John Kerry Is Trying To Have It Both Ways On Religion

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John Kerry Is Trying To Have It Both Ways On Religion

By Matthew Bastian
Oct. 20, 2004

The presidential debates are over. We’re in the home stretch.

And President Bush’s camp must be heaving one collective sigh of relief.

Never known for his elocution, Bush got his clock cleaned in the first round of the debates, while making at least a respectable showing in the last two. Senator John Kerry, with a litany of facts and figures at his instant disposal, glided from topic to topic and delivered with a gravity that at least sounded sincere (for someone with an unremarkable 20-year Senate record, Kerry came across as quite the policy wonk)

The one bright spot for the president was when they got to the more personal questions about faith and abortion. Here, clearly in his element, Bush’s comfort level skyrocketed. It was as if they were playing “Jeopardy!” and Bush, after sweating out questions on astrophysics and palindromes, had finally hit his category (“I’ll take ‘The Bible’ for $1000, please, Alex”).

Ever direct, he simply said, "Prayer and religion sustain me...I receive calmness in the storms of the presidency."

Forced to toe the liberal line and hedge himself, John Kerry’s response was, “I think that everything you do in public life has to be guided by your faith, affected by your faith, but without transferring it in any official way to other people."

Now, I’m not going to suggest that liberals are not ‘good’ people of faith – I know plenty who are. But Kerry’s response does beg the question: what exactly does his faith “guide” or “affect,” if not his approach to policy (by definition, the official transference of belief to other people)?

John Kerry is trying to have it both ways. He professes, for example, to a belief in life at conception, but would never act on that belief as president. But if your beliefs don’t lead you to act upon them, how strong can they really be?

This post-modern view of religion – that it can and should be compartmentalized from everything else we do - defies logic.

It also, I would argue, misses the point. Faith left in the pews on Sunday (or synagogue on Saturday, etc) is not real faith: it is a routine born of obligation and community expectations. I’m no saint, but I think it’s safe to say that God has no use for weekend warriors. Either you live your faith, with the inevitable lapses along the way, or you do not.

But with folks like Kerry or Bill Clinton, we have to take their word for it. They may very well be men of deep-rooted faith, but Clinton’s extracurricular activities, both real and alleged, make you wonder if the Sunday photo-ops with Bible in hand were nothing more than a religious veneer. Ditto Kerry’s statements.

When Howard Dean was still in the mix during the Democratic primaries, he said that his favorite book of the New Testament was Job. A first grader with three weeks of Sunday school under his belt could have called him on this (it’s in the Old Testament).

Perhaps it was a slip of the tongue. More likely it was an insincere attempt to pander to Christian voters.

I’d have a lot more respect for the Deans of the world if they would just come out and say, “At best, I’m agnostic; Ayn Rand rocks and people with crosses in their house creep me out.” (Yaaaaaahhhh!”)

And it is the same reason I have that much more respect for Bush, who has taken a consistent pounding for being so open about his faith. In a recent New York Times Sunday Magazine article, Ron Suskind suggested that the president is no different from Al-Qaeda because they both believe they are ‘on a mission from God.’ Suskind went on to portray Bush and his supporters in ‘fly- over’ country as the opposite of the “reality- based community.”

Insulting? You bet. In addition to trivializing the faith of millions, the article completely discounts any reason or analysis, plus the input that Bush gets from his staff. From Suskind’s article, one is left with the impression that Bush sits in the kitchen at 2am, staring at the leftover jell-o mold and waiting for the little marshmallows to spell out messages for him.

Suskind can go pound sand. In a time of war we are blessed to have a president who, when the advisers are gone, turns to God instead of Gallup for some direction.

And while the self-styled elites of this world must find this to be a sad, if not dangerous, affectation, what they never seem to understand is that many of us find it incredibly reassuring.

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About Matthew Bastian: Recovering socialst, part-time drummer, long-suffering Brewers fan, and all-around beach hound, Mr. Bastian lives in central New Jersey. Email Matthew Bastian: mbastian19@hotmail.com

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