Farewell to Faith? The Changing Role of Religion in Presidential Politics

Ironic Inquiries

Americans’ interest in the religious identities of presidential candidates points to an irony at the heart of American politics. Ironic, because consideration of a candidate’s religion is not what the constitutional framers intended. The only time the original seven articles of the Constitution (before the Bill of Rights and other Amendments) mention religion is to forbid official consideration of a candidate’s faith: “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.” ⁵ Unofficial tests, however, have become the norm. Americans have long expected their president to be religious, and not just religious, but Christian. As early as the election of 1800, Jefferson’s opponents believed accusations he was an infidel and atheist were sufficient to prove him unfit for office. After 1800, the Protestant identity of presidential candidates, at least in perception, kept the unofficial test dormant until the twentieth century. Since then, a candidate’s religious identity has become a feature of presidential elections as Americans have debated what constitutes a passing grade on the nation’s unofficial religious test.

The specter of a Catholic president revived debate about the religious identity of presidential candidates. Anti-Catholicism surrounding the unsuccessful 1928 candidacy of Democrat Al Smith, a Roman Catholic and governor of New York, demonstrated that Protestantism remained the only passing grade for the nation’s unofficial religious test in the early twentieth century. The 1960 election of John F. Kennedy was a broadening of the religious test to include Catholicism. Even then, the nation’s readiness for a Catholic president was far from certain. Kennedy spoke to the Houston Ministerial Association in September 1960 to address concerns that his Catholic identity would interfere with his constitutional loyalty. Acknowledging his election would be historic, and thus conceding the existence of an unofficial religious test for office, Kennedy asserted his belief “in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute.” He insisted he was the Democratic candidate for office who happened to be Catholic, not the Catholic candidate for office. Kennedy was dismayed by the idea of a religious test, however informal. Not only did it violate the spirit of the Constitution, but it also rendered a large number of Americans ineligible for president by mere accident of birth. Kennedy hoped the 1960 election would mark the end of this practice that was at odds with American constitutional ideals. ⁶

The legacy of Kennedy’s speech is ambiguous, even though his victory conventionally marks a turning point in considering a candidate’s religion as a qualification for office. The speech accomplished its immediate purpose: it laid to rest the suggestion that a Catholic candidate was unfit for the presidency. When John Kerry ran in 2004, his Catholicism was not an issue. Likewise, the 2012 election featured Catholic candidates for vice-president on both tickets. Joe Biden and Paul Ryan’s different understandings of how Catholicism informed their political views garnered attention, including a question in the vice-presidential debate. However, no one claimed that either candidate’s Catholic identity rendered him unfit for office, as had happened to both Al Smith and John F. Kennedy.

In a broader sense, however, the pattern since Kennedy’s election has contradicted his hope that a candidate’s faith would be irrelevant. Candidates themselves, not just voters and the media, have been responsible for this development. Jimmy Carter’s 1976 candidacy began the heightened interest in the religion of presidential candidates. Carter spoke openly and unapologetically of his born again Christian faith. His role as Baptist Deacon and Sunday School teacher attracted as much attention as other parts of his biography. Four years later, Ronald Reagan appropriated the language of “God-talk” to court dissatisfied evangelicals in a move often credited with assuring his victory over Carter in 1980. Reagan embedded religion and God not only in the election season but in the presidency itself, such as his use of the phrase “God bless America,” which has become so commonplace that its absence would be noteworthy. The trend continued with Reagan’s successor, George H.W. Bush, who, with the aid of his son George W. Bush, courted conservative religious voters and invoked religious language on the campaign trail. Likewise, Bill Clinton, a Southern Baptist, used his religious credentials and the language of faith to win back some of the evangelical vote that Democrats had lost to the Reagan and Bush campaigns. George W. Bush, who famously announced during the 2000 primaries that Jesus was his favorite political philosopher, spoke openly as both candidate and president of the importance of his Christian faith, especially in transforming his life at age 40. ⁷ Finally, questions about Barack Obama’s faith, whether the Christianity at his home church in Chicago or accusations he was Muslim, joined with questions about Sarah Palin’s Pentecostalism to make religion a prominent theme in the 2008 campaign. By the eve of the 2012 election, a half century of political-religious rhetoric created a conventional wisdom that a candidate’s religious identity was not only relevant, but a necessary and appropriate subject for candidates to discuss and for the electorate and media to consider.

