The effects will be minimal. Americans aren't moving that far that fast. Anyway have you noticed that Barack is black. A lot of the people who want churches in control of American politics have and they don't like what they see. Jesus wasn't a dark skinned Jew. He was Northern European just like them.

Maybe people think that Bush incompetence is mostly due to arrogant discarding of reason and evidence in favor of divine revelation gut feelings?

Don't overlook the obvious - a lot of conservatives are miffed that the social conservatives have taken over the "conservative brand". They were supposed to be using the social conservatives for their own financial and political ends, not the other way around.

As a frequent commenter at Steve's Carpetbagger Report, greetings to Washington Monthly regulars. I'm sure that we will all get along and learn from one another.

I think Obama's reasoning is sound in this area. Just as Bush's aim in espousing "Compassionate Conservatism" was reassuring moderates he wasn't hostile to civil rights, religious moderates are looking for signs that their views are respected.

I think that, over time, religion is starting to feel more like the lobbying self-interest group that it is. It doesn't help the church any that Bush claimed God told him to run for president and then he completely screwed the nation into the ground. Surely that wasn't part of "His" plan.

Or was it?

I heard about this on public radio, and the Pew guy said that it was right-wing evangelicals who had most changed their minds. I guess they were disappointed with the results of their efforts!

Let's hope and pray...(just kidding) Nice digs Steve.

Hells yeah! Obama is running a more inspirational campaign than McCain - people go to church, in some part, for inspiration. It's tough to pray with someone singing, "bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran!"

Plus, McCain comes-off like the cranky old guy sitting in the front pew (a charter member of the church) who's pissed at how the hymn selections have changed over the past 40 years...

I heard about this on public radio, and the Pew guy said that it was right-wing evangelicals who had most changed their minds. I guess they were disappointed with the results of their efforts!

Sounds more like they're gearing up for an Obama presidency. One thing Obama's made clear is that he'll mix religion and politics as much as any Republican, albeit a much less conservative brand of religion than Republicans'. More generally, the Democratic party has become much more overt in its religious appeals over recent years without much change in the underlying substance of their policy beyond the obvious negative change of joining Republicans in demonizing secularism and atheism. Mixing religion and politics looks much better when you're religious and it's only your political side doing the mixing.

I'd have to add that the shift among the upper echelons of the Con ranks is more the slow realization that faith is not stuck to a single ideology. They see Church and State is BAD when the church goers begin favor certain left wing ideals like caring for society's lowest rung and the environment.

I'd like to take this opportunity to welcome everyone to the CBR - sorry, I meant political animal. It's a pity that I cannot access the comments section of PA through my BlackBerry. Can the URL format change to allow those of us who want to blog even whilst away from our computers.

"I think that, over time, religion is starting to feel more like the lobbying self-interest group that it is."

This is the problem and I agree 100%. I also believe that these numbers will teeter back to supporting Faith in politics in the short term. Long term (ie. 20 years) I believe and hope that it's the a trend that is here to stay.

I'm not sure of Joe Lieberman's relationship to AIPAC is an exception to this or an example of it...

Good Luck, Steve

Youth in the church. Duh.

If I wanted to be completely cynical (shocking, I know), I'd wonder if it was because they've discovered ye olde slippery slope. "Religion in America" no longer means Christians Only. They don't want to share with Buddhists and Jews and [shudder] Muslims.

And don't even mention Wiccans.

Or perhaps they don't want to give up claiming they're persecuted and that's hard to do if you're running the show.

I suspect Ashcroft may have had something to do with the shift.

I'm not saying anything new here, I'll just try to say it with a silly Paul Lynde-esque voice.

All we're seeing is an extension of typical right-wing sensibilities. The GOP believes in carte blanche, secret policies & immunity of prosecution when THEY'RE in charge. Otherwise, they're all about the rule of law & honoring the Constitution. If (God forbid) MCCain gets the gig, and he continues his pandering to the Gop base, we'll see a gradual shift back to evangelicals believing that religion & politics mix just fine. And if McCain doesn't get the gig, we'll see that gradual shift occur whenever the next Republican Pesident is elected. This isn't the devout coming to their senses; this is about the devout licking their wounds, gaming the system & biding their time.

