This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Oct. 7, 2011 - The uncivil discourse in Washington seems to be getting snarkier by the week. On the evening of Oct. 10 one of American's top political analysts, E.J. Dionne Jr., takes on that issue in a talk he's calling "Can Religion and Politics Make Us More Civil and Not Just Angry?" The event gets under way at 7:30 p.m. at Washington University's Graham Chapel.
Dionne's talk is the first Graham Chapel event sponsored by The John C. Danforth Center for Religion & Politics. The center at Washington University was announced a couple years ago by the former U.S. senator, Missouri politician and Episcopal priest for whom it's named. His family's Danforth Foundation -- shuttered early this year -- donated a $30 million endowment to start the Danforth Center.
Danforth was known internationally for, among other things, his St. Louis good manners -- much higher standards than basic civility. The moderate Republican had strong friendships across the Senate aisle with many Democrats, especially fellow Missourian, the late Sen. Thomas Eagleton. The equally well-mannered Eagleton often said the two men had a lot more in common (including being deeply religious and alumni of Country Day School) than they had issues that divided them. Each Missourian was independent and secure enough to occasionally vote with the other's party.
More than a half year before the new center was announced, Jack Danforth and Washington University formed a partnership with the Brookings Institution in Washington. Dionne is one of several Brookings senior fellows who have been helping "plant" the new center over the past two years. The center formally welcomed its first full-time director, R. Marie Griffith, this term. She and her husband, Leigh Eric Schmidt, left Harvard University to take the post. Their three young children and her parents also moved here.
Faith is important to Dionne, a French-American Catholic, who grew up in Rhode Island, attended Benedictine Portsmouth Priory School before heading 90 minutes north to Harvard College. After graduating from Harvard summa cum laude, he was a Rhodes Scholar. He worked for 14 years for the New York Times reporting from Beirut, Paris, Rome and New York. Religion intersected many of his stories. While in Rome, he won praise for his in-depth Vatican coverage. He joined the Washington Post 21 years ago.
Dionne and his wife Mary Boyle live in suburban Maryland with their three children James, 19; Julia, 17; and Margot, 14. The eldest attends Harvard, where he plays baseball. In a recent interview with the Beacon, Dionne described his life as having "three kids and three jobs."
The three day jobs are senior fellow at Brookings, professor of Foundations of Democracy and Culture at Georgetown and twice-weekly syndicated columnist for the Washington Post.
He's hard to miss on the airwaves. His observations on the American politics and trends, often spiced with a gentle, easy wit, are heard in frequent commentaries on NPR, PBS, NBC's Meet the Press, and other news analysis programs. Years ago, he debated Ralph Reed, leader of the Christian Moral Majority movement on the role of religion and politics. His experiences examining the faded Moral Majority movement and how shifting religious views altered nationally politics were in his 2009 book, "Souled Out: Reclaiming Faith and Politics after the Religious Right."
We spoke with Dionne recently. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
In your 2009 book "Souled Out," you said what you called the unjust, rude exploitation of faith for political advantage by the Christian Coalition era was over. In these first few months of the 2012 campaign have you seen that happen, other changes?
E.J. Dionne Jr.: What I wrote about did not happened as quickly as I thought it would, partly because of the economic downturn. The story I probably will tell in the Danforth Center talk is that we always think that whatever we experience is the way it always has been -- and always will be.
A long time before 1978-80 and the rise of the Moral Majority, religion had had a big play. Back in 1928-32, for example. In those elections the culture wars were about prohibition and whether Catholics should be president when (New York Gov.) Al Smith ran.
I read a footnote in a book about Jim Farley (former Coca-Cola president and Democratic National Committee chairman who helped Franklin D. Roosevelt) that a man from Missouri wrote him saying it seemed everyone was arguing whether or not candidates were "wets" (promoting legal beer, wine and liquor sales) or "drys."
The man from Missouri wrote that people couldn't afford to buy liquor anyway. A similar thing happened in the 2008 elections. The culture war issues receded because of the economic mess and reaction against the Iraq War. The old abortion issue and the gay rights issues were there. But they were not in the forefront.
Conservative Evangelicals have been a permanent constituency within the Republican Party but younger Evangelical Christians are less hostile about many culture war issues, though they are just as pro-life as older ones. For example, they are somewhat more sympathetic to the poor, more sympathetic about immigration and more sympathetic about gays.
Brookings did a report on an early August poll "What it Means to Be American - Attitudes in an Increasingly Diverse America Ten Years after 9/11." Among the younger evangelicals , and younger Catholics, polled there's a broader agenda, because younger people have had gays as friends in high school. Young evangelicals have been engaged on issues of AIDS in Africa. And they're also more engaged on domestic poverty, the environment and immigration.
In that August poll (a random telephone poll sample of 2,450) nearly 6-in-10 (58 percent) and even higher among the Millennials, (between 18 and 29 years of age), nearly two-thirds, say the growing number of immigrants strengthens American society. Among seniors, a slim majority (51 percent) say the growing number of newcomers threatens traditional American customs and values.
Their volunteer work on these issues does not turn evangelicals into liberals but broadens their interests in other issues. Younger Catholic women tend to be more progressive than younger Catholic men, we found.
Some Christians look at a Jesus as someone who changed their lives. Others see Jesus as a person who changed the world. For some of these younger evangelicals and Catholics, Jesus did both.
So, I think dialogue about religion and politics will be different in the future, If you ask if evangelicals will vote Republican, most of them probably yes. But they won't have exactly the same kind of views as the more conservative Republicans. They'll be more centrists on some issues.
