’s soul. I think they’re good for our interest. They’re essential to our politics, and so I wanted to make an argument that conservatism cannot just be for free markets, but also for helping children in Africa. Conservatism is not just pro-life, and I am pro-life, but it’s also pro-poor. It’s a way to help people to compete in the economy and get on the social ladder of accomplishment. So that’s the kind of conservatism that I believe in, and I wanted to argue for it in my new book.

Q: What are the foundations for that? You talk a lot about the Declaration of Independence, for one.

A: There are a couple of streams here. For any conservative or any Republican, you have to take Abraham Lincoln seriously, and the book does. He believed, and it was controversial in his time, in universal human rights and dignity and believed that abolition was the natural outgrowth of those ideas. But the big argument in the Republican Party right now, as I see it, is between a libertarianism which is really market-oriented anti-government, and I make the argument that the other perspective is Roman Catholic social thought, this set of ideas that’s been developed over the last several decades that says that government should be limited because communities need to be protected. Families are important, values are important, but also a principle called solidarity, which is the belief that the justice of a society is judged by its treatment of the poor and the weak. Now that’s a little different. That’s a different kind of conservatism, a conservatism of the common good that argues that we need to orient our policies towards people that might not even vote for us, need to make sure that we’re inclusive and hopeful and oriented towards opportunity, and, you know, there’s a backlash against that type of conservatism right now, and so I wanted to argue for idealism in a tired time.

Q: Why is it necessary for conservatives to be focusing on things like that?

A: Well, I think there’s a strong international argument. I’m senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. I’m focused on a lot of these issues. We have found increasingly that when other societies are hopeless and failed that we get all sorts of threats that arise to America, from drug trafficking to criminal gangs to terrorism to a variety of things. So we have a direct national interest in the hope of others in that way, fighting disease, promoting development, and it is one of the unheralded accomplishments of the Bush era. The president increased spending on development assistance at a greater percentage than at any time since the Marshall Plan in response to the largest effort to fight a single disease in human history, the AIDS plan. And so that’s been one of the focuses. But I also think that one of my worst moments at the White House was the aftermath of Katrina. I went down with the president. We met people who had never had a bank account, had almost no connection to the mainstream economy in America, deep problems rooted in the history of slavery and segregation. But the reality here is that in the aftermath of that disaster Republicans were focused mainly on the cost of recovery, budget. Democrats were focused mainly on the apportionment of blame. Very few people in our political system took the broader issues of race and poverty seriously. That’s disappointing. It’s something we eventually have to confront. We have events like the LA riots or Katrina that temporarily reveal these deep inequities in American society, but then it’s gone. Then we don’t pay attention until the next time that some disaster or some crisis or some problem comes up, and eventually we need to confront these issues. That’s a message for Democrats and Republicans. Now I believe that Republicans can offer good, market-oriented, conservative ideas to meet those needs and should be involved in that competition of ideas to achieve, really, social justice, not just individual liberty.

Q: What is the role of religion in this notion of heroic conservatism?

A: Well, you know, in American history this deep commitment to human rights and dignity, to the dignity of every individual whether they’re an American citizen or a child in Africa — that comes from two sources. It comes from a philosophic tradition, the Enlightenment, the set of beliefs that came out of that philosophic belief, and from the Judeo-Christian tradition, a belief that human beings are created in the image of God. We’ve always had both those elements in the American tradition in forming these views, and they’re still both there in many ways. Many people in America believe in human rights and dignity and these issues because of their faith. They have an anthropology that’s related to their deepest beliefs. So I also argue in the book that a kind of secularism that rules those motivations out of bounds is actually a dangerous thing. It would really rule out of bounds one of the main sources of social change, reform, and justice in our history. From abolition to progressivism to the civil rights movement to the pro-life movement today to people who fought for the suffrage, the rights of women — all these movements in American history had strong roots, not exclusively but often, in religious faith, and we can’t rule those things out a priori.

Q: A lot of faith-based liberals might say, “We’ve been involved with human rights, we’ve been involved with poverty.” What makes this an essentially conservative idea?

A: Well, I want to argue that those things need to be important to conservatives, and I see a shift taking place. My tradition that I came from might be called conservative Protestantism. When I was growing up, the social movement that expressed those aspirations was really the religious right, which took a certain form associated with the Republican Party, and there were useful things about the religious right. It built ties between Roman Catholics and Protestants that hadn’t existed before. It brought evangelicals back into the public square. They had withdrawn after the fundamentalist-modernist controversy earlier in the century. But I think that model of engagement of the religious right is fading in many ways. A new generation of leaders, people like Rick Warren and others, have a broader notion of what social justice means. It’s not just issues of sexual morality, although they’re still important — abortion, and family, those sort of things. But also things like economic justice for the poor and racial reconciliation and the hope of other people in foreign lands. So many conservative Protestants now are increasingly motivated on issues that relate to Africa, for example. I’ve seen example after example in the fight against disease and the promotion of hope. That’s a good trend, it seems to me. It’s a broadening of this religious perspective of conservative Christians, and they’re looking for a new model of social engagement. What comes next after the religious right? I think there’s a lot of experimentation around what that is right now. So part of the purpose of my book was to give some form to that as well. I think it’s possible to be a conservative, to believe in moral tradition, to believe in family, to believe in community in the way that conservatives do, and still have an aggressive focus on these issues of justice.

Q: When you talk in the book about the president trying to move this kind of philosophy forward, you recount of backlash, a lot of obstacles being put up by other political people. How much resistance is there within the Republican Party, even among the religious right, to some of these ideas?

A: I found a lot of resistance. First of all, for example, in the faith-based initiative, which some people have dismissed as radical — it’s not at all. We’ve always used faith-based organizations to help provide social services to the poor. They do a great job. Catholic Charities, Lutheran Social Services — there’s a tradition of using these institutions. The attempt of the administration was to try to move beyond some of those larger traditional institutions and get it to faith-based community institutions, African-American, Hispanic community institutions at the grassroots level, and make them more sophisticated in requesting and receiving funds and such. When we proposed these ideas early in the administration, there was almost no interest among conservative leaders on Capitol Hill. It’s almost as if they didn’t even know how to talk about them, and that’s a genuine problem. They thought that they were — some people thought that they were too liberal, because the goal was to help the poor. Some people thought they were too expensive: Why are we spending this money? Some people thought it’s just not our job: We’re Republicans; we’re supposed to just play around with the tax code. There’s always that kind of resistance in the Republican Party. But on the other side I can’t be cynical about the power of government to do good, because I sat in the Oval Office. I watched the president of the United States make the decision to spend $15 billion on non-citizens in Africa, to put 2 million people on AIDS drugs who would have died otherwise, to take the preeminent leadership role in the world on AIDS, which America now has. Then I’ve been in Africa. I’ve visited an orphanage in Ethiopia with 400 HIV positive children, all of whom have lost both parents to AIDS or were abandoned because they have AIDS. Up to a few years ago every single one of them died before 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 years old. Now almost none of them are dying because of the generosity of the American people. So I know it’s possible. Government can do good under the right circumstances, with the right theory, with the right approach. I think conservatives need to recognize that. I think there are moral reasons to recognize that. I also think there are good political reasons, too, because eventually it’s necessary for a presidential candidate to appeal to a broad variety of people, to appeal to people who don’t normally vote Republican. That’s necessary in American politics. But I’m afraid I don’t see too much of that right now in the Republican Party, so I’m making those arguments.

Q: You speak in the book about what you called President Bush’s “religiously informed moralism” that was behind some of these policies. You wrote about it as if it were a good thing. But a lot of people hear that kind of language, and it’s a scary thing for them. How do you tell people, or how do you try to make that argument to people for whom that kind of notion is very scary?

A: Well, the argument I make is to put it into theological terms — I was a theology student — is that I don’t believe when it comes to religion that issues of salvation are relevant to politics. I don’t believe issues of church organization, ecclesiology are relevant to politics. I don’t think theories of the end times are relevant to politics. Those are private beliefs, okay? But an anthropology, a belief about human beings and their nature and value has always been important to politics. It informed the American founding. It still informs our view of our role in the world. So people who are suspicious of the president’s religious beliefs, one response to make is it’s one reason he cares so much about dissidents in foreign countries, the reason he was willing to take major efforts to fight disease in foreign countries. These are also expressions of a religiously informed moralism in American foreign policy. And I found, for example, in the lead up to the G8 summit in Glen Eagles when I was pushing for the president’s malaria initiative, an initiative that would help hundreds of thousands of people in Africa, mainly children under 5 who die from malaria, there was serious opposition within the administration. But whenever I could get an idea like that — well-formed, serious, well put together idea — to the president, on this agenda, he was the biggest supporter. So some of that at least comes from his faith and his view of America in the world. It’s a very American view, that everybody has value, that everybody has rights, that everybody has dignity, and that America should be a force for good in the world. That’s not unique to this president. I think you would have found the same thing in John Kennedy, the same thing in Franklin Roosevelt, the same thing in Harry Truman. That’s the mainstream of the American foreign policy tradition. There’s always been a moral element in that way.

