Political Religiosity in America

Political religiosity in America is a strange bird, and add journalism to the mix and it approachs mythical proportions. Consider Howard Dean: Yesterday, Drudge was listing a report on Dean’s plan to highlight his religious background as he campaigns in the South. Dean is a Congregationalist who says Jesus has had a significant impact on his life and that he reads the Bible daily. He left the Episcopal church a number of years ago over a local bike path controversy in which the Episcopal church failed to come down on the side of the angels. (If memory serves, it was a bike path controversy that launched the Lollard movement, and the Reformation in Hungary.) Dean’s decision to turn religious just in time for Southern primarily is enough to make the most starry-eyed political novice into a bitter cynic. And Dean is in a no-win position. If he doesn’t act more religious, he’ll continue get criticized for being secular; but if he starts talking about Jesus on the stump, he start looking like an opportunist.

It gets better. The Dec 29/Jan 12 issue of TNR shows up with a cover story by Franklin Foer arguing that Dean’s campaign has been too secular to win a general election, and that he needs a religious narrative to counter Bush’s conversion story. Did Dean have an advance look at the Foer article, and begin early to preempt the criticism? Is Foer a Dean advisor? Or is this just delicious happenstance? Who cares? The carnival of the Presidential campaign is just getting underway, and already it’s providing entertainment like this (yes, that is a Psalm 2 reference). The next 11 months are going to be a hoot.