• Home
  • Opinion
  • Quizzes
  • Redistricting
  • Sections
  • About Us
  • Voting
  • Independent Voter News
  • Campaign Finance
  • Civic Ed
  • Directory
  • Election Dissection
  • Events
  • Fact Check
  • Glossary
  • News
  • Analysis
  • Subscriptions
  • Log in
Leveraging Our Differences
  • news & opinion
    • Big Picture
      • Civic Ed
      • Ethics
      • Leadership
      • Leveraging big ideas
      • Media
    • Business & Democracy
      • Corporate Responsibility
      • Impact Investment
      • Innovation & Incubation
      • Small Businesses
      • Stakeholder Capitalism
    • Elections
      • Campaign Finance
      • Independent Voter News
      • Redistricting
      • Voting
    • Government
      • Balance of Power
      • Budgeting
      • Congress
      • Judicial
      • Local
      • State
      • White House
    • Justice
      • Accountability
      • Anti-corruption
      • Budget equity
    • Columns
      • Beyond Right and Left
      • Civic Soul
      • Congress at a Crossroads
      • Cross-Partisan Visions
      • Democracy Pie
      • Our Freedom
  • Pop Culture
      • American Heroes
      • Ask Joe
      • Celebrity News
      • Comedy
      • Dance, Theatre & Film
      • Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging
      • Faithful & Mindful Living
      • Music, Poetry & Arts
      • Sports
      • Technology
      • Your Take
      • American Heroes
      • Ask Joe
      • Celebrity News
      • Comedy
      • Dance, Theatre & Film
      • Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging
      • Faithful & Mindful Living
      • Music, Poetry & Arts
      • Sports
      • Technology
      • Your Take
  • events
  • About
      • Mission
      • Advisory Board
      • Staff
      • Contact Us
Sign Up
  1. Home>
  2. Balance of Power>
  3. trump administration>

How Trump is using religion to undermine our democracy

Austin Sarat
June 19, 2020
President Donald Trump at St. John's Church

President Trump "has played politics with religion in a way that damages America's democratic norms and practices," writes Amherst College professor Austin Sarat.

Brendan Smialowski/Getty Images
Sarat is a professor of jurisprudence and political science at Amherst College.

The country has been consumed with a pandemic, an economic collapse and an uprising in the name of racial justice. But instead of rising to the challenge of addressing these colossal problems, President Trump has helped make freedom of religion a battlefront in the fight to stop the spread of Covid-19 and in the response to the killing of George Floyd.

He has played politics with religion in a way that damages America's democratic norms and practices.

In March, Trump called for the reopening of the national economy and places of worship by Easter, citing the symbolic significance of the Christian holiday.

In April, he met with conservative religious leaders and praised evangelical minister Franklin Graham for declaring the coronavirus "is a result of a fallen world, a world that has turned its back on God."

In May, the president highlighted the political dimension of his religious messaging when he said churches "are not being treated with respect by a lot of the Democrat governors." Playing to the fault lines of America's culture wars, he also criticized officials who have "deemed liquor stores and abortion clinics as essential, but have left out churches and other houses of worship."

And then on June 1, after tear gas and brute force moved peaceful protesters out of his way, the president walked from the White House to St. John's Church so he could be photographed awkwardly holding a Bible. That provoked a firestorm of criticism, but little of it focused on the ramifications for American democracy of a president's political use of religion during a national crisis.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

Wariness about that kind of mixing of religion and politics has been a critical component of America's democratic experiment right from the start.

It is enshrined in the First Amendment's prohibition of the "establishment of religion" and its guarantee of religious liberty, and in the clause of the Constitution specifying that "no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust."

It also marked George Washington's presidency. His speeches contained many references to an "Almighty Being," or "the Benign Parent of the human race." Yet, believing it to be a danger to democracy, Washington opposed merging religion and public life.

Since then, American presidents have been more or less open about their religious beliefs — and their commitment to separating religion and politics.

Theodore Roosevelt offered one of the most explicit examples in 1908. "To discriminate against a thoroughly upright citizen because he belongs to some particular church," he told supporters who wanted to make a campaign issue of his opponent's religion, "is an outrage against the liberty of conscience which is one of the foundations of American life."

Confronting such bigotry a half century later, John F. Kennedy, campaigning to be the first Roman Catholic president, assured voters that "I do not speak for my church on public matters, and the church does not speak for me."

Amid such cautions, religious leaders for much of the 20th century played key roles in various movements seeking to build a more equal and inclusive society — just as they had a century earlier in the struggle against slavery.

Yet today the politicization of religious differences is much greater, complicating faith communities' efforts to avoid partisan entanglements. Polarization and tribalism now dominate American politics and have taken on a religious flavor.

