Document Type

Working Paper

Publication Date

10-6-2008

SSRN Discipline

PSN Subject Matter eJournals; *Humanities - Forthcoming Areas; Religious Studies Research Network; LSN Subject Matter eJournals; Constitutional Law, Jurisprudence & Legal Philosophy eJournals; Management Research Network; Legal Scholarship Network; Political Theory eJournals; Law School Research Papers - Legal Studies; Law School Research Papers - Public Law & Legal Theory; Political Institutions eJournals; Humanities Network; Political Science Network

Abstract

The relationship between religion and politics in the American social and constitutional structure is a subject of endless contestation Much of that discussion taking place as it has in an academic environment has had a decidedly abstract air In this paper I shift the focus from the abstract to the practical by looking at the central participants in the debate over religion and politics the political candidates themselves I offer a close reading of speeches by three of the most prominent political candidates to offer an examination of religions role in politics John F Kennedy Mitt Romney and Barack Obama A close reading of these three speeches reveals much common ground but also a good deal of change and I argue progress in the terms of debate although that progress is incompleteThe overall movement in the speeches is from a strategy of avoidance practiced most notably by John F Kennedy in which minority religious candidates are welcomed in the public square but religion is rendered a private matter for both candidates and voters alike to one of engagement and inclusion in which both religious candidates and religious arguments are increasingly accepted in the public square Each of the modern candidates examined here achieves only a partial marriage of inclusion and engagement Mitt Romney pursues a strategy of inclusion in which religious views are permitted in political debate but seeks to foreclose any genuine engagement with religion By contrast Barack Obama offers a thoughtful engagement between religion and politics But he prescribes a rule of dialogue in which religious individuals are required to speak in publicly accessible terms thus precluding the total inclusion of religious individuals in the political process in their own voices In contrast to all three I argue here for a model of genuine inclusion and engagement in which religion and openly religious arguments are welcome in the public square but also subject to critical inquiry and disagreement The model of inclusion and engagement may be messy but it is also the fairest and best approach to the relationship between religion and politics

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