Q: How do you answer those who ask how that is different from Osama Bin Laden, putting forward a religiously motivated vision of the world?

A: Well, I guess my response to that would be that the content of religion actually makes a difference. There’s a difference between the Takfiri radical Islamic command to kill those who don’t share your beliefs, including Muslims, and the command to love and serve your neighbor. Those are two different teachings. I don’t condemn all of Islam. I think Islam has many strong and good traditions about human rights, dignity in kind of the tradition of monotheism. But there are elements of radical Islam, just as there have been radical elements within Christianity, that teach a denial of human rights and dignity. So I guess my response would be the problem’s not religion. The problems are teachings, really just teachings, some of which undermine human dignity and some of which promote it greatly. So the question here really is do you really want to say we’re going to take religion out of politics, okay? It wouldn’t just get rid of Osama Bin Laden and maybe Pat Robertson. It would also get rid of Martin Luther King. That was his primary motivation, his basic conviction and belief. So I think you have to be a little more careful and discriminating. The problem here is not religion. The problem is hate.

Q: Does America have a moral obligation to promote democracy around the world?

A: I do think we have a moral calling. We were called “the new order of the ages” when we were founded. It was a belief that would be an example to other countries — that was a very American belief. The reason was because we weren’t founded on a nationalistic commitment. We were founded on a universal philosophic belief: All men are created equal. Very few countries were founded that way. We were, and it’s given us a certain role in the world. But I’d have to say in the aftermath of 9/11 it’s not just a moral mandate that comes from our history. It’s also a national security priority. These threats to America arise from regions of the world dominated by hopelessness, failure, ideologies of hate, economic stagnation. America has an interest in those countries having representative governments that serve their people, that make economic progress for their people. That’s a long-term commitment. It’s not something that’s going to be achieved overnight, but that’s the mainstream of American internationalism. Most American presidents have believed that the American people benefit from the spread of a liberal international order; free trade, representative self-government, rule of law, women’s rights — all these basic commitments, and I think that’s true. I think that we do benefit in the long run. I think Europe benefited from the spread of those values. It led to greater peace on that continent after the last century had been a century of conflict within Europe, and I think we have to apply the same rules and ideas to the Middle East in particular. I mean, these are stagnant societies producing people in ideologies who want to kill our citizens. The ultimate answer there is actually the hope of the people themselves. Now there are a lot of other answers. You have to fight terrorism. You have to promote a variety of ideological alternatives. But ultimately I think hope is the answer to hatred.

Q: Did you change your mind about this or anything while you were inside the White House, seeing it from the inside? How did you change?

A: You know, I made clear in the book — I mean I have some serious criticisms on the conduct of the Iraq war, okay, particularly for the first couple of years, which I think — there was really a failure of vision as far as military strategy in that circumstance and a refusal to adjust in a quick and nimble fashion. I make the case that the aftermath of Katrina was disappointing. So I think I learned some lessons while I was there. These things are not easy. They’re difficult. But, you know, I’ll say I’ve written an honest book but it’s not a tell-all, in a certain sense. I know how hard it is. When you see things from the outside it looks easy. When you’re inside there are a thousand issues and debates that come at you every day, and you’re forced to make decisions in tight timetables with limited information. It’s easy to second-guess in those circumstances. So I did learn that it’s easy to second-guess the Clinton administration. It’s easy to second-guess other administrations, and I think it’s given me more sympathy in a certain way for what others have faced in these circumstances, and made me understand that it’s only the hardest issues that get to that building, in the West Wing. I guess I have more understanding for the people who have held that job.

Q: You’re known as one of the presidential speech writers who helped put together some of the language people have talked about a lot, certainly a lot of the religious allusions. At one point there was a lot of chatter that there were religious codes being sent out for only the people who could understand them. What was going on with all of that?

A: Well, you know, we did use some religious allusions to hymns, to Scripture and these things, but every president has used those. I mean, when Ronald Reagan used a city on a hill he wasn’t quoting the Pilgrims. He was quoting the New Testament. When Martin Luther King talked about a promised land of freedom, he was talking about the Book of Exodus. There’s a long tradition of this. So the argument I’ve made there is these aren’t code words. They are our culture. Millions of people understand them, and just because some people don’t get them doesn’t mean there’s some kind of plot. I think it’s basic cultural literacy in many ways to know these basic allusions to great literature and to Scripture. That’s been part of our tradition. To give one more example: When Lincoln said a house divided against itself cannot stand, he was quoting the Sermon on the Mount. It wasn’t making it up. It was using an allusion from Western culture that most people knew. So, I mean, you know, we certainly did that. It fit the president’s inclinations. It fit my reading of American political rhetoric. I think that without those things that American rhetoric would be infinitely impoverished, without those references and ideas. I don’t think it’s a violation of pluralism. I think it’s the assertion of our culture, and I don’t think it should be offensive, in a certain way, because all presidents have done this.

Q: How much of those presidential speeches are you and how much are they the president?

A: Well, first of all, I had a great team of writers, people I worked with on a variety of projects, very talented people. Six people worked for me. We had a large operation. The president had one to three public events a day, so it’s a major production in that way. But on the major speeches — a speech to the United Nations, a State of the Union address — the president was involved early and heavily. He wanted to see an early outline, which I’d provide to him after consulting with our policy experts, particularly on a State of the Union or a speech like that. He’d respond to me by phone: Why don’t we say this here or why doesn’t this go here, why aren’t we saying this? Then once he had an imprint on the outline we’d produce a draft, which would go to the senior staff. There’d be a lot of input from other people. It’s always a cooperative enterprise when we do these things. But the president then would start to mark it up and do changes in the speech even when we practiced it. We would do teleprompter practice. So by the time he delivered a major speech, one of the large ones, every word was pretty much his. He was involved. He wasn’t just reading words. He’d really had an imprint on them. He took the word seriously. But that’s great for a speech writer. It meant that I spent time with him. It meant that he was accessible. It meant that he cared about the things I cared about. It made the job more enjoyable in a lot of ways.

Q: Why do the words matter?

A: Well, I saw, for example, after 9/11 in the Washington National Cathedral speech, where the president had to express shock, sorrow, sympathy, and resolve of the nation all in 12 minutes. In a time of great national vulnerability people didn’t know what had hit. There were still people walking around the ruins with pictures of loved ones wondering if they were dead or alive. These were fresh wounds in America, and I sat there in that cathedral and realized the words really counted at that point. They don’t always. You do a lot of speeches when you’re at the White House, hundreds of them. But at a few moments the words really matter. That was a moment when the country needed to be inspired, informed, brought to the next step. That was true on the September 20th speech to the Joint Session of Congress when he began to lay out the Afghan campaign and the basic commitments of the war on terror. It’s been true in a few other times, particularly when America is in shock — mourning after a shuttle tragedy or other things like that. So, you know, the reality is the words don’t always make that much difference, but in a few historical moments, they do. People remember them, and it means something.

Q: How do you assess the role religion is playing so far in this campaign season?

A: To be honest with you, in the Republican Party you see a lot of appeal to religious voters among various candidates who are trying to prove they’re the most conservative. But I don’t find a particularly creative appeal, in a certain way. These seem to be perfunctory issues that are being dealt with. The president, when he appealed to religious voters, particularly in the year 2000, did it with creative policy ideas on the faith-based initiative — education reform and a variety of things that were, appealed to something that values voters care about, which is helping others, and I don’t see much of that in the Republican Party now. In the Democratic Party, both of the main candidates speak a comfortable language of religion, Obama and Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton comes from a very strong, liberal Protestant tradition, social justice tradition. She’s very comfortable talking about those issues. It’s not like some other leaders of the party that have been deeply secular and uncomfortable with those things. So I think Democrats actually have the language side better, in a certain way. But my concern there is that on issues of concern to a lot of religious voters there’s very little flexibility. One of my favorite Democrats of all times was Governor Casey of Pennsylvania, who was a Catholic, pro-life, social justice Democrat. I think somebody like that could compete for a lot of religious voters in America. But you don’t find too many who represent that viewpoint of values-based Catholic social justice tradition. That used to be very common in America. It’s not very common in the Democratic Party. He was prevented from speaking at the Democratic Convention because of his pro-life views. I think that’s a symbol for a lot of religious voters, in many ways, is this pro-life commitment about how extreme, in my view, the Democratic Party has become in its promotion of abortion rights and the signal that sends to a lot of more conservative religious voters. That’s hard to overcome. It’s a difficult thing.

