Although most Americans pride themselves on their country’s separation of church and state, a panel of OU professors discussed how religion could influence the presidential race Monday afternoon.
“How do you bring religion into politics?” international and area studies professor Josh Landis said. “There is this problem about having one truth and having to negotiate different truths,” he said, during the discussion in Meacham Auditorium that was held as part of the OU Votes campaign.
There is a difference in having social Christian values and Christian government, Landis said.
Religion and politics never used to be brought up together, although that has changed over the last few decades, said Jill Irvine, women’s studies professor.
Skyler Fike, architecture senior, said he hopes the discussion will clarify for students candidates’ religious perspectives, which he said have been clouded by the media.
“Politically, a lot of the candidates put up some facades,” he said.
Charles Kimball, religious studies professor, said many questions have been surfacing recently about the religions of the presidential candidates
Landis said a religiously unbiased president is ideal but it is a struggle for some people to tear themselves from religion’s influence when making political decisions.
Kimball said people expect presidents to be able to perform their job without religious prejudices, but that it is impossible to completely divorce one’s decision-making from one’s religion. The key, he said, is choosing a president who has the ability to understand different religious perspectives.
“You have to surround yourself with enough different perspectives, so you’re not subject to your own bias,” he said.
Democratic vice presidential nominee Joe Biden is Catholic and against abortion rights, but says he will not impose it on others in his campaign, Kimball said.
“That’s what we’re imposing on our leaders to do,” he said “It’s a hard line to walk.”
One questioner asked the panel about Barack Obama’s religion. It has been widely rumored that Obama, who is a Christian, is Muslim.
Kimball said the anxiety over Obama’s religion is related to a deep religious historical divide between Islam and Christianity.
Irvine said the issue is part of an ongoing religious battle.
“If you think about the long-standing battle of religious forces, it’s a new manifestation,” she said.
Landis said several prominent American preachers have preached heavily against Islam in the past few years, fueling the issue. He said there has been talk that the next president’s religion will play an important role in foreign policy.
Religious and political issues have come a long way from a few decades ago, Irvine said.
“The fact that we’re talking about it is meaningful in and of itself,” she said. “It’s a discussion that we should be having.”
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JJanowiak 3 years, 7 months ago
Dr. Landis said that having a religiously unbiased president is AN ideal - a statement that means something very different from what's written here. Since after that statement he goes on to explain that such an expectation is naive, it would clearly make no sense for him to endorse it as an ideal as is misrepresented here.
Charles 3 years, 7 months ago
I thought the first amendment had this one covered. Jimmy Madison and the boys thought it was so important that they not only included it as the very first one, but put the no religion stuff right up front.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion..."
There you have it. Done deal.