A Groundbreaking Forum on Faith

Sojourner’s presidential forum on faith tonight was truly groundbreaking.  We had the top three Democratic candidates — Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John Edwards — fielding questions on everything ranging from how they pray to what should be done about overpaid CEOs.  The questions and answers were all refracted through the prism of faith.

Each candidate was on stage for 15 minutes, with the other candidates were waiting in the wings.  I found John Edwards’s segment to be particularly compelling.  He transitioned seamlessly between private religion, public religion, public policy, and moral values.  Here’s some of what we learned about him:

• He believes in evolution.
• He doesn’t believe America is a Christian nation.
• There would be a difference between Edwards as a Christian and him as a president, even though his faith will inform the values he brings to bear while in office.
• Fighting poverty is “the cause of [his] life.”
• He prays for the strength to tell the difference between his will and God’s will.
• He opposes gay marriage but wants states and churches to settle the issue for themselves.
• He believes the government’s response to Hurricane Katrina is a “national embarrassment.”
• He sins multiple times a day.
• He strayed from his Christian faith, but it “came roaring back” when his son years ago and died and again when his wife was diagnosed with cancer.

Barack Obama came after Edwards.  His segment was a little less compelling, at least for me.  He spent so much time answering a question on poverty policy that he didn’t have much time to delve into the personal matters that Edwards (and later Clinton) were able to discuss.  Part of the problem, to be fair, was that Obama was indeed asked questions that were more policy-based and less private.  Here’s what he said:

• We should follow Lincoln’s advice to pray that we are on God’s side instead of believing that God is on our side.
• There is evil in the world.  But even if we’re in a just cause, that doesn’t mean that everything we do is just.
• Palestine must recognize Israel and renounce violence, and Israel must respond with fair treatment of Palestinians.  Faith can help both sides end the cycle of anger and recriminations.
• The starting point for a debate on poverty is the premise that we are our brothers’ keepers.  This spirit of mutual responsibility has been lost in our politics.
• Ending poverty requires both personal and social responsibility.
• We have a “biblical injunction” to provide ex-offenders a second chance.
• “There is a moral problem when a CEO makes as much in a day as a worker makes in a year.”

Hillary had to dig deep into her personal life to answer some prying questions.  But she seemed natural and unafraid, often putting faith on a higher pedestal than either Edwards or Obama did:

• Immigration is a “highly moral debate.”
• She’s not sure she would have gotten through her husband’s infidelities without faith.
• She grew up in a faith tradition that’s “perhaps a little too suspicious of people who wear faith on their sleeves.
• It’s “absolutely essential,” she said, to be grounded in faith during life’s trying moments.  That’s a pretty big statement.
• She sometimes asks God, “Why can’t you help me lose weight?”
• If she had not been “lucky enough” to be a praying person, she would have become one after entering the White House.
• The inability of pro-lifers and pro-choicers to find common ground to reduce the number of abortions is “a great failure on our parts.”
• Adult society has failed children, leaving kids to fend for themselves morally in a less-than-wholesome pop culture.
• 45 million uninsured Americans is a “moral wrong,” and all sides in the health care debate must give if we are to find common ground.  Same with the debate over the environment, which she referred to as “God’s creation.”

Substantively speaking, two big things happened tonight.  First, we had an expanded debate on faith and values — one focused on center-left issues like poverty but bold enough to include the hot-buttons of abortion and gay rights.  Second, we got a glimpse into the way these candidates’ values shape who they are as public servants.

Politically speaking, Democrats won big.  The right wing has long caricatured us as godless sodomites, but this forum showed Americans that the exact opposite is true.  If we keep it up, Republicans will enjoy little advantage next year among Americans who want politicians to “share their values” and have a strong faith.

There is, of course, the possibility that such forums will force candidates to try to “out-Jesus” each other, using God as a mere political tool.  Thus far, though, none of the Democratic candidates seem to be posturing in such a way.  They seem to be measured and authentic in their incorporation of faith into their political campaigns.  If they keep this up, America will have an improved public debate on faith and values — and a Democratic president to boot.