Q: But does abortion outweigh all of these other issues you’ve been talking about — human rights and poverty and all of those?

A: Yeah, I wouldn’t say it outweighs, but it certainly gives an indication of a basic attitude towards human life and dignity for a lot of religious voters. It shows someone’s heart in a certain way: Do you care for the weak? There are many Americans who view this as a social justice issue, as the protection of the weak. So it’s a difficult thing for Democrats to overcome. Of course, they can. I’ve suggested in print that if Barack Obama went to the National Association of Evangelicals and said, “I know we disagree on a lot of issues, but I am going to defeat malaria in Africa and save this many million lives. I promise you this as president. I want you to join me,” there’d be a lot of evangelicals who’d applaud that. I think they could have a much more creative outreach, in a certain way, because all these issues are important. They’re all pro-life issues in a certain way, when you’re talking about human rights and dignity abroad. So I think Democrats could be even more effective on that agenda.

Q: In your book you still seem to have a lot of affection for George W. Bush, and you still speak about him with a lot of regard. What do you want Americans to know about him that perhaps they don’t know? His approval rating is pretty low. What do you want people to know about him that you saw working with him?

A: Well, you know, I saw a man who was sometimes sharp, sometime demanding, but always had a good heart. When I could get an innovative policy idea to him, when I could get something that appealed to the conscience he was always the biggest supporter in the system. You know, for me, that took a job that could be very demanding, very frustrating, and gave me, you know, hope that it could matter because, you know, he often has said when he likes a foreign leader or other things that he thinks their heart is good. But I saw that his heart is good. Now that’s not everything in politics. You know, I know that there are a lot of other standards by which a leader is judged. But I can only talk about what I saw for seven years, really, both as governor and as president. I saw somebody who was loyal to those around him. He treated people well, cared about many of the issues that I cared about deeply, particularly as related to Africa. And I look at, you know, the legacy. So much of it will depend on Iraq. But the reality here is that tens of millions of people have prescription drug coverage under Medicare because the president cared about it. Test scores for minority children in schools are increasing because of the No Child Left Behind bill. Millions of people are going to be on AIDS treatment, millions of people are going to be helped to survive malaria, and these things are maybe overshadowed by Iraq, but they are not undone by Iraq. They are still real. They are things that I saw, and I think that they are going to reflect well, eventually, on the president, if historians are more fair than journalists.

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BOB ABERNETHY, anchor: As the Bush administration and the international community continue searching for a resolution to the nuclear and missile crisis with North Korea, a prominent evangelical leader is heading to the region. Pastor and best-selling author Rick Warren was expected to arrive in North Korea on Monday (July 17), but his trip was reportedly delayed and may be rescheduled during the next two weeks while he is still in Asia. He was to meet with church and business leaders to discuss plans for him to return next March to preach at the first public Christian rally allowed there in 50 years. In a statement before he left, Warren said, “Regardless of politics, I will go anywhere I am invited to preach the Gospel.”

Another high profile evangelical who has visited North Korea is calling for changes in current Bush administration policy. Evangelist Franklin Graham, who has done aid work in North Korea, says President Bush needs to engage that nation’s leaders in direct dialogue. Kim Lawton spoke with Graham.

KIM LAWTON: The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea [DPRK] is one of the most closed nations in the world. Over the last 50 years, few outsiders have been allowed in the DPRK. Evangelist Franklin Graham is one of them, and he’s deeply concerned about the current situation.

Reverend FRANKLIN GRAHAM: I think probably North Korea is the most dangerous place on the face of the earth right now. You’ve got a country that I feel is kind of backed up against a wall.

LAWTON: The Bush administration has rejected direct negotiations with North Korea and has instead supported so-called “six-party talks” that involve China and other nations. Graham believes those talks have little chance of success. He’s urging the U.S. to change its approach.

Rev. GRAHAM: I want to encourage the president, I want to encourage this administration, those in Congress — we need to talk to the North Koreans face to face, period. Eyeball to eyeball. And there is a lot that can be accomplished if we simply just do that.

LAWTON: The U.S. has also supported the idea of United Nations sanctions against North Korea as punishment for its ongoing missile testing. Graham opposes that.

Rev. GRAHAM: Whatever sanctions, what little we may be able to bring to bear on North Korea, it’s just going to end up hurting the people worse. It’s not going to hurt the army. And I don’t think its going to hurt Kim Jong-Il and his family and his generals that support him.

LAWTON: Graham says the humanitarian situation there is already very fragile.

Rev. GRAHAM: If you go to a hospital you’re going to go there to die, because the hospitals don’t have medicine, they don’t have equipment — just basic equipment to help the people. It’s very sad, because they are suffering. This is a very poor country, and they need our help.

LAWTON: Graham and his family have a longstanding connection with North Korea. His father, Billy Graham, went to North Korea in 1992 and again in 1994. Franklin Graham went to North Korea in 2000, and his relief ministry, Samaritan’s Purse, has been allowed to do limited humanitarian work there. He says he’s well aware of the criticism that such trips will be used by the North Koreans for propaganda purposes.

Rev. GRAHAM: If my father, myself, someone else going can help the dialogue and help to bring peace between these two countries, a better understanding between the United States and the DPRK, I think it’s worth doing. I think that’s worth the risk of possibly being used.

LAWTON: And he hopes those visits have encouraged the tiny and severely restricted Christian community.

Rev. GRAHAM: The North Koreans’ Christian church has suffered. They have been persecuted over the years. The church is very small in the North, and I hope that our influence in North Korea has helped the church.

LAWTON: Graham has been close to the Bush administration and says he’s speaking up out of concern.

Rev. GRAHAM: I’m not breaking the ranks with the president. I’m encouraging the president to change his strategy just a little bit.

LAWTON: He says the stakes are too high to pursue policies that won’t work.

Rev. GRAHAM: I believe the North Koreans would like to find a way to get around this impasse, but they want to be respected.

LAWTON: I’m Kim Lawton reporting.

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I am afraid there is little to comment on in the new national security strategy document confirming the U.S. government’s commitment to “the option of preemptive actions” with regard to either religion or ethics. From the perspective of the White House, there is every reason to acquire more power and to call that acquisition just. Indeed, there is no country capable of preventing Americans from claiming, asserting, and justifying the use of even more force in the future.

As a Christian, I accept this desire for power and security as yet one more example of corruption in this world “east of Eden.” Yet I also bristle at any suggestion that this presidency is driven by Christian principles. There are no religious doctrines, much less Christian ones, which inform this document; rather, it is built on faultless, and soulless, logic. First, the document points out that “legal scholars and international jurists often conditioned the legitimacy of preemption on the existence of an imminent threat — most often a visible mobilization of armies, navies, and air forces preparing to attack.”

We do not face such threats today, so instead of abandoning the doctrine of preemption, the document suggests revising our perception of a threat: “We must adapt the concept of imminent threat to the capabilities and objectives of today’s adversaries [who will use] weapons that can be easily concealed, delivered covertly, and used without warning.”

The argument is clear: long ago, when armies were visible, we required evidence to justify preemption; now that threats are invisible, it would be absurd to require visible evidence. Therefore, preempt when threatened.

Yet it is important to add that visible enemies also defined a response proportional to the threat — after you destroyed the enemy’s army, you stopped bombing. Now that the enemy is invisible, there is also no way to measure proportion. There is no way to know when to stop.

In these and other ways, ethics is reduced to efficiency, and this document efficiently lays out a justification for endless war. Whether or not this proves to be an effective deterrent strategy, it is certainly a blueprint for devoting ever greater resources to preparations for war.

