Bill -

I posted this on Blake's site, but i wanted to post it here as well - this is an interesting issue - faith and politics

A few points come to mind - in the article Gary Bauer states that Christians now want their leaders' decisions to be informed by religious authority. However, this seems to only be the case in terms of some social issues - these include abortion, gay rights etc... At other times, conservatives have openly defied the views of religious authority - consider for example President Bush's adversarial relationship with the Pope regarding the invasion of Iraq. The Pope was openly against the invasion – and conservative American Catholics stood with the president against Rome. In this case conservative American Catholics were Republicans first and Catholics second.

The Vatican has been very critical of the current US occupation of Iraq on several occasions, but American Catholics have largely ignored or dismissed the Church on these issues.

Consider also that President Bush has stood in opposition to his own United Methodist Church on several occasions regarding foreign policy.

So it appears that church going folks want their leaders to consider their religious views with regard to social issues but not matters related to war and foreign policy.

Speak of the devil -

Here is a headline from today's news to illustrate my point.

Don't forget Roy Moore.

I have a "religion gap" 6 days a week.

Great minds, great minds. I blogged about the gap a few days ago and asked a series of questions of my commenters. I wanted to know why church goers tend to vote for Repubs and non-goers for Dems. Several people pointed out that the gap is actually along the lines of race more than religion. Blacks who profess Christ tend to vote for Dems; white who profess Christ tend to vote for Repubs. Unscientific, but interesting.