Why religious piety tells us nothing good (or bad) about politicians

[CoffeeTiger 5,929]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/25/religious-politicians-piety-honesty-waldman/

 

The Constitution may forbid any religious tests for public office, but where politics is actually practiced, candidates are constantly testifying about their faith, hoping we’ll see them as principled and moral — no matter our own beliefs.

 

Yet, despite what many voters believe, there’s very little reason to think that there’s something worthwhile about piety in politicians.

 

A recent kerfuffle over comments by Jenna Ellis, an erstwhile Trump lawyer and current senior adviser to Pennsylvania Republican gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano, who himself adheres to an odious Christian nationalist worldview, made this question newly relevant.

Ellis responded to a recent Post article on Democratic nominee Josh Shapiro’s Jewish faith by tweeting that “Josh Shapiro is at best a secular Jew in the same way Joe Biden is a secular Catholic.” It was utterly vulgar for a gentile like Ellis to pass judgment on whether any Jew is sufficiently Jewish. It’s also a particularly weird way to attack Shapiro, who is devoutly observant. Unfortunately, this wasn’t too surprising given the recent eruption of antisemitic remarks from high-profile conservatives including Donald Trump, who has a long history of tossing around rancid antisemitic tropes while expressing surprise that more Jews don’t abandon their values to support him.

Just as notable, however, is the implication that being more “secular” in Ellis’s eyes would make Shapiro more objectionable as governor.

 

Is there any evidence at all that pious and observant politicians make better governors or senators? Are they wiser, more compassionate, more competent, possessed of more integrity than those who don’t regularly attend services or look to scripture for policy guidance?

If there is, I haven’t been able to find it. In our long history of rogues and villains in public office, the highly religious are more than adequately represented. As in the rest of society, there’s no pattern in which the corrupt are more likely to be secular and the moral more likely to be religious, either personally or in their official capacity.

 

And plenty of less religious officeholders carry the qualities that the faithful supposedly bring. Take Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who unlike Shapiro happens to be an actual secular Jew. Despite never claiming his religion should dictate the policies everyone should adopt, Sanders embodies what advocates of pious politicians say they want. You may not agree with Sanders, but he has clear and consistent moral principles that guide his positions and decisions. They’re unwavering, and among other things, his supporters believe they immunize him from corruption: Campaign contributions won’t change his positions.

As so often happens, when people claim they’re looking for principles, what they’re after is nothing more than politicians who support their team. Nothing demonstrated this more vividly than evangelicals’ rapturous embrace of Trump, whose professions of faith are so comically phony that not even his supporters can believe them. (Asked once what God means to him, he talked about how he made a great deal to buy a golf course.)

When Sen. Ted Cruz (Tex.) ran against Trump for the GOP’s 2016 presidential nomination, he said that “any president who doesn’t begin every day on his knees isn’t fit to be commander in chief.” But the GOP’s religious base turned away from Cruz and all the other more religious candidates to give their support to Trump, seemingly the living representation of every character flaw Christians are supposed to abhor.

 

Why? Because what really mattered to them was that Trump hates the people they hate. They don’t care that he says the Bible is his “favorite book” but can’t name a single Bible verse. He hates and infuriates liberals, and he’ll fight the culture war. That’s what matters.

And to a great degree, they’re right not to care, and the rest of us shouldn’t either.

Among the benefits of not worrying about how often a candidate sits in the pews, we might finally get some representation for the tens of millions of Americans who aren’t religious. An important recent development in American religion is the rise of the “nones,” the rapid increase in those who tell pollsters they don’t believe in God or don’t identify with any religion.

 

They now make up about a quarter of Americans, and the numbers are even higher among young people. (And guess what, there are even conservative atheists out there.) Yet there are almost no “nones” serving in Congress; Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) may be the only one.

A candidate’s faith may sometimes be a shortcut to know which positions they’ll take, but it won’t tell us whether they will be honest and trustworthy. There are plenty of things that go into being a good public servant, but being religious isn’t one of them.

 

Edited October 25, 2022 by CoffeeTiger

[aubiefifty 18,401]

praise orange jesus! praise him! what a freaking mockery.