Andrew J. Bacevich is professor of international relations at Boston University and author of THE NEW AMERICAN MILITARISM (Oxford University Press, 2005):

Setting aside some very formidable moral and legal objections, a doctrine of preventive war makes sense only if it works — that is, if its implementation yields enhanced security at a reasonable cost. In the American case, the Bush administration’s belief in the efficacy of preventive war stemmed from its confidence in the efficacy of American military power. In his introduction to the National Security Strategy of the United States, which the White House issued in September 2002, President Bush wrote that “today the United States enjoys a position of unparalleled military strength.” The assumption underlying the Bush Doctrine, never made explicit, was that the unparalleled quality and capabilities of America’s armed services made preventive war plausible.

In March 2003, the president implemented the Bush Doctrine, ordering the invasion of Iraq. In doing so, he also put to the test his administration’s assumptions about American military power. That test has now continued long enough for us to draw some preliminary conclusions. The most important of those conclusions is the following: as measured by the effectiveness and capacity of American arms, the quality of American generalship, and the adherence of American soldiers to professional norms, this administration has badly misread what the U.S. military can and cannot do. The sword of American military power is neither sharp enough nor hard enough to meet the demands of preventive war.

The Bush Doctrine has failed and on that basis alone should be scrapped.

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LUCKY SEVERSON, guest anchor: On Wednesday (March 8), President Bush toured the Gulf Coast and saw some of the faith-based relief work up close. Two other high-profile guests on the Gulf Coast this week were evangelist Billy Graham and his son Franklin. The two are holding a series of meetings in New Orleans called a “Celebration of Hope.” Kim Lawton reports.

KIM LAWTON: Evangelists Billy and Franklin Graham said they wanted to bring some spiritual encouragement to the people of New Orleans. They came with an optimistic vision of a city that will emerge from its hardships stronger than ever.

Reverend BILLY GRAHAM (In Speech): New Orleans will become a center that people will look to for spiritual help in the days to come.

LAWTON: Still, Graham admitted he has been overwhelmed by the magnitude of the destruction.

Rev. B. GRAHAM (In Speech): I’m absolutely devastated at what I’ve felt and seen in the couple of days that I’ve been here.

LAWTON: Franklin Graham took his father on a tour of some of the worst-hit areas in the Ninth Ward and St. Bernard Parish. Nearby, workers were trying to repair one of the damaged levees. The Grahams saw neighborhoods that look much the same as they did six months ago.

Rev. B. GRAHAM (At Press Conference): There’s only one hope that I can see, and that’s through prayer and through Jesus Christ.

LAWTON: Franklin Graham’s ministry, Samaritan’s Purse, has been actively helping Katrina victims. They’ve given more than $38 million in aid.

Reverend FRANKLIN GRAHAM: I think the faith-based community, what they’ve been able to contribute is huge.

LAWTON: He said such efforts stand in sharp contrast to the inefficiency of many government agencies.

Rev. F. GRAHAM: The government still can’t give away trailers. It’s amazing to me that in Arkansas you have a field of mobile homes, and you have thousands of people right here who could use them. The pastors can put somebody in that trailer within weeks.

LAWTON: The Grahams made an effort to support local pastors, and at a special prayer meeting, many said the visit meant a lot.

Reverend JEFF WICKER (East Fort Baptist Church): I have some Catholic friends in the community, and I tell them Billy Graham represents our pope. He is who we look to. He is the leadership in the 20th century of the evangelical faith.

Reverend LOUIS HILLIARD (Community Bible Baptist Church): I believe that Brother Billy Graham still has that powerful influence, you know, because he can relate not only to the spiritual world but also the political world.

LAWTON: The 87-year-old evangelist appeared frail but showed flashes of his trademark sense of humor.

Rev. B. GRAHAM (In Speech): In those days, I would preach at least 50 minutes, maybe an hour and a half. No wonder we had a hard time filling the stadium!

LAWTON: He said he believes there are no answers as to why this tragedy happened.

Rev. B. GRAHAM (In Speech): God has allowed it. I don’t believe he sent it, but he allowed it for a reason and a purpose, and it may be to build a new New Orleans.

LAWTON: Given the ongoing situation in many of the neighborhoods here, local residents say messages of hope will be needed for a long time to come.

I’m Kim Lawton in New Orleans.

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Joel Carpenter is provost and professor of history at Calvin College:

President Bush’s references at the National Prayer Breakfast to the role of prayer in times of national need echoed countless others down through the years; American presidents have frequently reminded the nation of the protecting hand of divine providence.

What is striking about President Bush’s characterizations, however, is the emphasis on religious action in the realm of relief, development, and human rights. He appeared to be speaking of a realm that is very familiar to him, the networks of charitable action that religious Americans and their congregations support. The president is not dealing in glittering generalities here, but with specific organizations and issues. He knows the work and appreciates it greatly.

Even so, he is making a political point: judge America by this outpouring of nongovernmental religious compassion, not so much by its government’s actions to stem want and disasters, man-made or natural. His concrete case of someone who suffered in war-torn Liberia and was helped by an American Christian social service agency was telling. It was an act of mercy to treat the suffering, but it was not deemed in America’s interest to intervene to stop the war.

A very modest American intervention in this nation, which was virtually an American colony, could have prevented much of the suffering. But that would need to be a governmental initiative. Mr. Bush is saying very vividly that the cause of freedom he so ardently proclaimed in his inaugural as American foreign policy does not apply in Liberia.

Steven M. Tipton is professor of the sociology of religion at Emory University:

God works in remarkable ways in the second Inaugural Address of President George W. Bush, especially in justifying America’s forceful defense of freedom around the world today, particularly (if implicitly) in Iraq, where the United States is fulfilling the providential flow of history in the direction “set by liberty and the author of liberty.”

That divine author, echoing Thomas Jefferson’s “laws of Nature and of Nature’s God” in the Declaration of Independence and linked to the “imago Dei,” is the source of America’s founding faith in freedom: “From the day of our founding, we have proclaimed that every man and woman on this earth has rights, and dignity, and matchless value, because they bear the image of the maker of heaven and earth.”

That divine author is the guarantor of freedom’s eventual triumph for all humankind and our complete confidence in our cause as its carrier. Not because “history runs on the wheels of inevitability. It is human choices that move events. Not because we consider ourselves a chosen nation. God moves and chooses as he wills,” but because we have chosen to do God’s will in advancing the cause of God-given freedom; we are an almost-chosen nation that can be confident in following our leaders along this course with God and history on our side.

Four years ago President Bush expressed confidence in keeping his solemn pledge “to build a single nation of justice and opportunity” because “we are guided by a power larger than ourselves who created us equal in His image.” He pointed out a providential angel who “rides in the whirlwind and directs this storm” through history to advance “the nation’s grand story of courage” and its “simple dream of dignity,” whose author “fills time and eternity with his purpose.” Then providence pointed out our duty to serve one another along the Good Samaritan’s path of compassionate conservatism, with just a brief aside from Mr. Bush to the enemies of liberty and our country that we would remain “engaged in the world by history and by choice, shaping a balance of power that favors freedom.”

Now providence has permitted a terrible “day of fire” to jolt us from repose after the Cold War to defend liberty in our own land by spreading it in other lands. Now our vital interests and our deepest beliefs are fused into a single struggle to decide the “moral choice between oppression, which is always wrong, and freedom, which is eternally right.”

Drawing on his speeches after 9/11, with their contrast between freedom and fear, and modulating their promise to rid the world of evil from a focus on terror to tyranny, President Bush commits the U.S. to supporting worldwide democracy “with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in the world.” Compared to the 2001 Inaugural Address, compassion comes in for mention only in passing, with a plea to “look after a neighbor and surround the lost with love,” lest liberty for all within an ownership society come to mean independence from one another. The transformation of domestic policy, from sustaining Social Security to building free-market ownership in order to make “every citizen an agent of his or her own destiny,” remains as brief in elaboration as it is sweeping in conception.

The moral lessons the speech spells out are those of “duty and allegiance” evident in the determined faces of our soldiers. Having seen that “life is fragile, and evil is real, and courage triumphs,” we must choose to “serve in a cause larger than your wants, larger than yourself” in order to add to the character of our country, not just its wealth.

The self-sacrifice Bush urged in 2001 to serve a needy neighbor is now turned to sterner tasks. His earlier insistence that our public interest depends on private character now shifts from self-giving to self-discipline. “Self-government relies, in the end, on the governing of the self. That edifice of character is built in families, supported by communities with standards, and sustained in our national life by the truths of Sinai, the Sermon on the Mount, the word of the Qur’an, and the varied faiths of our people.” Rooted in religious faith, timeless and true moral ideals build moral character and sustain democratic progress in America and around the world. The speech is indeed a call to march in a moral crusade identified with the cause of freedom given by God and defining the providential course of history. Whether that means supporting or opposing the policies of the Bush administration at home and abroad, conscientious citizens and their elected representatives in Congress must now debate and decide.

