Given the prominence of religious Christian Democrats who rode the blue wave to victory this midterm election, one might be forgiven for questioning whether lawmakers who often ground their politics in their deeply held Christian faith will continue to weaken the crumbing wall of separation between church and state.
But the truth of the matter is much more complicated.
Newly elected senators like James Talarico and Adam Hamilton have a major opportunity — and challenge — when it comes to defending church-state separation. Their task is fraught; they are not only mounting a defense against red state conservatives, not only against the John Roberts Supreme Court, which has worked to dismantle the wall brick by brick, but against Obama-era orthodoxies as well.
That Democrats fielded religious candidates isn’t all that new. After all, Black Democrats have historically used their Christian faith to guide their politics. But what’s new here is the emergence in red states of a small cluster of white Democrats who are deeply committed to mainline Protestant traditions and who link their theological convictions to liberal policies — often to remarkable effect. Their views on church and state issues, while still evolving, may mark a break with Democrats’ recent approach to this issue.
Talarico, a Presbyterian seminarian, trounced Republican Ken Paxton as Texas turned blue. In Kansas, Methodist megachurch pastor Hamilton defeated GOP incumbent Sen. Roger Marshall. Two ministers in Iowa, one Lutheran (Sarah Trone Garriott) and one Presbyterian (Lindsay James), are now House members-elect. (The Hawkeye State’s incoming governor, Rob Sand, is a Bible-quoting Lutheran layperson.)
Not every white cleric prevailed; Methodist minister Anna Golladay lost a Tennessee congressional race. But the jaw-slacking triumphs of the aforementioned seminarians and pastors clearly suggest that we must rethink received wisdom about the relationship between liberalism, race and faith.
That wisdom dictates that white Democrats are irreligious at best and anti-religious at worst. This accusation is, and has always been, false; the overwhelming majority of elected Democrats identify with a religious tradition. These Democrats aren’t anti- religion, they’re anti-fundamentalist religion, something that countless media narratives about the party’s “God gap” have consistently overlooked.
These Democrats aren’t anti- religion, they’re anti-fundamentalist religion, something that countless media narratives about the party’s “God gap” have consistently overlooked.
But it is true that some white Democrats have struggled to connect with religious voting blocs, especially more conservative ones — see the failed presidential runs of Walter Mondale in 1984, Michael Dukakis in 1988 and John Kerry in 2004.
In fact, it was Kerry’s 2004 defeat at the hands of George W. Bush and his “values voters” coalition that compelled the Democratic party to “get” religion in 2008. Presidential candidates John Edwards and Hillary Clinton appeared to rediscover God when they suddenly rehearsed their religious bona fides while stumping. Both were vanquished by Barack Obama, whose roots in the Black church endowed him with a faith and values game that was far more organic, sophisticated and polished.
If the Democrats want to loosen the GOP’s viselike grip on deep red states, these recent victories provide proof of concept. The strategy consists of recruiting and running white Christian Democrats living south of the Mason-Dixon line and in the heartland (not to be confused with the “Christian Democrat” parties in other countries around the world, many of them right-leaning).
These candidates in the U.S. must be adept at deploying biblical proof texts to validate liberal positions. Talarico’s use of the Good Book to defend reproductive freedoms or combat homophobia is a good example here.
Give ear, O 2028 Democratic National Committee: Enlist an Evangelical Lutheran pastor to compete in Evansville, Indiana. Primary a Presbyterian theologian in Plano, Texas. Bring out an old-school Baptist preacher in Baton Rouge. And so on.
Early polling analysis suggests that this type of candidate not only galvanizes religious Democrats but may slice off small percentages of conservative Christians who may have otherwise voted Republican. (The NORC Civic Health and Elections survey indicates that this came to pass among born-again Christians.)
Much will be said about the new Christian Democrats in the coming weeks, but two points strike me as crucial. The first is that where an older generation of white Christian Democrats wanted to distinguish themselves in their party, the present batch wants to distinguish itself from its conservative and fundamentalist co-religionists. As Bill McKibben noted in The New Yorker, the campaigns of Hamilton and others “seem a response to the right-wing evangelical hijacking of the Gospel message.”
The Christian right’s brand is, to put it mildly, tarnished. The grift, the groveling, the empathy-free ministry, the jacked-up Jesus, the endless theocratic power grabs — the newly elected Christian Democrats won’t ignore that. They understand that membership in the Body of Christ doesn’t inoculate one from (polite) criticism.
The grift, the groveling, the empathy-free ministry, the jacked-up Jesus, the endless theocratic power grabs — the newly elected Christian Democrats won’t ignore that.
I do wonder if some of these new religious Democrats are bucking trends within their own party. As I noted in this analysis, the Obama administration may not have wanted to destroy the wall of separation, but it certainly made it a lot lower and less impregnable. Obama supersized George W. Bush’s Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. He emoted about Christ at various prayer breakfasts, and generally cast aspersions upon secularism.
Talarico, by contrast, has repeatedly and explicitly affirmed his commitment to church-state separation. His positions are more reminiscent of the “absolute” separationism of John F. Kennedy than the muddled “low wall” posture of Obama and Joe Biden. The Hamilton team, for its part, seems to also support separation. Hamilton’s official website declares: “Adam’s roles as pastor and senator will be distinct. The church will not be responsible for his Senate votes or positions; political questions and opinions must be directed to his Senate office.”
Many of these candidates are quoting Micah 6:8, which reads, “What does the Lord require of you but to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God?”
What is now required is to not only love justice, but to humbly present a Scripture-based alternative to Christian nationalism. The alternative must speak to voters’ economic concerns while avoiding the sinful temptation to impose one’s religious beliefs upon those who do not share them.
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