Until 2012. For all the emphasis on the election as the first one that did not include a white Protestant, the 2012 election was noteworthy because the candidates’ religious identities, and religious issues more generally, ended up playing such a limited role. They were not absent or unnoticed. Nonetheless, religion was not a consistent or sustained storyline at the center of conversations and coverage about the election, nor did it seem to define the candidates, their campaigns, or the commentary about them. The subdued religious rhetoric was a surprising departure from the last half century of presidential elections. Curiosity about Romney’s Mormonism and ongoing uncertainty about Obama’s religious identity presented new possibilities for debates about religious identity and the nation’s unofficial religious test for president. But in the end, the religious dynamics of the 2012 election muted rather than amplified the religious rhetoric and the application of the nation’s unofficial religious test.

Marginal and Misunderstood

In large part, the subdued role of religion stemmed from Obama’s and Romney’s religious similarities. This is not to equate the African American church tradition that nurtured Obama’s faith with Romney’s Mormonism. They are quite different. However, Mormonism and African American Christianity occupy similar positions on the broader landscape of American religion. As a result, Obama’s and Romney’s differing religious identities functioned in similar ways during the election season, neutralizing the central role religious rhetoric had played in previous presidential campaigns.

Both Obama and Romney belong to religious traditions that remain marginal and misunderstood. America’s white Protestant majority has long depicted both African American traditions and Mormonism as inconsistent with and even threatening to American and Christian identity. For both candidates the question was the same: “Is he really a Christian?” For Romney, the issue was straightforward: “Is Mormonism Christianity?” to which 51 percent of American answered “yes.” ⁸ For Obama the question was more complicated. To some, questioning Obama’s Christianity was another way of asserting he was Muslim, which 17 percent of all Americans and 30 percent of conservatives believed four months before election day. ⁹ Even for the 49 percent of Americans who correctly identified Obama’s faith as Christian, many still wondered if the Afro-centric, liberation theology of Chicago’s Trinity Church and its former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, was really Christianity. Trinity, a United Church of Christ congregation, was where Obama converted to Christianity and nurtured his faith. Whether understood as Muslim or African American Christian, either identity functioned in the same way to locate Obama alongside the Mormon Romney at the marginal and misunderstood periphery of the American religious landscape.

The questions and criticisms directed at Romney’s Mormonism and Obama’s black Christian (or Muslim) identity followed predictable patterns of American religious intolerance. In each case, the goal has been to challenge the Christian and the American character of religious groups that do not conform to the ideals of white American Protestantism. One theme is American loyalty. Romney’s critics suggested his first loyalty would be to Mormon church leaders rather than the Constitution. Obama’s detractors likewise suspected he would advance African or Muslim interests to the detriment of the United States. Secrecy was another common theme. Outsiders wondered about Mormon rituals, suspecting that, if revealed, Temple ordinances would undermine Latter-day Saint claims of conventional belief and patriotism. Similar suspicions surrounded Obama’s church in Chicago. Uncontextualized video clips of Trinity’s former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, fueled claims he was unfaithful to Christianity and the United States. For others, the beliefs of Trinity Church did not matter, since it was a cover for Obama’s secret Muslim identity. Continuing to conspiratorial claims about sex, money, and wardrobe, the list went on for both candidates and their religions, repeating the pattern of subversive suspicions and conspiratorial theories that have been applied to nearly every non-Protestant tradition in American history. ¹⁰

The criticisms of Obama’s and Romney’s religious affiliations are not merely parallel. At times, opponents have conflated African Americans, Muslims, and Mormons into a single threatening identity. White Protestants depicted African American racial difference and Mormon theological difference as two dimensions of the same danger to national purity, especially at the height of the anti-polygamy campaign in the late nineteenth century. Editorial cartoonists merged religious and racial otherness when they employed stereotypes of black and Mormon sexual appetites, depicting black women among the wives of Mormon polygamists. African Americans became religious outcasts by association with Mormons, while Mormons became racial others by association with Africans. Nor were Muslims exempt. Some cartoons imagined Mormon homes as Ottoman harems, conflating Islam and Mormonism to mark both traditions as racially other and religiously heterodox. ¹¹

