Book Review: What Democrats Talk About When They Talk About God: Religious Communication in Democratic Party Politics, edited by David Weiss

Abstract

What Democrats Talk About When They Talk About God: Religious Communication in Democratic Party Politics. David Weiss, ed. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2010. 221 pp. $70.00 hbk. $29.95 pbk. $28.99 eBook.In the 1980s and 1990s, Democrats faced a challenging dilemma. They felt their record and stands relating to poverty, human rights, civil rights, and various moral issues were in line with the thinking of many Americans. Yet they remained fairly silent on matters of religion, while Republicans, led by the likes of the Reverend Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, had become very vocal, well organized, and assertive. This probably hurt Democrats politically in a nation populated largely by Christians.Electoral defeats at the hands of Ronald Reagan, the Bushes, and Newt Gingrich seemingly helped spur Democrats into action, thanks in part to Reverend Jim Wallis, founder of the Christian activist organization Sojourners and author of a best-selling book, God's Politics. Wallis argued that religion, with its calls for social justice, was relevant to politics, so pols should not hide their faith under a barrel.This thin volume by David Weiss, who teaches at Montana State-Billings, contains essays by sixteen scholars, most of them rhetoricians, focusing largely on what Democratic politicians have had to say about religion during their campaigns and terms in office. Chapters on Thomas Jefferson's seminal ideas about freedom of religion and separation of church and state-and about the efforts of Falwell and Robertson, as well as religious extremists such as the Reverends Johns Hagee on the right and Jeremiah Wright on the left-are followed by sections on past presidents and presidential hopefuls, Barack Obama, and two noteworthy state-level candidates, Governor Tim Kaine of Virginia and Representative Keith Ellison of Minnesota. The latter was the first Muslim elected to Congress.Obama merits three chapters, each dealing with textual analysis of a particular speech. In 2006, he gave the keynote address at a Call to Renewal conference organized by Wallis. In his widely heralded keynote speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, Obama expressed four basic charges to politicians by philosopher Cornel West. These were discernment (of the present in light of the past), empathy (with others not specifically in agreement with or related to oneself), tracking hypocrisy (differences between proclaimed principles and actual deeds), and hope (believing we can make a difference). Also, the president-to-be stressed inclusiveness as an ideal.Finally, in a 2009 commencement address at Notre Dame University, the president invoked the idea of church as a crossroads for diverse people. And he endorsed Wallis's idea of conservative radicalism. Unfortunately, he said, Republicans and Democrats had tended to oppose each other uncompromisingly on basic principles- for example, the right of the mother to control her body versus right to life of the unborn fetus. Wallis had called for pragmatic solutions based on agreement about an underlying point: that abortion is basically bad and should be minimized. Poverty leads many women to feel compelled to seek abortions, and reducing poverty should reduce this need while still allowing a woman's right to choose.Tim Kaine's 2005 victory in the Virginia gubernatorial race reflected an insightful approach to campaigning, according to Penn State University doctoral student Sara Ann Mehltretter. …