Good luck, Steve. And do yourself a favor - if you keep the sofa in Kevin's old office, Do NOT flip the cushions over. EVER.

I don't think I would read too much into the findings of this poll. The present attitude that this poll highlights is likely just a cyclical ebb in the general enthusiasm of the evangelical crowd. Whether through hubris, an overanxious mindset or just plain anger,the evangelical wing of the party has likely overplayed their hand over the last twenty years. And this is the type of backlash you would expect.

The "stay out of politics" attitude that the poll purports to find is a normal response by the general public to the excesses of evangelical conservatives. Time will take care of this. And you can most certainly bet that somewhere down the road that the pendulum will once again begin to swing back in a direction favorable to the evangelical view. It would the height of foolishness to believe that, once and for all, the American people have had a constitutional epiphany and now favor a true church-state separation.

I don't think it means much. The divide between regular church goers and more secular elements of the population is still there. There is no masking of these fundamentally different world views that translate into the political realm in terms of how they break between republicans and democrats.

R Johnson @ 8:44 (can't cite the number anymore)

"One thing Obama's made clear is that he'll mix religion and politics as much as any Republican, albeit a much less conservative brand of religion than Republicans"

I would disagree. Looking over his plan for faith based initiatives, he has it almost exactly right. While keeping the name (which soothes religious voters) he pledges to restore the constitutional protections that Bush destroyed. The result of his program is that small, community charities such as churches get help from his 'council' on how to follow the law so that he can let them do charitable work. Shouldn't we be all for groups doing charitable work WHILE properly respecting church and state separation?

I think there's a difference between church involvement on the national level over policy issues, which includes liberal causes such as civil rights as well as conservative causes, and grassroots involvement on the local level.

The national efforts suggests imposing one's agenda - be it liberal or conservative - on others. It suggests abstract, impersonal agendas and ideology. The local efforts suggest direct, personal one-on-one interaction, and community healing.

In Martin Buber's terms, national efforts tend to have an "I - It" relationship; while local efforts tend to have an "I - Thou" relationship.

No representation without taxation.
NO REPRESENTATION WITHOUT TAXATION!

And no going back to the Dark Ages either.

I don't see how the poll results are inconsistent with Warren's remarks. Didn't he say that we DO believe in the separation of church and state?

Two things:

I don't think the results say that "..., a growing number of Americans disagree " with Warren's statement. At least not in the black & white wording. Even I, as a diehard liberal Democrat, don't believe that "faith" and "politics" should be separate.

I think the poll reveals that many conservative evangelicals have begun to realize that aggressive participation in politics by their churches and church leaders has degraded and demeaned their institutions. They want their churches back - as churches. They'd prefer to walk out the church doors and participate as citizens.

I think they've seen the wisdom of the establishment clause. It's not just intended to limit religious influence in secular politics - it also protects religious practice from corruption by politics.

Steve, I think you're accusing voters of being as dumb as pundits think they are.

People who want more religion in public are far more likely to vote for McCain, because he represents the party that is the fucking poster boy for public religion (despite McCain's occasional burp of protest, which usually gets swallowed again a minute later).

People who want less religion in public are far more likely to vote for Obama, because he represents the party that is *not* trying to increase the trappings of theocracy, despite the fact that Obama talks about religion with some frequency.

I *doubt* voters are going to vote *against* Obama to express their disdain for public religion. If you can *find* anyone for whom that's the *real* reason they're opposing Obama -- or, conversely, supporting McCain -- *then* by all means, you've got a story.

*

[For the new folks coming over from CB, let me explain mhr. We haven't banned him because the regulars like to mock him, so instead, when he posts, we replace the content of his comment with either one, two or three *s - we think of it as rating the wingnuttery. He has been pretty lame lately, tho. He hasn't managed more than one * in quite some time. -Mod]

Sounds like Obama's been heeding the advice of Amy Sullivan. As a member of this most persecuted religious minority in America--the community of agnostics and atheists--I think she and he are wrong on the merits. The deck in public life is, if anything, stacked in favor of the religious. But politically there's no question that it's a winner. Not just with churchgoers: many secular, non-observant types are respectful, credulous even, of claims of piety. A lot of them think (cravenly, in my view) that religious people represent their own better selves.

It would be nice to think that religion would go the way of Zeus and friends, especially in today's social and political discourse but I don't see that happening. Every time Barack Obama starts in on the faith crap I cringe, on the same note whenever McLame brings it up I know exactly what kind of a lying son of a bitch I'm dealing with. Some of us are trying to get stuff done here without sans fairy tales. Sorry faithful, it's just me, revel on!

Yipes, that's either without or sans, I'll pray for better proof-reading skills. Do revel on!

Er, does the poll actually address the issue Warren raised? He said "faith and politics," not "church and state." As a person of faith myself, my religious views inevitably shape my politics, even if they shape them in a very different direction than they do Warren's. And to say I should set my faith aside when I engage in civic life is an assault on my own liberty of conscience; like you, I bring my entire self to the public realm, not the truncated self you demand I bring. That's Warren's point; we bring our whole selves to politics, and demands that we do otherwise are the very opposite of liberal.

agree with David in Nashville, RL and douglasfactors.

there's a big distinction between "church and politics" (same thing as "church and state") and "faith and politics"...especially for evangelicals.

I think the Evangelical Churchs have finally noticed that if they tear down a wall seperating them from the Government the Government can just as easily reach over the rubble and start regulating churchs:
Don't want to employ homosexuals? Sorry, employment laws apply to you too.
Don't want to report your clergy's sex abuse? Sory, the rape laws apply to you too (and conspiracy and obsturction of justice).
Don't want to provide abortions or emergency contraception? Sorry, health care regulations apply to you too.

Fundies who want to rip down the 1st Amendment ought to study the regulations that the U.S. Military HAS to put on its chaplains and consider whether they would like to live under rules like that.

Orange

The integration of church and state is a noble enterprise that all good Christians welcome. We look forward to having the Rev. Pat Robertson the Secretary of State and to having Monica Goodling as the Attorney General.

Join me as we stand to say our pledge of allegiance: "I pledge allegiance to the flag of the Corporate States of Amerika, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under a Baptist God, indivisible, and without liberty and justice for all who are not good Christians."

I'm sure this will be an even more relevant point should McCain confirm the rumors that he has picked Romney.

I think areas most affected by Vice President picks are the fringes, so hopefully a Romney pick keeps the wackos who want to mix church and state at home in November.

Then the exit poll numbers would likely indicate Obama made a dent in the evangelicals.

I think there are a lot of factors in this, many of which have already been mentioned. Even mhr -- who I understand is our 'pet troll' here at PA -- is right in so far as it WAS a Democrat -- Jimmy Carter, not those he mentions -- who first brought his faith forward as a reason to vote for him. But I want to include a few more:

The 'hard-core' Religious Right was always much smaller than they appeared. They convinced a lot of people that "Christianity" was a good thing, and that it should be part of our government. (But even many of them were not as crazy as their 'spokesmen' and, while they might hate gays, abortions, and rock'n'roll, they did remember that Christ taught peace, not war, so they too became revolted at Bush.)

Atheists and free-thinkers became more willing to come out and express themselves, and, for any 'persecuted group' the more familiar they become, the less 'horrible' they appear. Even the obnoxious ones (Hello, PZ) were important in this.

The most important factor in this, and overall, was the Internet. People had a chance to get to know atheists, Muslims, Wiccans, and every type of variety of Christian. They began to see their interpretations of Christianity, their idea of a God -- nonexistent as such might be -- was not the only one. (And people don't realize both how new this was and how comparitively isolated people were before the Net existed.)

People discovered sites like Ed Brayton, Talk2Action and Debunking Christianity and actually went there -- either to battle or to listen -- and discovered that these people weren't the wild-eyed 'baby-eaters' their crazier ministers had said.

Then there were -- as taritac, among others, said (I mention him because of the way i blasted him in the last day of TCBR) -- the failures they experienced in getting their agenda passed, and, for many of them, the rethinking they had to do on homophobia, in particular, as gays became more and more prominent in public life. (As I've said before, people like Ellen -- as a talk show host -- and Judge Young have made gays a LOT less scarier.

Finally, they have seen how the current Republican candidate -- who is not a religious man despite his pretenses -- has treated them.

"The integration of church and state is a noble enterprise that all good Christians welcome."

Except, of course, for Jesus himself.

*^*^*

Matthew 21:22: "Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's."

Matthew 6:5-6: "And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.

"6": But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.

*^*^*

Jesus believed in the separation of church and state. Jesus believed faith is a private matter, and that public displays of faith are nothing but hypocritical ostentation.

Why can't these guys? Why do they hate Jesus so?

(And that's before we get into the Golden Rule implications of what happens when you treat other faiths with disrespect.)

Good 'Christians' are lousy Americans.

Freedom of religion means secular government so that Catholics and Evangelicals don't force their dogma on Methodists and anthroposophists.

"Conservatives are now more in line with moderates and liberals when it comes to their views on mixing religion and politics." - depends on what kind of conservatives you're talking about. Fiscal conservatives likely see the RR and their pushing of social conservatism as taking over their party. I'm thinking that it's the fiscal conservatives who are feeling constrained by the RR "base" and who are changing their minds...

The "next politically salient question" may be whether civil libertarians will support the constitutional rights of those religious groups who wish to make their viewpoints known in the public arena, or whether those groups will be trampled as everyone chases the pendulum in the opposite direction.

how can a person condone abortion and gayness and still think they can keep them seperate from religion? iwon't even say evangelical christian, but any god fearing person surely knows wrong from right. this is just a conveinance to have your cake and eat it too. get wrecked saturday night,forgiven sunday morn. sorry when pc is more important than life or morality because we passed laws to ease our shame.

I was encouraged to hear my hardcore evangelical, charismatic, fundamentalist 'Washing for Jesus'-attending (we were there at the very beginning) though beloved Dad, say that he was impressed by both candidates in the recent Saddleback discussions.

Although it is discouraging that anyone would be impressed by McCain, it is very encouraging to hear a man who's never voted for a Democrat in his life admit to being impressed by one.

Unfortunately, I doubt that he will be persuaded (and by extension, the vast majority of Christians) since abortion and sexuality in general are still the issues that motivate him/them the most.

My hope is that they will consider McCain's sexual past, along with the many revelations of Republican sexual "impropriety" and realize that the behavior is the same on both sides (if not more common among Republicans) and that tolerance of gays, of legalized abortion, etc., is a matter of sociogenic pragmatism and not part of a Satanic conspiracy to escalate the committal of murder and sin.

I don't get this poll. PEW also says these are the same people who still say gay marriage and abortion
are hot button political issues for them and as important as ever.

Because most Americans saw what I saw and as I said at the time: THIS IS AMERICA AND WE ARE HAVING A PUBLIC NATIONAL CAMPAIGN DISCUSSION/EVENT IN A CHRISTIAN MEGA-CHURCH MODERATED BY A PREACHER.

History has taught us that anytime you mix church and state it has never been good. The minister says personal character is important to the nominees because "God says so". It is setting a precedent of mixing religion with politics...where will it be held next time...in a Cathedral? A Temple? A Mosque?

Most people went why the hell are we having our political discussion with presidential candidates in front of the cross and the ten commandments instead of the flag and the constitution, symbolically or not? It gives credence to the statement that "when fascism comes to America it will be draped in the flag and carrying a cross"...and the event even began with a lie..."McCain is now in a cone of silence backstage"...and the miinister knew he was lying when he said it...knowing full well McCain was not even there yet. I'm proud that most Americans saw the danger and the ridiculousness of the whole event...enough to say never again...hopefully.