The intertwining of religion and race was not just a matter of history for either candidate. Obama and Romney each faced questions about his church's views on race and whether he endorsed or rejected those beliefs. For Obama, the questions focused on his membership at Trinity Church, an African American congregation in Chicago, and comments by its pastor, Jeremiah Wright. Separate black churches like Trinity emerged as a way to resist racism within and beyond white churches. These churches celebrated black religious leadership, preached a theology insisting on the equality of all people, and celebrated modes of worship that extended beyond European inheritances. Black churches persist because such needs have not gone away. Nonetheless, during Obama’s 2008 primary campaign, many white Americans first became acquainted with the ways black Christianity differed from white understandings of church and nation. Obama’s opponents circulated examples of Wright’s preaching in which he challenged the idea that the United States was a Christian nation or one specially blessed by God. Many African Americans disagreed with Wright—black Christianity and theology are diverse traditions. But the ideas Wright expressed were consistent with the tradition of theological and national critique that gave rise to black churches. Nonetheless, in the heat of the 2008 primary, Obama felt compelled to make his widely publicized speech, “A More Perfect Union,” in which he distanced himself, though not completely, from his pastor and his articulation of the African American experience.

Romney, too, faced questions about religion and race. Not until 1978 did Latter-day Saints extend full inclusion to people of African descent. This practice of racial exclusion in Mormonism was distinctive not for its existence, but only for the length of its endurance. For Romney, questions focused on his work as a missionary while the black priesthood ban was still in effect. Romney’s critics wanted to know if his willingness to evangelize constituted an endorsement of racial inequality. Without directly critiquing the church’s past beliefs and practices, Romney’s responses emphasized the relief he experienced upon hearing the 1978 order welcoming people of African descent into full membership.

A Secular Campaign

The similar status of Obama and Romney as religious outsiders neutralized the role of religion for both sides. Neither could benefit from playing the religion card, given the marginal and misunderstood character of each candidate’s religious identity. The result was a campaign season in which the candidates’ faiths barely registered, despite their religious affiliations being a distinctive dimension of the election. Neither denied his faith or its personal significance. But neither candidate engaged in “God-talk” on the campaign trail, in contrast to campaigns stretching back to 1980. The few allusions to religion remained generic, such as Romney’s assertion during the debates that “we are all children of the same God” or Obama’s invocation of the Golden Rule and Providence. To be sure, each campaign had a religious outreach strategy, which worked in targeted rather than public ways. In addition, outside the campaign and along the fringes there were attempts to galvanize opposition by emphasizing or mischaracterizing the candidates’ religious identities, beliefs, or practices. Nonetheless, such voices remained peripheral and failed to attract consistent, coherent, or sustained attention in the media or among the voters.

One reason for the lack of attention to the candidates’ religious identity was the national agenda. To most Americans there were more pressing concerns. Foremost among them was the struggling economy. Voters cared more about the candidates’ plan to stimulate the economy and lower unemployment than how either man would spend Sunday morning. One of my students summarized the change in ethos from the 2008 election: “In 2008 we wanted a Messiah; in 2012 we want an accountant.”

Even without more pressing or distracting issues, elements intrinsic to the 2012 election kept religion in the background. At the most basic level, both candidates had passed the nation’s informal religious test. Few doubted that Obama and Romney were men of faith, even if many Americans disliked or mistook the candidates’ religious affiliations. The story of Obama’s conversion to Christianity while a community activist in Chicago and Romney’s lifelong commitment to Mormonism, including service as a missionary and bishop in his church, were accepted and recognized parts of each candidate’s biography. No one accused either candidate of atheism, so neither had to ramp up “God-talk” as evidence of religiosity. In addition, each candidate had already survived inquiries about his religion during the 2008 election cycle. Little had changed to generate renewed interest about their religious beliefs or practices since then.

In addition, the primaries offered a cautionary tale about making religion a campaign issue. Efforts to derail Obama’s momentum by attacking his connections to Jeremiah Wright proved unsuccessful in the 2008 primary. The 2012 Republican primary season was also instructive. Primary candidates who tried to make religion a campaign issue, whether it was their own identity or their advocacy of religious issues, suffered noteworthy defeats. The most vocal advocates of religious language, Texas governor Rick Perry and Rep. Michelle Bachmann, both exited early. Even Rick Santorum, whose ideology was rooted in his conservative Catholicism, failed to win enough votes to match the media attention his religious rhetoric attracted.

