The Right Way to Cover the Intersection of Religion and Politics

On matters of spiritual faith and the public square, two concepts are embedded deeply in American history and law. The Constitution protects freedom of worship. So, too, does it enshrine the separation of church and state.

In principle, these two concepts are not merely compatible. They are mutually dependent — one ideal is impossible to sustain without the other.

In practice, however, these two foundational values jostle against each other in the political arena. The tension is natural. People typically get involved in politics and public policy debates because they properly believe there are strong moral dimensions to the choices. People’s sense of right and wrong often is shaped by religious conviction. Every important social movement in American history has been powered in part by this dynamic.

At the same time, in a democracy — filled with people of all faiths, as well as non-believers — politics and lawmaking is an emphatically earthly enterprise. No one gets to impose their wishes on others simply by asserting their confidence that heaven is on their side.

As a reporter who often reports about religious activists trying to shape legislative, regulatory and judicial decisions, I confront these questions often. To me, the answer is usually straightforward. Every person’s spiritual motivations are entitled to respect. Once these motivations take them onto the stage of politics and lawmaking that will affect the lives of fellow citizens, however, they will be treated the same as any other political actor.

That means they can expect journalistic scrutiny. They can expect fair and well-reported coverage of their political aims and the tactics used to advance them. They cannot expect exemption from criticism from people who oppose their agendas, nor any extra deference for their political words or actions simply because they are motivated by religious belief.

These principles — respect, but no special treatment — sound simple, but in the real world of political and investigative reporting things can become a bit complicated. I made them even more complicated during a recent television appearance when I touched on some of the same themes I am discussing here.

Due to some clumsy words, I was interpreted by some people as making arguments that are quite different from what I believe. The confusion from my words was compounded when they were wrested from the full context of my appearance. Excerpts of what I said were promoted widely in some political circles by some activists whose primary objection, I feel sure, was not my television appearance but my coverage in POLITICO about the tactics and agenda of political activists who subscribe to a philosophy they call “Christian Nationalism.”

Christianity is a religion. Christian Nationalism is a political movement. As I said on air, there is a big difference between the two.

Reporters have a responsibility to use words and convey meaning with precision, and I am sorry I fell short of this in my appearance. Among the passages that caused confusion was my attempt to draw a distinction between Christians and the small set of these people who advocate Christian Nationalism. “The thing that unites them as Christian nationalists,” I told MSNBC host Michael Steele, “is that they believe our rights as Americans and as all human beings do not come from any earthy authority. They don’t come from Congress, from the Supreme Court, they come from God.”

To state the obvious, the above is not a good definition of Christian Nationalism. Many people have views about our rights as Americans that would coincide with those of many of our nation’s founders. In my full remarks, I noted that many other individuals and groups on all sides of the political equation have cited natural law, including the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., who invoked the concept in his fight for civil rights. But, of course, the question of which policies and rights and values can be ascribed to natural law is in the eyes of the beholder.

The Declaration of Independence, of course, held that rights are not granted by government but that all people “are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable rights, that among those are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” The Constitution was drafted to give legal expression to the ideal of self-government and the inherent rights of all citizens. Separation of church and state is embodied in the Constitution, and there is no single religion endorsed by the government. The first lines of the preamble of the Constitution, “We the People,” indicate that our government derives its legitimacy from the consent of the governed.

Rather than elaborating on what I did not mean to say, I would rather make clear what I do believe.

The phenomenon of Christian nationalism may be relatively new but the larger questions it raises have been around for a long time. Any group of activists asserting a religious imprimatur for their policy agenda should be prepared to answer a couple questions:

One, are they respecting the American principle of separation of church and state? One cannot paint every individual in a movement with the same brush. Some Christian nationalists, however, have made plain in their public rhetoric that their aim is to blur or even erase this line. Given that some of these people have aligned themselves with Donald Trump’s effort to regain the presidency, their views and policy plans are inherently newsworthy.

Two, are they ready to play by the same rules that everyone in a democracy must as they try to influence our laws. In other words, making arguments and presenting evidence in a truthful and transparent way is part of the process of winning democratic consent.

No doubt some people feel so strongly in their views, and the righteousness of their position, that they would like to glide right over these questions.

My view as a reporter with 25 years of experience is that we have a responsibility to our audience to make sure the questions do get asked and answered with fair coverage. People who don’t like the coverage will sometimes complain that this represents bias against religion, but this simply is not the case. Those who complain must recognize that in a pluralistic society people on the other side of policy debates have religious or idealistic convictions every bit as sincere as their own. Neither side should try to assert that they have unique insight to represent God’s will, or that the other side is in opposition to that will.

I am a reporter, not a historian or theologian. But most Americans will recall that precisely these questions echoed in America’s greatest internal conflict. In his second inaugural address, Abraham Lincoln noted that people fighting for the Union and Confederacy “both read the same Bible and pray to the same God and each invokes His aid against the other. ... The prayers of both could not be answered — that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes.”

Lincoln’s words should echo with all people who properly bring their religious faith into the political arena. And they echo with me as a journalist who is going to keep reporting on political and policy debates that affect people — no matter what their religious orientation happens to be.