How can these more compassionate ideas of young evangelicals change the culture debate in politics?
Dionne: In my talk I will say that we have to find ways to turn the religious connection between people to help us have good dialogues, not simply just yell at each other. That's what too many are doing now.
I think that more and more political parties have invaded the religious space. Sometimes the political party seems more important to some people than faith. I can be guilty of this. We are all sinners, but I think religious people can come together.
In my Catholic parish, The Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament in Washington, I have seen it work.
We are a very politically diverse parish. At one point or another, Bill Bennett, Ted Kennedy, Pat Buchanan, Mark Shields, Chris Matthews and Cokie Roberts have all been members of Blessed Sacrament. We may disagree about some things but we share so many important things.
We are very civil. That does not mean we are being wimpy and so open-minded that we are not strongly taking our own sides. You can have knowledgeable conversations and disagree and learn from each other.
The second thing is that, in principal, Christians, Jews and Muslims all have a very strong imperative to do things that would lift up the poor. (Evangelical minister and Sojourners Magazine editor) Jim Wallis says we all must help the poor. What we need to do is share our opinions on how we all ought to help them.
Abortion is one of the most difficult of these culture war questions. We may not agree on it in principle. We can come together talking about what kind of support we might give women who are pregnant so it can be easier for them not to have an abortion. We can work together to help instead of simply yelling. If we better supported people bringing kids into the world, we might make abortion less prevalent.
Do you think most Americans outside of Massachusetts, Utah and Idaho are willing to vote for a Mormon like former Mass. Gov. George Romney or former U.S. Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman?
Dionne: There is still some anti-Mormon feeling in the country. There are many white evangelicals who don't consider Mormons Christians. I think the Romney factor still exists among evangelicals in Iowa, but there is a movement in our August poll that seems some of the 2007 anti-Mormonism is abating.
The question will be the same this time as the last time Romney ran.
I think prejudice tends to die out over time. (President John) Kennedy had it easier in '60 after 1956 when he campaigned for the vice presidential slot on the ticket. And he had it easier in '56 than (Al) Smith did in 1928.
Approval of Mormons among Republicans overall stands at 74 percent, 9 points higher than among Democrats, according to the poll. It's 69 percent among conservatives and 78 percent among those who call themselves members of the tea party.
It's 66 percent among white evangelicals - slightly lower than for Republicans and the country as a whole, but still high.
(Pulling out something he wrote four years ago about Romney, Dionne said:)
The one thing Romney cannot do to put the Mormon issue aside is to say that religion shouldn't matter in politics, since so many of those whose votes he seeks believe otherwise. Romney thus speaks often about faith, but in very general terms. "The values of my faith are much like, or are identical to, the values of other faiths that have a Judeo-Christian philosophical background," he said. "They're American values, if you will."
Because the Republican Party is so saturated with religion ... Romney cannot do what so many have suggested he must: give the equivalent of John F. Kennedy's 1960 speech to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association in which JFK tried to push aside concerns over his Roman Catholicism.
Recall that Kennedy said his professed religious beliefs would have nothing to do with how he governed. "I believe in a president whose views on religion are his own private affair," Kennedy said. But the religious conservative movement believes, on principle, that religious faith cannot be a "private affair," that faith necessarily shapes a politician's views on public issues. To win votes from the religious right while pushing the Mormon issue aside, Romney therefore has to say that religion matters a great deal -- and also that it doesn't.
The issues around Trinity United Church of Christ pastor Jeremiah A. Wright were risky for President Barack Obama in the last presidential election. Has the fact that he and his family avoided joining a church in Washington but worship mostly at Camp David had any effect on Americans perception of him?
Dionne: He goes to church. I'd like to see Obama talk more about religion. When he does it, he does it really well. His call to renewal in 2006 was one of his best speeches. It's a useful thing to talk about when it shapes what a politician is going to do in public office.
That does not mean they need to talk about details of every church doctrine. They just need to talk about how faith helps them act on poverty issues, foreign policy, immigration and other issues like capitol punishment.
We should talk more about faith in public life.
When (Obama) talks about his faith, he tends to talk about religion in unifying ways. He simply insists that liberals need to be more open about the right to believe. We live in a free and pluralistic society, with believers and non-believers.
Obama talks in a very Jack-Danforth way about these religious questions, Not a Republican way and not Democratic way. His way is similar to the senator's (Danforth) kind of inclusive thoughtfulness.
You know Sen. Danforth and the Brookings Institution have been partnering on the start-up of the Center for Religion & Politics. Have you met its new director R. Marie Griffith?
Dionne: I think Marie is a really good choice as director. I've never met her but I know her reputation. She's able to reach out to a wide group. I look forward to meeting her.
I'm very fond of Wayne (Fields, the Washington University professor) who ran the center in the beginning while they did the search for a permanent director. Wayne only meant to be there until a national search found a permanent director.
I always wanted it to get off the ground. Brookings has a cooperative relationship with Danforth. The senator's a great person. He was very much part of the works on a series of volumes we did with dialogues about where religious convictions affect public views. He worked with Bill Galston of the Task Force on Religion and Public Values, Melissa Rogers, executive director, Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, and me.
I've been to St. Louis but not for years, except maybe flying in for a presidential debate. I last really visited in 1993 during the big Flood. We went to friends' wedding. Our son James was a baby. He's in college now. We went to see the Arch and the Mississippi River was almost at the base of the Arch. I look forward to seeing St. Louis again.
Patricia Rice is a freelance writer who has covered religion for many years.