Neither candidate had much to gain, but each had much to lose, by focusing on his opponent’s religion. The threat of mutually assured destruction restrained each campaign from launching religious critiques. Less than 50 percent of Americans said they were comfortable with either Romney’s or Obama’s religion. Just 41 percent said they were comfortable with Romney’s faith commitments and 45 percent with Obama’s. ¹² For either candidate to speak directly to his religion would have alienated more voters than he would have attracted. Voters are most comfortable with candidates who seem like themselves. Religiously speaking, more than half of American voters believed that neither Romney nor Obama was like them. Historically, most “God-talk” in presidential elections has focused on courting white evangelical voters in an effort to claim “I’m one of you,” a technique mastered by Ronald Reagan and imitated ever since. ¹³ In 2012, neither Presidential candidate could even pretend to make the “same as you” argument, thereby eliminating the most common basis for campaign “God-talk.”

By November 2012, the absence of religious rhetoric was so striking that it became the primary religion story of the election season. What was true of the candidates and campaigns was true of voters as well. The presumed evangelical angst about a Mormon candidate quickly evaporated once Romney secured the nomination. In a departure from the nation’s unofficial religious test, a plurality of Christians, especially those labeling themselves evangelical, chose the Mormon Romney over the Protestant Obama. Political ideology trumped theological purity. Even those who had recently labeled Mormonism a cult were willing to overlook, or, in the case of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, erase, that characterization.

Equally surprising was the absence of religious issues more generally. The advocacy of some Catholic leaders and conservative Protestants against the Obama administration’s contraceptive mandate suggested that issues such as religious liberty, contraception, and abortion would be prominent during the election. But Romney did not take up the bishop’s cause and Obama had no reason to. Major stumbles around rape and abortion by Republican Senate candidates Todd Akin of Missouri and Richard Mourdock of Indiana provided further incentive for Romney to avoid the issue, enabling Obama and the Democratic party to define the contraceptive mandate as a women’s health issue rather than a religious one. As a result, rhetoric around religious issues, like that about the candidate’s religious identities, mostly came from peripheral and fleeting sources that failed to gain sustained traction in the campaigns, the media, or the electorate.

The limited role of religious leaders was a sign of the declining importance of religion in the election. Romney’s last-minute visit to Billy Graham made for a good photo but did not alter the outcome. More significant was the absence of mega-church pastor Rick Warren. In August 2008, Warren, the pastor of the 20,000-member Saddleback Church in Southern California, hosted conversations with candidates John McCain and Barack Obama, covering a variety of religious topics. The “Civil Forum” was a major media event covered by the major networks and cable news channels. Warren went on to give the invocation at Obama’s first inauguration. In 2012 Warren once again planned a “Civil Forum,” but neither campaign expressed interest and Warren had to cancel the event. Warren subsequently tried to enter the political conversation with views on issues such as gay marriage that clearly aligned him with Romney, but even these partisan efforts failed to garner much attention from the media or the Romney campaign. Similarly, Jim Wallis, a Democratic-leaning progressive evangelical whose voice was prominent during the 2008 election was not silent but, like Warren, received much less attention from the campaigns and the media.

The Changing Electorate

By the end of the election, the electorate emerged as the most significant religious dimension of the 2012 election. Changing religious demographics exerted more influence on the electoral outcome than the candidates’ distinctive religious identities. These changes also explain why the candidates’ faith, and religious issues more generally, played a smaller role than in previous elections. Although there were signals pointing to the nation’s changing religious demographics, they were not always obvious and thus did not make their way into many pre-election day forecasts and analyses. But by the time Obama had won, their significance not only for his victory but for the shape of future elections, was apparent. The changing religious identities of American voters will shape presidential elections for many years to come.

The changes were not always visible, as long-standing voting patterns appeared to hold steady. White evangelicals voted for Romney at the same level and with the same turnout as they had supported the Republican candidate in the two previous elections. ¹⁴ Likewise, black Protestants and Jews continued their strong Democratic support. Catholic voters remained a swing vote, splitting for the two candidates in the same percentages as the overall national vote. ¹⁵ But these enduring patterns were not the crucial factor in the 2012 election. Lurking below the appearance of continuity were developments that proved decisive and that will influence subsequent elections.