The post Religion and the Second Term Commentary appeared first on Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly.

BOB ABERNETHY, anchor: Across the political and theological spectrums, religious conservatives, moderates, and liberals all have their own hopes for the president’s second term. Some conservatives say it’s payback time for their support in the election. Others say, “Don’t forget the poor.”

Kim Lawton has our story today on America’s religious agendas.

KIM LAWTON: In his State of the Union Address, President Bush outlined his plans and goals for the future. The next morning, at the National Prayer Breakfast, the president acknowledged the importance of praying for wisdom in guiding the country.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: Prayer means more than presenting God with our plans and desires. Prayer also means opening ourselves to God’s priorities.

LAWTON: Conservative evangelicals and Catholics are optimistic this bodes well for their policy priorities. Many in those communities worked hard for Bush’s reelection and are now confident he will move ahead on the issues they care about most.

Dr. RICHARD LAND (President, Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission): The expectations are very high among my constituency that this president is going to do his best to fulfill his promises. We believe this president to be a man who keeps his word. And he’s a man who not only understands our issues, he shares our worldview.

LAWTON: Democratic activist John Podesta is part of a growing movement of faith-based moderates and liberals who pledge to counter many of the positions religious conservatives are pushing for.

JOHN PODESTA (President and CEO, Center for American Progress): They formed, certainly, the backbone of the people who were out on the streets trying to get the president reelected. And they’re asking for a lot, but I think they’re asking for things that the American people really don’t want. I think they have a very cramped view, I think, of what the critical issues in front of the country are.

LAWTON: As president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, Land says he sees several priorities for Bush’s second term.

Dr. LAND: My community, Southern Baptists and other evangelicals, want the president to strongly defend traditional marriage by giving presidential support to a marriage protection amendment. We want the president to continue to strongly push a pro-life agenda, and to support pro-life legislation that will be introduced in the House and the Senate, and to continue to promote freedom and democracy.

LAWTON: Their confidence may be high, but some evangelical leaders are cautioning against a “payback time” mentality.

Reverend RICHARD CIZIK (Vice President, Governmental Affairs, National Association of Evangelicals): Our values are the president’s values, but we simply can’t run roughshod all over Washington. Evangelicals, yes, we have a right to expect a response from Congress and the White House, but we also have to be, yes, as Christians, magnanimous.

LAWTON: There are still many political realities in Washington. At last month’s March for Life, Bush promised to continue his support for what he called a “culture of life,” although he offered no specifics. He repeated that during his State of the Union Address, although he never mentioned the word “abortion.” Evangelical leaders are urging new restrictions on abortion, but they concede those restrictions are modest ones.

Rev. CIZIK: They’re admittedly not overturning ROE V. WADE. They’re addressing it at the margins. But that’s what we expect.

LAWTON: There are also political uncertainties surrounding a constitutional amendment to define marriage as between one man and one woman — an issue that galvanized many conservative voters in November.

During the State of the Union speech, the president reaffirmed his support for the amendment. Still, some conservatives are dismayed that Bush is focusing so much more on Social Security reform.

Dr. LAND: Among the social conservatives there’s not the kind of consensus for Social Security reform that you have, for instance, on protecting marriage between a man and a woman, or on the pro-life issue.

LAWTON: Senate leaders have not included the marriage amendment among their top legislative priorities, and conservatives say it will take presidential pressure to help get the two-thirds majority needed to pass it.

Dr. LAND: We do not want any wavering on an amendment to the Constitution to protect marriage from a runaway imperial judiciary in the United States.

LAWTON: While much of the rhetoric focuses on abortion and gay marriage, some leaders say there is much more on the evangelical agenda.

Rev. CIZIK: We want action, for example, to address religious liberty, democracy-building overseas, and religious liberty on the faith-based initiative here in the States — broadening that at the state and local level. We would like action, yes, on poverty issues and on the environment. So we have a broad agenda. And don’t typify us all simply by the term which is for us at times derogatory: “religious Right.” We are mainstream America.

LAWTON: But Cizik ultimately believes that much of the future agenda hinges on success in Iraq.

Rev. CIZIK: The biggest issue, even for evangelicals, is Iraq. And if the elections, if the democracy-building project — as we call it — in Iraq fails, it may well be that this president’s legacy fails.

LAWTON: Other religious groups also say they have a broad range of priorities for the second term. The U.S. Catholic bishops, for example, have on their list opposition to gay marriage, abortion, and embryonic stem cell research, but they also include support for a host of social justice issues.

John Podesta, a Catholic, is trying to mobilize religious progressives through the Center for American Progress.

Mr. PODESTA: There are a lot of people who go back to those traditional values that you find in the Bible that talk about poverty, that talk about economic justice, that talk about concern for the poor and the left behind and the left out in society, and I think what needs to happen is that those issues have to be brought back to the public square, if you will.

LAWTON: Some of the biggest concerns are over Social Security reform, which many religious moderates and liberals fear will dismantle the social safety net. Rabbi David Saperstein of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism.

Rabbi DAVID SAPERSTEIN (Director, Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism): The moral test of any civilized nation is what it does for the weak, the least among us, to use the Christian terminology — the widow and the orphan, the child and the elderly. If our policies do not create zones of protection for those people, we have failed to live up to our biblical mandates.

Mr. PODESTA: Where [Bush is] going on health care and Social Security, on taxation, putting all the benefits to the very wealthiest Americans and denying essential services to the poorest Americans, I think we’re going to have to fight with him — quite a bit.

LAWTON: Big fights are expected over judicial nominees and, in particular, any new appointments to the U.S. Supreme Court. Social conservatives see this as a vital issue that will affect all their other priorities. They will strongly oppose what they call “activist judges who legislate from the bench.”

Rev. LAND: We want justices like Clarence Thomas and justices like Antonin Scalia. We want judges like those justices, and the president has said that’s what he wants. And so, it would be a grave disappointment to me if we were to get people like David Souter.

LAWTON: Religious liberals are gearing up to strongly oppose any scaling back of rights granted by recent court decisions.

Rabbi SAPERSTEIN: What would disappoint me most is to unravel the great achievements of the 20th century, to reshape the federal courts in a way that abandons the extraordinary transformative expansion of fundamental rights that made life so much better for women and for all minorities in America, including religious minorities, by their assertion of a strong wall that keeps government out of religion.

LAWTON: Despite their concerns in many areas, faith-based moderates and liberals do see areas for common cause with the president. Rabbi Saperstein says he is particularly optimistic about the Middle East peace process in the wake of new Palestinian leadership.

Rabbi SAPERSTEIN: With the election of Abbas, it is really possible now that we could get the parties back to the table. This administration seems committed to investing financially, politically, to make that happen.

LAWTON: Saperstein and others in his movement are hoping to build on the president’s initiatives on human rights and international religious freedom, debt relief, foreign aid, and fighting the spread of HIV/AIDS.

Rabbi SAPERSTEIN: If he is open to listening to good ideas from across the political spectrum and seeking to heal the country of its divisions by governing from the center, on both domestic and foreign policy issues, there’s a lot that we can do together.

LAWTON: Religious groups say they’ll get an even clearer picture of the president’s agenda in his proposed budget for 2006. That’s scheduled to be presented to Congress this coming week. Faith-based lobbyists say they will examine the document closely to see what the administration will be focusing on in coming months.

I’m Kim Lawton on Capitol Hill.

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BOB ABERNETHY, anchor: The religious vote was decisive in President Bush’s reelection this week. Massive get-out-the-vote efforts among evangelical Protestants and conservative Catholics provided the margin of victory for the president. Despite the Democrats’ attempts to reach out to people of faith, experts say an ongoing “religion gap” in American politics was even more pronounced. An analysis of that, coming up. Among all voters, “moral values” edged out terrorism, the economy, and Iraq as the top issue of concern. This was particularly true for evangelicals. Many of them were galvanized by the issue of gay marriage. Voters in 11 states amended their constitutions to ban same-sex marriage. Several of those measures will now face legal challenges.

