Thursday, October 09, 2008

American Catholic Doings

I have a new article up at The American Catholic, dealing with the place of religion in politics. Simply put, I am grotesquely verbose about a simple fact: everybody has religious beliefs, and those influence their policies. You cannot remove religion from politics, and simple honesty demands that we acknowledge our religion so that people can better evaluate our claims.

I didn't want the whole article to devolve into a finger-point mess, so I'll state it here. Part of the problem with our presidential candidates at the moment is that it is very, very hard to fully understand what they believe. Obama especially has spent so much time hiding his past and has such a small record that it is impossible to know where he's coming from (other than 20+ years under Reverend Wright). In addition, once politicians seize the nomination and start "moving towards the middle" to attract the undecided voters, it becomes even more difficult to tell what they really believe.

I think an honest discourse in which each candidate reveals his religious viewpoints, especially regarding the origins and ends of mankind, would help immensely figuring out whether or not we can believe them when they flip-flop on issues or change course.

No comments: