Commander-in-Chief, Not Pastor-in-Chief
Has this year’s presidential campaign become too religious you ask? Absolutely. Anyone watching the coverage of this election is likely to assume the candidates are running for pastor-in-chief instead of commander-in-chief. Although the presidential election is still months away, the candidates are engaged in a knock-down drag-out fight, and religion is often used as a weapon in that fight.
We should ask candidates about religion, we just need to ask the right questions. What role will a candidate’s faith play in creating public policy? What are the boundaries between religion and government? The Interfaith Alliance has developed a number of resources for voters, candidates and houses of worship to guide them through the election year.
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The #1 most important question that Americans should ask themselves when considering the theological beliefs of their candidate should not be"does this person agree with my beliefs?" It should be "will this candidate respect the separation of church and state?"
I've found in the past that my political opinions and religious opinions occasionally oppose each other completely.
For example, abortion . I'm getting my doctorate in health care, and I know that often by the time a mother realizes she's pregnant (a fetus is practically a seamonkey in your uterus for the first month) the baby already has the beginnings of a brain. I believe wholeheartedly that killing it at that point constitutes as, well...killing. My religious views absolutely oppose the carrying out of such an act.
But it would be just as detestable to me for the federal government to impose a ban on legal abortion. Why? Because every case is different. Because sometimes things go wrong. Because maybe the federal government shouldn't be sticking its nose into something so personal as a woman aborting her child for whatever reason. Should there be limits? Yes. But those limits should be imposed by the state. That's the whole reason we HAVE states.
Many Americans confuse the founding fathers' act of separating church and state as a compromise. It wasn't.
The founding fathers knew from personal experience that political and religious freedom could not co-exist in the same government without one imposing on the other if they were not kept out of each others' reach. If you compare the freedoms that we've enjoyed to the freedoms enjoyed by the common man of other countries under governments with a convergence of church and state, you'll see that what the founding fathers set in motion was nothing short of genius. It may seem like I'm merely referring to theocracies, but I'm not. While we're all aware of some Middle Eastern countries falling in line with a theocracy (the result of which is limited religious and political freedom), we often forget about countries like China, Russia, and Korea, who have taken religion completely out of their systems. But the result is still a limit of religious and political freedom. The limits are different, but they're there just the same.
We could put a Muslim, a Mormon, a Catholic, a Jew, a Buddhist, Jehovah's Witness, or a Rastafarian in office today - and it would be all gravy - as long as s/he did not make decisions regarding matters of state based on their spiritual beliefs.