Catholic voting patterns exemplify the changes beneath a veneer of seeming continuity in 2012. The Catholic vote dropped slightly for Obama compared to 2008, reflecting the narrower margin of Obama’s 2012 victory. While these results suggest that Catholic identity does not predict how a person will vote, digging a bit deeper reveals important trends that will help forecast how particular Catholics will vote in subsequent elections. White Catholics favored Romney 59 to 40 percent, which was a higher rate of Republican support than in previous elections. White Catholics who identified as “observant” were even stronger in their support for Romney. Hispanic Catholics, on the other hand, voted overwhelmingly Democratic, 75 to 21 percent. ¹⁶ Complicating the consideration of Hispanic voters is the increasing number of Latino Protestants, especially within Pentecostal traditions, who vote Republican at nearly double the rate of their Catholic counterparts and who vote at a higher rate than Latino Catholics. As the fasting growing segment of both American Catholicism and an increasing proportion of the American electorate, especially in key battleground states, Latino voters are an important aspect of the complicated and shifting connections between religion and politics in the United States. ¹⁷

Nonetheless, the most significant religious changes are occurring outside Christianity altogether. The fall election season coincided with surveys that revealed the fastest-growing religious identity in the United States was those who describe their religious affiliation as “none.” The “nones” include a wide range of beliefs and behaviors, from atheist (about one quarter of the “nones”) through “spiritual but not religious,” who may profess beliefs in a divine being, life after death, and the power of prayer. This group, which is now nearly 20 percent of the American population, was the single largest block of voters, as measured by religious identity, to support Obama. The religiously unaffiliated voted Democratic by an almost 3–1 margin. ¹⁸ This emergence of the nones as a significant voting block provides another reason for the reduction in “God-talk” during the 2012 election. Throughout the twenty-first century, candidates in general and Democrats in particular have struggled to balance support from their secular and religious constituencies. The debacle over references to God in the Democratic platform exemplified how difficult this balancing act had become. Originally, the 2012 Democratic platform made no reference to God. When the lack of religious references became a media story, the convention inserted language about God into the platform, though not without significant objection from the floor.

The rise in religiously unaffiliated voters is also connected to intersections of religion and race. Asian Americans, a growing segment of the national population, have higher rates of non-affiliation, both religiously and politically, than other Americans. Religiously, 26 percent of Asian Americans identify as “nones,” compared to a little over 19 percent in the general population. Asian Americans who are religious represent a more diverse range of religious identities than Americans as a whole. Still, this religious diversity does not translate to political diversity. Both unaffiliated and minority religious traditions fall primarily into the Democratic camp and supported Obama in the 2012 election at a high rate. Asian Americans represent just one dimension of the shifting patterns that will shape future elections and the ways that religion factors into those elections. ¹⁹

The growth in “nones” and non-Christian traditions signaled another important change: the relative decline of Christianity on the American religious landscape. A Pew Survey released just before the election revealed that, for the first time, Protestants had fallen beneath 50 percent of the overall American population. ²⁰ White Protestants voted at a higher rate than most other religious groups, and thereby remained 53 percent of the electorate. But even that was a slight decline from previous elections. Christianity overall is shrinking in the United States, whether Protestant or Catholic, even though over 70 percent of Americans still identify as Christians. Nonetheless, when parsing Christian identity by race and political affiliation, no denomination or group has a simple majority in either party. A mix of religious communities support each side of the political divide. Looking forward, age is another complicating factor, as the religious communities that lean Republican, especially white evangelicals, tend to be older and shrinking, while the religious groups leaning Democratic, which includes both “nones” and non-white Christians, are both younger and growing.

The nation’s changing religious demographics suggest the declining centrality of religious rhetoric and issues in 2012 is not an aberration. The decreasing percentage of the electorate that is Christian, as well as the increasing diversity within Christianity, means that explicit appeals to Christian faith and a shared Christian identity appeal to a shrinking segment of the electorate. At the same time, the growth of religiously unaffiliated voters, as well as non-Christian traditions, suggests candidates have to frame their appeals in widely inclusive terms rather than religiously narrow categories. God-talk becomes less effective as a way to win voters and is as likely to weaken as strengthen support for a candidate. Regardless of an individual candidate’s religious beliefs, moderating religious rhetoric is the prudent political strategy. The future of America does not bode well for God-talk as a path to presidential success.