The president’s strong backing from religious conservatives echoed findings last spring in a RELIGION & ETHICS NEWSWEEKLY national survey of American evangelicals. Three quarters of white evangelicals said the country’s moral values are on the wrong track. More than a third ranked moral values as their number one concern.

With us now to analyze the religious vote in the presidential election is John Green, director of the Ray Bliss Center for Applied Politics at the University of Akron in Ohio. He is one of the country’s leading experts on religion and politics. He joins us now by satellite, and Kim Lawton of RELIGION & ETHICS NEWSWEEKLY is also here. John, how would you describe the importance of religious conservatives to the president’s reelection?

Professor JOHN GREEN (Ray C. Bliss Center for Applied Politics, University of Akron): Well, religious conservatives were absolutely critical to President Bush’s reelection last Tuesday. But it was a broader coalition of religious groups. Central to that group were evangelical Protestants, but it also included Catholics, black Protestants, and other groups as well.

ABERNETHY: We have detailed breakdowns of the exit polls conducted on Election Day by Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International. Kim.

KIM LAWTON: John, help us walk through some of those specific groups that you just talked about. And we have the numbers. Let’s take a look first at the white evangelical vote. We have 78 percent of white evangelicals voted for Bush, and 22 percent did vote for Kerry. But when you switch that and look at church attendance, there was another jump. Those who attend church more than once a week — it jumped to 81 percent for George Bush. I know the Republicans made a really big push for evangelicals; there was a lot of grassroots mobilization. They called it the “ground game.” Looks like it was pretty successful, doesn’t it?

Prof. GREEN: Oh yes, it was. Of course, white evangelicals have been part of the Republican coalition for about 20 years now. But in this very close election, Karl Rove and President Bush wanted to get a very big turnout and a lot of support. And they, by and large, got what they wanted.

LAWTON: Now, word had it that Karl Rove was very unhappy during the last election with evangelical turnout. Did that improve this time around?

Prof. GREEN: You know, we don’t have the final figures on turnout yet. But it really does look like he was successful in urging the evangelicals to turn out in larger numbers, particularly in the swing states like Florida and Ohio.

LAWTON: What about other Protestants — mainline Protestants — how did they go?

Prof. GREEN: Well, mainline Protestants have long been a mainstay of the Republican Party. Typically, Republican presidents win about half of the vote. And that happened this time. President Bush got a majority of mainline Protestants. But his support was down a little bit from the 2000 election, particularly among the regular[ly] attending mainline Protestants.

LAWTON: This was a group that the Kerry campaign had really targeted. Were they successful?

Prof. GREEN: Well, apparently they were. This was one real bright spot for the Kerry campaign among the religious groups. A lot of those regular[ly] attending mainline Protestants have somewhat more liberal theology and care about issues like the environment and poverty, and Senator Kerry was able to reduce the president’s margins among that group and do quite well.

LAWTON: Let’s talk about another group. There were some surprises in black Protestants, a little bit. When you look at the numbers, 83 percent did vote for Kerry. But those who identify themselves as black Protestants, 16 percent voted for Bush. And when you add church attendance into the mix, it really jumps: 22 percent of black Protestants who go to church more than once a week voted for Bush. Now people might say, “Well, 80 percent still voted for Kerry.” Is this a big deal?

Prof. GREEN: Well, in a very close election, this is a big deal because the president was able to eat into a core Democratic constituency. You know, there were some surveys before the election that suggested that this might happen. And indeed it came to pass. And I suspect it’s because of issues like gay marriage that were strongly emphasized by many black pastors. Sixteen percent of the vote is about twice what President Bush received in 2000. So this was a gain for him.

LAWTON: Let’s look at the Catholic vote. That seemed to be pretty divided. We had 52 percent for Bush, 48 percent for Kerry. Again, among regular Mass attenders, then, the numbers jump even higher for Bush — 58 percent. What did you make of that?

Prof. GREEN: Well, the president not only targeted evangelicals, he targeted Catholics –particularly traditional Catholics — and had some success. Back in 2000, the vote was evenly divided, but Al Gore actually won the Catholic vote as a whole. And President Bush was actually able to reverse that and actually come out ahead among all Catholics. But he did particularly well among regular Mass-attending Catholics.

LAWTON: And one final group — the seculars — those who aren’t affiliated. Kerry got overwhelmingly the majority of that vote: 70 percent. What does that say?

Prof. GREEN: Well, the Democratic Party has relied on secular or nonaffiliated voters for a few elections now. And Senator Kerry did about as well as Al Gore did among that group. But you know, the turnout was much higher. So Senator Kerry was able to benefit by a lot of secular voters turning out and voting on Tuesday.

ABERNETHY: Also with us is Joseph Loconte, a Fellow in Religion and a Free Society at the Heritage Foundation in Washington. Welcome to you, Joe.

JOSEPH LOCONTE (Fellow, Religion and a Free Society, Heritage Foundation): Thanks for having me.

ABERNETHY: What can we expect in these next four years, based on these election returns?

Mr. LOCONTE: Yeah, well, I think we are going to see, surprisingly — I think we are going to see President Bush govern more like a principled pragmatist than many of his critics are right now assuming. They are assuming that he owes his great debt to his religious, conservative base on certain issues and that he is going to push the cultural agenda forward. But I don’t think that’s really Bush’s governing style, ’cause he has shown real restraint on some of these cultural issues, these hot button cultural issues — stem cell research, for example. He was only kind of pulled into the gay marriage debate, somewhat unwillingly. So I think there is going to be much more of a kind of a principled pragmatism to deal with these issues in the next months and years.

LAWTON: Do you think that the evangelicals, though, are going to want to see that agenda move forward? I’ve heard stories that some of them are already putting the Bush administration on notice: “Hey look, we kept you here. We expect to see some results.”

Mr. LOCONTE: Yeah, well, they are certainly going to want to see the president hold the line on embryonic stem cell research — no federal funding for that. Bush has said plainly in the debates, he’s against federal funding for abortion — he’ll hold the line on that. Let’s take Supreme Court judges, where the cultural issues tend to bubble up so much. Bush’s line here has been that he wants judges who will — who know the difference between their own opinions and settled constitutional law. So I don’t think that Bush is going to bring before the court, for example, a judge who would overturn ROE V. WADE. And Bush himself has said he doesn’t think the country is ready for that. So, certainly, Bush is going to hold the line on some of these issues, but I think be very, very cautious about trying to push the cultural agenda much further than where a general consensus of the country is.

ABERNETHY: I want to ask you and John both about the gap between the seculars on the one hand and very, very devoted, conservative Christians on the other. What do the Democrats have to do if they are ever going to win an election again?

Mr. LOCONTE: I think there is a bit of mythology out there right now which is saying that the Democrats need to develop a language to talk about morality and faith. But I think it’s much deeper than a language or a style. I think that some of the core values of the Democratic Party — I think they have to think about, why do they not seem to resonate? Why do the core values of the Democratic Party, in terms of the life issues — this culture-of-life debate and the sanctity of marriage — why does that not seem to resonate now with so much of red America? I think there is going to be a real soul searching, hopefully, soul searching in the Democratic Party on some of those core value questions.

ABERNETHY: John?

Prof. GREEN: I would tend to agree with Joe on that. I think that the Democrats do need to adjust some of their policies if they want to reduce the worship attendance gap and find a way to get the support of very devout Christians from various backgrounds. But you know, I would disagree a little bit; I think the language of faith is quite important because there are some issues, such as the environment and taking care of the poor, where lots of conservative Christians actually agree with the Democratic Party. But that language needs to pull them in on the basis of their faith values and not just secular arguments. So, in my view, the Democrats need to do both things.

ABERNETHY: Very quickly, John, moral values means different things to different people. Is there any consensus about that?

Prof. GREEN: No, there really isn’t. To conservative Christians the [phrase] “moral values” tends to refer to sexual behavior and issues such as marriage and abortion. To more liberal Christians, secular people, Jews, Muslims, that tends to oftentimes mean social justice questions — poverty, the environment, war and peace. We all think that morality is important, but we can’t agree on what is moral.

ABERNETHY: Many thanks to Kim Lawton, to Joseph Loconte of the Heritage Foundation, and to John Green of the University of Akron.

The post Election 2004 Analysis appeared first on Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly.

Mark J. Rozell, Professor of Public Policy, George Mason University:

In 2000, turnout among the core constituency of the religious Right was a disappointment to the Republicans. Bush and his campaign people were very aware that they needed to mobilize those white evangelical conservatives who sat out the 2000 election. The effort this time was hugely successful and probably gave Bush his margin of victory. Bush spent four years cultivating the religious Right constituency. With Bush in the White House another four years and Congress more strongly controlled by the GOP, religious conservatives have much to celebrate. This might be the best opportunity ever for the movement’s agenda to succeed.

For Democrats, the new slogan should be “it’s the culture, stupid.” The party has to find a way to bring back white evangelicals and churchgoing Catholics who have abandoned the party.

George Hunsinger, McCord Professor of Theology, Princeton Theological Seminary:

Our presidential election was, for much of the world, a referendum on the politics of deceit.

The administration did not tell the truth in leading our nation into war. It is deeply implicated in allegations of torture. It has bombed, and continues to bomb, densely populated areas like Fallujah, Tal Afar, and Sadr City, causing massive civilian casualties. Not least, it has perpetrated such enormities under the cover of pious falsehoods.

Only a twisted view of morality can have been at stake if “moral issues” mattered most to voters and were key to President Bush’s win. The catastrophes that lie before us are now incalculable. We have sown the wind and will reap the whirlwind.

Stephen V. Monsma, Research Fellow, The Henry Institute for the Study of Christianity and Politics, Calvin College:

The fact that more people cited “moral values” as the most important issue in this election is astounding.

More cited this issue than cited war in Iraq, or the economy, or terrorism. I believe the reason for this — and this is based on my intuition, not hard data — is the same-sex marriage issue. The gay rights activists may have overreached themselves in pushing in the courts for same-sex marriage. Their doing so may very well have raised the visibility of cultural/social issues in many people’s minds, leading them to go to the polls when they otherwise might not have done so and raising their level of concern over where our nation is going in terms of such issues.

The fact that almost 80 percent of those who cited “moral values” as their most important issue voted for George W. Bush suggests the extent to which Bush was helped by the high visibility of this issue. This 80 percent also no doubt overlaps with Protestants who reported attending church weekly, 70 percent of whom voted for Bush, and Catholics who reported attending church weekly, 55 percent of whom voted for Bush. Since about 40 percent of all Americans attend church weekly, the Democrats will have a hard time electing a president until they are more sensitive to the concerns of the churchgoing populace. There are ways they can do this and still largely maintain their liberal issue positions, but they must become much more sophisticated in doing so.

Mark D. Regnerus, Assistant Professor of Sociology, University of Texas at Austin:

The Democratic Party in the U.S. needs some housecleaning. They continue to alienate a large portion of the American electorate — evangelical Protestants and traditional Catholics — primarily by failing to moderate some of their socially liberal positions. We presently do not live in a nation where “it’s the economy, stupid.” As the exit polls showed yesterday, “it’s moral values, stupid.” Many American Christians are actually quite flexible about economic issues such as taxes and big- versus little-government arguments, much more so than either party realizes. They are also more flexible on stem cell research. It’s obvious they are not flexible on gay marriage (nor are most Americans, religious or otherwise). However, such religious conservatives don’t appreciate the treatment they get from the Democratic Party and their high-profile spokespersons. Bush speaks their language, as the exit poll numbers from white conservative Protestants revealed. In the end, America’s religious conservatives are spooked by the left wing of the Democratic Party.

If Democrats want a shot in 2006 or 2008, the platform on social issues (e.g., abortion rights, gay marriage) has got to be moderated, shocking as that may sound to party members’ ears. I believe the evidence suggests that pro-life Democrats would appeal to many religious conservatives, especially Catholics, but the Democratic Party continues to chew them up and spit them out.

Laura R. Olson, Associate Professor of Political Science, Clemson University:

The long shadow of Ronald Reagan looms large over Tuesday’s election results. The political mobilization of evangelical Protestants that Reagan began has been the most important change in the past quarter century of American electoral politics. Reagan’s appeal to evangelicals was primarily rhetorical; in the end, his administration did not deliver many concrete policy outcomes to the evangelical constituency. Yet the Reagan phenomenon led to a lasting political realignment, first in the Southeast (when he took millions of votes away from the devout Baptist Jimmy Carter) and later across the United States in rural communities. This political realignment has led many people of faith to view the Republican Party as the only party that takes its needs and concerns seriously. Karl Rove is well aware of this fact and made mobilizing evangelicals at the precinct level the centerpiece of George W. Bush’s reelection strategy. Because President Bush is himself an evangelical Protestant, he is all the more able to stimulate loyalty and affection among evangelical Republicans. They clearly believe that Bush is one of them. In a stunning turn of events, the economy and the war in Iraq were less important to millions of voters than the nebulous notion of “moral values.”

The Democratic Party needs to address the fact that it is no longer widely perceived as having a prophetic moral vision. Among many evangelicals, Democrats are seen as scornful, secular, urban literati who do not understand or appreciate their traditional lifestyles. For most of the twentieth century, however, this was not the case. Democrats were the party of social justice, fighting against racism and poverty in a way that squared well with the beliefs and orientations of many people of faith across the United States. The Reagan era swept this more liberal religious-political witness off of the political stage, and the “religious Left” in this country is flailing today. Left-leaning groups, including Sojourners, tried very hard during Election 2004 to encourage voters of faith to believe that “God is not a Republican.” Yet Democratic candidates, including John Kerry, are not doing a good job explaining their political views in terms of moral vision. In his speech at the Democratic National Convention, John Edwards did speak briefly of the “immorality” of poverty, but this theme did not carry forward throughout the fall campaign. John Kerry’s own public discussion of the relationship between faith and politics was consistently stilted and unclear. If they wish to succeed in future presidential elections, Democrats need to ask themselves how they can reach out to voters of faith with their own version of morality politics.

Robin W. Lovin, Cary Maguire University Professor of Ethics, Southern Methodist University:

Apparently, it’s not the economy, anymore. If the exit polls are right, people are making their political choices in light of moral considerations. Perhaps they have always done so, even if the pollsters never thought to ask them about it until some specific moral questions became important in the 2004 campaign. Liberals who have characteristically built consensus for economic justice, public education, corporate responsibility, and even world peace by appeals to self-interest may have to think again about the moral foundations of justice and peace, if they want to regain a place in this part of the public discussion.

Of course, making a moral case for justice and peace might increase the polarization in society by mobilizing a new corps of intolerant social liberals to match the intolerant social conservatives who may have tipped the balance last Tuesday. It’s not clear that a political system that tilts 51 percent to 48 percent toward the goals of intolerant liberals would be superior to the one we have, although I would probably be marginally more pleased with the results.

What might improve the situation would be new attention to the health of the discussion itself. We want to elect presidents who will represent our values and support legislation that will enforce our moral choices because we have no confidence in our ability to explain those choices to our neighbors or persuade them to see their moral universe as a place where we could live together. If there were forums for broad, public moral discussion in our religious institutions, universities, and local communities, we might not need to rely on a quadrennial barrage of attack ads and talk radio to try to get the point across. And if the issues that divide us culturally actually could be debated in the wider culture, then all of us, liberals and conservatives alike, might begin to hold politicians accountable for the problems that politics really can solve, instead of electing them as symbols of the values that we could represent better with our own lives and voices, closer to home.

Corwin Smidt, Director, The Henry Institute for the Study of Christianity and Politics, Calvin College:

Consistent with Karl Rove’s strategy to energize and mobilize President Bush’s base as a means to secure Bush’s reelection, evangelical Christians did play an important role in shaping the outcome of the 2004 presidential election. However, in these initial days following the election, less has been made of another important factor in shaping that outcome — namely, the Catholic vote. Over the course of the past several decades, the historic Democratic character of the Catholic vote has been dissipating. In the 2000 presidential election, exit polls revealed that 46 percent of Catholics had cast their [votes for] Bush. Not all of Rove’s strategy, however, was to energize the base vote; the Bush-Cheney ticket also sought to “peel off” more Catholics from the Democratic coalition. Major efforts were made to court the Catholic vote, particularly among those Catholics who were the religiously faithful. This strategy also appears to have paid off, as the exit polls in 2004 revealed that 52 percent of all Catholics reported having cast their ballots for Bush — an increase of 6 percent between 2000 and 2004 for Bush. And this is all the more remarkable given that Senator Kerry is a Roman Catholic. Clearly the level of Catholic support for Kerry stands in stark contrast to Catholic support given to Kennedy less than 50 years ago.

