Obama and Clinton will be on hand Sunday night at a nationally-televised forum taking place at Messiah University near Harrisburg, PA. The forum's goal is to bring to light how their faith informs their views on global warming, poverty, AIDS, and abortion. McCain, however, claims he has too much on his plate and cannot attend: "I could show you a stack of requests to go to different forums around the country and I just simply can't meet all of those."
Nowhere but in America does religion play such a large role in electing the leader of a democratic country. Romney had to go on TV and explain his Mormon faith, and it likely caused his downfall to some degree. If it weren't for the fact that McCain has courted the extreme right-wing religious wing of the party (I like to borrow Andrew Sullivan's term Christianists), I'd say he was the only candidate who hasn't fallen into the faith trap. His depth of faith is murky and never seems to be something he talks about. Instead , it seems that he worships at the altar of anger and verbal abuse, as this Raw Story report attests.
As the Bush administration inexorably winds its way down to January 19, 2009 ("The End of an Error" best bumper sticker ever), I hope the current hysteria about faith as an essential part of political legitimacy winds down with him. I would like to see a candidate stand up and say, "Those who know me well know I am a man of faith, and that faith informs my personal decisions. However, I reserve that faith for my private life. How I govern as your president will above all else be informed by our Constitution, the laws that guide our country and all of its citizens and inhabitants."
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