Ultimately, religious faith is the <\/p>\n <\/font><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Religious \u00a0<\/font><\/p>\n Democrats have found it hard to get \u00a0<\/font><\/p>\n But voters want to know that \u00a0<\/font><\/p>\n Ultimately, religious faith is the \u00a0<\/font><\/p>\n Of course, there are risks in mixing \u00a0<\/font><\/p>\n That doesn\u00e2\u0080\u0099t mean we should treat \u00a0<\/font><\/p>\n These discussions are most important \u00a0<\/font><\/p>\n We need a global vision of peace that \u00a0<\/font><\/p>\n If we\u00e2\u0080\u0099re going to speak of faith in \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Ultimately, religious faith is the most important way that most Americans have to talk about commitments that reach beyond self-interest, that shape their ways of looking at the world, and that guide their choices even when the results of those choices aren\u00e2\u0080\u0099t immediately realized.\u00a0They understandably want to know whether the men and women who would […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1176,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-95","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-c17-featured-writers"],"yoast_head":"\n
\nmost important way that most Americans have to talk about commitments
\nthat reach beyond self-interest, that shape their ways of looking at
\nthe world, and that guide their choices even when the results of those
\nchoices aren\u00e2\u0080\u0099t immediately realized.\u00a0They understandably want to know
\nwhether the men and women who would lead them through difficult times
\ncan talk about their commitments in those terms, too.<\/font><\/font><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n
\nvalues have become part of politics.\u00a0My fellow Democrats were surprised
\nby this fact in 2000 and confused by it in 2004, but it needs to be
\npart of our planning for 2006 and beyond.\u00a0We would be mistaken to see
\nthis as just another clever stratagem dreamed up in the offices of Karl
\nRove and Tom DeLay.\u00a0Faith has entered the language of politics because
\npeople want to hear about it.<\/font><\/p>\n
\nthat message, for reasons that are rooted in our party\u00e2\u0080\u0099s history.\u00a0\u00a0
\nDemocrats pioneered religious diversity, providing a base for Jewish
\nand Catholic voters at a time when American politics was overwhelmingly
\nProtestant.\u00a0We have been most successful when we have appealed to a
\nbroad coalition of economic interests, and everyone remembers when it
\nwas \u00e2\u0080\u009cthe economy, stupid.\u00e2\u0080\u009d<\/font><\/p>\n
\ncandidates are committed to something that lasts longer than a
\ncampaign, and they want to know that a party has a vision beyond
\nreclaiming a majority in Congress.\u00a0They may be disillusioned by the
\ndiscovery that the Republican legislative agenda is driven by narrow
\ninterests, but they haven\u00e2\u0080\u0099t learned to expect anything better from
\nDemocrats.\u00a0<\/font><\/p>\n
\nmost important way that most Americans have to talk about commitments
\nthat reach beyond self-interest, that shape their ways of looking at
\nthe world, and that guide their choices even when the results of those
\nchoices aren\u00e2\u0080\u0099t immediately realized.\u00a0They understandably want to know
\nwhether the men and women who would lead them through difficult times
\ncan talk about their commitments in those terms, too.<\/font><\/p>\n
\nreligion and politics, especially for a party that takes pride in its
\ndiversity, whether that diversity is ethnic, economic, or religious. We
\ndon\u00e2\u0080\u0099t need a campaign in which the language of faith becomes code for
\nspecific policy choices, as though candidates could answer complex
\nquestions about abortion, poverty, or international relations by
\ntelling you where they worship.\u00a0We won\u00e2\u0080\u0099t solve the problems of \u00e2\u0080\u009cred
\nstates\u00e2\u0080\u009d and \u00e2\u0080\u009cblue states\u00e2\u0080\u009d by creating \u00e2\u0080\u009cred faiths\u00e2\u0080\u009d and \u00e2\u0080\u009cblue faiths.\u00e2\u0080\u009d<\/font><\/p>\n
\nfaith as something that polite Democrats just don\u00e2\u0080\u0099t discuss.\u00a0Dialogue
\nabout religious values and what they mean for law and policy has to be
\na part of our public life.\u00a0Without it, it\u00e2\u0080\u0099s hard to set directions that
\ngo beyond immediate problems, find points of agreement that bridge
\npartisan divides, and identify leaders whose commitments will last
\nbeyond the next round of fundraising.\u00a0We need to learn how to have open
\ndiscussion of faith commitments without turning an election into a test
\nof religious purity.<\/font><\/p>\n
\nat the points where politics has a chance to rise above the staking of
\nclaims and the trading of favors to create a new understanding of the
\ncommon good.\u00a0Think of Franklin Roosevelt, redefining freedom to include
\nfreedom from want.\u00a0Think of Martin Luther King, Jr., envisioning a
\nsociety where people \u00e2\u0080\u009cwill not be judged by the color of their skin,
\nbut by the content of their character.\u00e2\u0080\u009d\u00a0Today\u00e2\u0080\u0099s politics requires that
\nsame kind of moral imagination.\u00a0<\/font><\/p>\n
\ncan unite people of the three Abrahamic faiths and connect peace with
\ntheir shared zeal for justice.\u00a0We need a domestic understanding of
\neconomic security that is social and not just individual.\u00a0We need a
\npractical idea of what it means to care for our neighbors that will
\nmake access to health care, if not quite a right, at least less like
\nluck.\u00a0It\u00e2\u0080\u0099s not clear that any of those visions can even begin to grow
\nwithout the language of faith to inspire commitment to goals that can\u00e2\u0080\u0099t
\nbe stated in terms of self-interest alone.<\/font><\/p>\n
\n2006 and beyond, we might as well try to occupy the higher
\nground.\u00a0Places on the lower levels already seem to be pretty well taken.<\/font><\/p>\n