Richard B. Miller, Professor of Religious Studies and Director of the Poynter Center for the Study of Ethics and American Institutions, Indiana University:

That many of the voting public judged the Republican Party to be a steward of moral values is one of the great ironies and depressing facts of the 2004 presidential election. One can only guess what voters thought those values to be. Likely topics include the proposed constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage; the ban on partial-birth abortion, and the ban on publicly funding stem cell research. Notice what is missing from this list: the injustice of the war in Iraq; disregard for the environment; rising poverty; corporate corruption at home and crony capitalism abroad; loss of health care coverage for millions; intolerance of dissident speech; an enormous deficit; ongoing nefarious arms trading; tax cuts for the wealthy; and weakening of the social contract and the safety net that it ought to provide. The Republicans succeeded in heaping moral confusion on the American people by turning attention away from macro issues involving social and infrastructural problems toward micro issues of family, sex, and the body. They did so by way of a three-fold strategy.

First, they simplified moral issues. Absent was the idea that social, ethical, and political issues are complicated, that moral inquiry proceeds dialectically, that arguments on various sides need to be considered in a measured and careful manner. Moral issues, now absorbed into the fractious culture wars, have been reduced to matters of a sound bite, allowing for little time or nuance. Indeed, “nuance,” like “liberalism,” has achieved the status of a pejorative term. On this landscape of moral simplicity, positions are polarized and opponents of the Republicans’ conservative positions are demonized, aided in no small part by pugilistic media personalities on television and radio. Gone is the sense of reciprocity, mutual respect, and fair play that should constitute the exchange of ideas in situations of moral disagreement.

Second, they somatized what counts as “moral.” Each of the items I mention on the Republican agenda has to do with the body. To be sure, bodily morality is no small matter. (I want to note in passing how this election reveals the intransigence of American homophobia.) But confining moral issues to matters of sex and medicine crowds out much of what affects the quality of American life. The Republican Party reduced the macro items on my list to economic and political matters, thereby emptying them of real ethical content and turning them into problems that are resolvable solely according to strategic calculations of self-interest and efficiency.

Finally, they psychologized moral issues, turning them into matters of sincerity. In this, they echoed the worst features of identity politics. The Bush administration ignored appeals to empirical reality as a basis for sorting out good arguments from bad, scientific fact from ideological commitment, reality from fantasy, truth from falsehood. Commitment to moral realism and public accountability for policy decisions was replaced by esteem for unwavering conviction, however ill-advised. Frequently we were reminded that the people know where the president stands, what values he holds dear. The effect was to say that what counts as a moral value is entirely subjective, and that a citizen should cast his or her vote for the candidate who appears more deeply earnest in front of a camera.

One of the Republicans’ signature themes going into and coming out of the election was “faith and the family.” But by neglecting social, environmental, and other factors within which families grow and develop, the Republicans distracted the electorate from issues that bear directly on our wider health and well-being. The effect was to sentimentalize the family, underwriting the false picture of families as lifestyle enclaves and havens in a heartless world. But we all know better. Families are not only important institutions for intimacy and psychological development; they are also domestic economies, as any parent who balances the monthly budget surely knows. Each family’s welfare depends on its wider moral, environmental, legal, political, and economic context. Cordoning off the family from these matters of context and political policy does us a great disservice.

It is tempting to wax sanctimonious about each of these strategies and their effects, but I rather think that many of my colleagues in the academy have aided and abetted this decline of critical reasoning and moral inquiry. Captivated by fashionable platitudes about power from the postmodern Left or quaint bromides about tradition by the confessional Right, much work in religion and ethics is characterized by the neglect of empirical detail, a lack of courage for normative debate, or a failure to appreciate basic distinctions that help clarify moral reasoning. A disproportionate amount of what passes as scholarship today suffers from precisely the defects that the Republicans have exploited to their advantage and to the nation’s detriment. All of us who teach religion and ethics in higher education have our work cut out for us over the next four years, and beyond. It is often said that the devil is in the details. Right now, the details seem to be where even angels fear to tread.

Ellen T. Charry, Margaret W. Harmon Associate Professor of Systematic Theology, Princeton Theological Seminary:

It is not only the Democrats who have lost the confidence of the American heartland. So has nonevangelical Christianity. Perhaps the dumbing down of America has enabled shallow thinking about complex social, cultural, and international issues to win the day. Bravado after being attacked on our own soil seems linked in the popular religious mind with a swaggering smugness about sex-related matters. A slick veneer of sexual morality to hide a basically punitive attitude toward those not like us gives the short-thinking Christian voter a self-congratulatory sense of moral superiority. Shame on those Christians whose faith has forgiveness and reconciliation at the core of its identity yet who have betrayed their Lord for such tawdry braggadocio. At the moment, evangelical leaders carry heavy responsibility for the leadership of their community.

As shallow as the avowedly “Christian” electorate appears to be, the Democratic Party and the peace and justice churches should heed the admonition that their interlocked message no longer resonates with a large segment of the American people. This is not to suggest that “liberals” abandon their traditional commitments for the sake of political survival, but that they listen attentively to the rebuff they have received in this election. The temptation of self-righteousness is like the devil who prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour in 1 Peter. It is pathetically tempting to divide the cosmopolitan from the redneck and close one’s ears. Complacency on either side may be comforting, but it is ill-conceived.

Theology cannot be apolitical. Yet how theological commitments translate into political activity in any age is a perennial task. Christians have long debated the proper relationship of the church to the state. Most often Christians have sought to be loyal citizens building up the body politic by supporting marriage, military service, taxes, and the law of the land. Some Christians have vowed withdrawal from the state on the ground that they serve a greater master. It is always important that the administration of any state or the issues of the day never be confused or conflated with the Lord that Christians serve. Sadly, at this point, Christians do not have a monopoly on clarity of mind.

Nancy J. Duff, Stephen Colwell Associate Professor of Christian Ethics, Princeton Theological Seminary:

As a result of President Clinton’s lies about his extramarital affair with a White House intern, he was impeached. His immoral behavior (both the affair and the subsequent lies) dominates many people’s assessment of his presidency. Under President Clinton our nation saw a significant increase in jobs, a strong stock market, a balanced budget, and strong international support for our country, but what is most often remembered about his presidency is his sexual misconduct. When, on the other hand, President Bush lied about the reasons he took the United States to war with Iraq, his immoral behavior (both the war and the lies he told about the war) resulted in no serious setbacks to his presidential authority, and now he has been reelected president for a second term. Why did one kind of immoral behavior (an extramarital affair) bring one president down, while another kind of immoral behavior (going to war on false pretenses) had little effect on the credibility of another?

From an ethical point of view, our country has entered an odd arena where issues regarding the economy, terrorism, war, health care, civil liberties, the creation or loss of jobs, and taking care of the environment are not placed under the category of “moral values.” The term “moral values” has come to refer exclusively to more personal issues such as abortion, homosexuality, and the integrity of marriage (although why these issues are more personal than loss of jobs or access to health care is unclear). How is it that war, poverty, loss of jobs, curtailment of civil liberties, access to health care, and taking care of our natural resources are not also considered serious moral issues?

Like many people who voted against President Bush, I fear for the future of our country. We have a president who believes that a two-percentage-point margin of victory constitutes a “mandate” from the people, and who believes that he has a mandate from God to lead this country, a belief which makes him unable to admit to any mistakes or even have second thoughts about his actions. He lied to the country about Iraq and led us into war with a country that had nothing to do with the terrorist acts of September 11. He tells us that it will take “hard work” to win the war in Iraq, while refusing to allow photographs of the coffins of soldiers whose hard work resulted in the loss of their lives. He has violated people’s civil liberties; his “leave no child behind” program has been a dismal failure; his policies have led to the loss of jobs, increased financial success for the wealthy, and even more limited access to health care for those who were already on the margin. Ironically, none of these actions fall under the category of “moral values” in the minds of many who reelected him.

Since religious beliefs played such a large role in this election, one must examine the influence of conservative evangelical churches in restricting the term “moral values” to such concerns as abortion, homosexuality, prayer in school, and posting the Ten Commandments in public institutions, while denying the designation of “moral values” to such concerns as the economy, health care, the environment, terrorism, and civil liberties. During times of war (such as Vietnam, the Gulf War, and now the war in Iraq) conservatives have been allowed to define what it means to be patriotic. Those of us who are active members of Christian churches, but who define morality in a much broader way than conservative evangelicals do, should ask ourselves if we are now willing to allow conservative evangelicals to define what constitutes moral values.

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