Faithful History and Historical Faithfulness

Despite changes in religious demography, the United States remains predominantly Christian. Nearly three-quarters of Americans identify themselves as Christians and Christianity remains tightly woven into the fabric of our national consciousness and culture, even if fewer voters embrace its theological claims. As the 2012 election made clear, this tension between a Christian majority and an expanding religious pluralism has become a permanent feature of our political climate. In light of this new reality, Christians need to reflect on the intersections of faith and political life in the United States. It is neither appropriate nor realistic to exclude voices of faith from the political sphere. Given that 80 percent of Americans identify themselves as religious, religion will shape the ways people consider political choices, as well it should. But people of faith must proceed with caution and with awareness of the traditions they invoke and the language they use. Too often, when religion is most present it politics, it has also been most absent. When politicians and believers reduce Christianity to a single issue that conforms to a political agenda or party, it compromises the fullness of faith. When Christianity is used to condemn political opponents, sometimes consigning them to damnation, rather than encountering others with grace and mercy, where is God? ²¹ When people claim to know the mind of God for the nation’s elections, then politics has become religion, and that is idolatry.

One of the most problematic uses of religious rhetoric has been the idea that the United States is a chosen nation, specially favored by God. The assertion dates to a 1630 sermon by Puritan leader John Winthrop, when he declared the Massachusetts Bay Colony would be “a city on a hill.” American politicians and religious leaders have long echoed Winthrop’s claim of American exceptionalism. The assertion is both theologically and historically problematic. God’s only national covenant was the Hebrew people of the Old Testament, undermining modern claims to special status before God on the basis of political boundaries. That ancient covenant cannot be transferred to the United States. Political citizenship is irrelevant to the covenant of grace under which we all now live. Invocations of Winthrop’s chosen nation imagery also misrepresent his application of the idea. Like the Old Testament model of covenant on which he drew, Winthrop balanced the hope for blessing with the threat of curses for failing to uphold the terms of the covenant. Modern applications of the chosen nation disproportionately emphasize blessings over curses. Even those who do suggest natural disasters and national tragedies are evidence of God’s curse suggest that failures in individual morality or spiritual orthodoxy are the cause. Yet, for Winthrop, upholding the covenant depended less on individual behavior than corporate concern. Curses would fall on the society that failed to care for each of its members, especially the neediest. Stated positively, Winthrop believed God’s blessing was contingent on the community’s expressions of grace to one another and on its ability to privilege communal ties over individual interest. ²²

In light of the changes the 2012 election signals, it is time for examples that provide surer theological and historical footing than Winthrop’s chosen nation. Consider William Penn. Penn insisted that religious freedom came from God, who created the mind free to think. For this reason, religious freedom was the founding principle for the colony that he founded and that bears his name. Penn believed that using the state to advocate a particular religious perspective or to coerce religious behavior was to go against God’s intent in creating humans free, even if some made poor use of what Penn called “liberty of conscience.” ²³ Roger Williams made similar claims. Williams, a one-time Puritan who was exiled from Massachusetts for challenging the church and Winthrop’s authority, founded Rhode Island as a refuge for religious dissenters. Williams insisted on religious freedom for individuals and opposed government support for churches, the same two principles that are in the First Amendment to the Constitution. ²⁴ Williams and Penn each insisted his particular religious perspective formed the only true and right expression of Christianity. But neither conflated the success of the state with the triumph of his theological claims. Each considered the religious freedom that pluralism fostered to be the best defense against abusive alliances between church and state. From the best of their thinking might come meaningful ways to engage America’s changing political and religious landscape. Religious liberty and toleration were faithful enactments of God’s will for Williams and Penn, who privileged the equality of all people because all were created in God’s image. People cannot claim religious liberty for themselves beyond what they will extend to others. Following this tradition would not end religious rhetoric in the political sphere, but rather open the possibility of conversations that reflect renewed commitment to both Scripture and the Constitution.

As the 2012 election once again made clear, faith and history bestow a variety of impulses to navigate the dialectic of hope and despair that characterizes both our political life and our human condition. Our past reminds us to tread carefully when infusing politics with religion and to guard against confusing one for the other. At the same time, the future is full of possibility, for we are all citizens of the same nation and all children of the same God, and no election can change that.