In a recent campaign ad, Republican candidate Rick Perry condemned “Obama’s war on religion” by asking why “gays can serve openly in the military, but our kids can’t openly celebrate Christmas or pray in school.”
In a speech last March, Newt Gingrich proposed a deep and profound political change in response to the ruling by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco that the “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance was unconstitutional. He likened himself to Abraham Lincoln in Dred Scott v. Sanford and volunteered to put America back in touch with her founding roots, announcing his candidacy two months later. To put America back on track, Gingrich will free slaves bound by rather different chains: anti-Christian bigotry.
Republicans use of religious rhetoric to garner votes is not uncommon. Democrats, however, handle such rhetoric with much prudence, using religion only in carefully planned situations. For conservatives, more so than liberals, religious rhetoric often means Christian rhetoric.
What’s different about President Barack Obama, and perhaps what was central to his victory in 2008, was his insistence on inserting religious (and Christian) rhetoric early into his campaign, as noted by NPR correspondent Barbara Hagerty. It may have made the difference for some swing voters typically wary of a candidate from the “godless” Democratic Party.
In a similar way, the GOP uses religious rhetoric to usher otherwise moderate Americans into the Republican Party. Americans who are supportive of affordable health care, social programs for the needy and a solid public education system, pigeonhole themselves — perhaps through guilt — into the party that bears the guise of religious righteousness.
The Republican Party becomes the “Party of God” with religious rhetoric and biblical stances on faith-based issues like abortion and gay rights. The Republican Party offers not only political redemption, but also subtly it offers religious deliverance. Perhaps one feels more aligned with one’s God when he or she belongs in a group with similar stances on faith-based issues.
In addition, Gingrich’s rhetoric taps into the historical issue of slavery and makes “anti-Christian bigotry” an equally historical event in America. His rhetoric and the rhetoric of others like him, assumes that religion was a necessary origin of American heritage. This idea is attractive because it authorizes the Republican Party as the natural power in this country, like a monarch authorizing himself to rule by divine right. Only the “party of God” can put this country “back on the right track.”
In today’s political climate, to vote for the Republican Party is to be of faith, and to be of faith is to be Republican. Personal redemption becomes not all that matters here. A national political redemption through God and through the Republican Party is a path toward an ideal America; one Gingrich might consider a “fundamentally exceptional system for human liberty.”
Michael Gerson, George W. Bush’s former chief speechwriter and an evangelical Christian, noted to Michael Cromartie, Vice President of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, five categories in which religious rhetoric may be applied: historical influence of faith on our country, faith-based reform, literary allusions to hymns and scripture, comfort in grief and mourning, and reference to providence.
In other words, apply religious rhetoric to remind voters how we began, use gospel to learn how this country should change, apply God to redeem us from our national sins, and don’t forget heaven when voters need to feel that America is still headed toward her providence of political paradise. Sounds like a theocracy to me.
Reach the columnist at ctruong1@asu.edu.
Click here to subscribe to the daily State Press newsletter.