A 2016 survey uncovered stark partisan differences among members of different religious groups. It found that the Democratic Party attracts voters from various spiritual backgrounds, while the Republican Party is an increasingly theological party, dominated by white evangelicals.

And not only do adherents of different religions align themselves with different parties these days; they treat one another as enemies who threaten their faith.

Many Democrats see what they call Christian "nationalism" as antithetical to "the vital interests of the country." In turn, some Christian leaders describe contemporary Democratic leaders as the "greatest threat to the free exercise of religion in American history" because they are "attacking the foundation of America's goodness."

The institutions of democracy are endangered by such intense religious entanglements and deep religious chasms, because they are ill-equipped to resolve conflicts over life's ultimate questions. Moreover, respect for procedure and the spirit of compromise that democracy requires cannot thrive when each side in a political debate sees the other as a danger to their deepest values.

This is the context in which the president's stoking of religious animosities has occurred. It helps explain why Trump's photo op two weeks ago was so significant.

The event's iconography intensified polarization and endangered democracy. And it suggested an alarming presidential point of view: People protesting police brutality and systemic racism, in the aftermath of Floyd's death under the knee of a Minneapolis officer, were like the Democratic governors Trump has reviled for refusing to open churches during the pandemic. They would defile religion if not contained — despite the fact that some of the people forcibly removed from the area were parishioners of the very church where the president posed.

By politicizing religion throughout this period of pandemic and protest, Trump is following the lead of authoritarian leaders in other nations by using "religion to reinforce his image as a strongman defending a particular brand of tradition against infidels."

James Madison alerted Americans to the threat that mixing religion and politics would pose for their fledgling democracy. "A zeal for different opinions concerning religion," he wrote in 1787, "divided mankind into parties, inflamed them with mutual animosity, and rendered them much more disposed to vex and oppress each other than to cooperate for their common good."

The warning rings true today: To use religion to divide Americans is to fail to "cooperate for their common good." If Trump genuinely wishes to build on religious precepts in a way that does not damage democracy, he would do well to heed the commandment to love thy neighbor as thyself.

From Your Site Articles
  • Christian groups unite to push Golden Rule during the coming ... ›
  • President Trump, Congress and broken standards of democracy ... ›
  • How Trump is turning the presidency into a dictatorship - The Fulcrum ›
  • Can democratic innovations reduce polarization? - The Fulcrum ›
  • How our democracy eroded into a partisan power game - The Fulcrum ›
  • Podcast: when religion and Democracy collide - The Fulcrum ›
  • Religious freedom matters but so does public health - The Fulcrum ›
  • We need to weave shared rituals into our daily lives - The Fulcrum ›
  • Podcast: The rise of "Fortress MAGA" - The Fulcrum ›
  • Podcast: It's Donald Trump's party, again - The Fulcrum ›
Related Articles Around the Web
  • Americans' Views on Trump, Religion and Politics | Pew Research ... ›
  • Trump Brings Religion Into the Coronavirus Culture War - The Atlantic ›
  • President Trump's faith: He mocks the prayers of others, but his own ... ›
  • What are Donald Trump's religious beliefs? - CNNPolitics ›
trump administration

Want to write
for The Fulcrum?

If you have something to say about ways to protect or repair our American democracy, we want to hear from you.

Submit
Get some Leverage Sign up for The Fulcrum Newsletter
Confirm that you are not a bot.
×
Follow

Support Democracy Journalism; Join The Fulcrum

The Fulcrum daily platform is where insiders and outsiders to politics are informed, meet, talk, and act to repair our democracy and make it live and work in our everyday lives. Now more than ever our democracy needs a trustworthy outlet

Contribute
Contributors

To advance racial equity, policy makers must move away from the "Black and Brown" discourse

Julio A. Alicea

Policymakers must address worsening civil unrest post Roe

Sarah K. Burke

Video: How to salvage U.S. democracy from the "tyranny of the minority"

Our Staff

What "Progress" should look like, and what we get wrong

Damien De Pyle

The long kiss goodnight: Nancy Pelosi and the protracted decay of public office

Kevin Frazier

Demanding corporate responsibility for food system challenges

C.Anne Long
latest News

The show must go on

Amy Lockard
14h

Constitution Day conversation with Jamie Raskin: Preserving democracy today and tomorrow

Rick LaRue
Jamie Raskin
15h

Meet the Faces of Democracy: Stephen Richer

Michael Beckel
Ariana Rojas
20 September

The alchemy of laughter

Pedro Silva
20 September

Work/family balance should be a top tier policy area

Dave Anderson
20 September

Learning to make “the right call” in the right moments

Lisa Kay Solomon
19 September
Videos
Video: Expert baffled by Trump contradicting legal team

Video: Expert baffled by Trump contradicting legal team

Our Staff
Video: Do white leaders hinder black aspirations?

Video: Do white leaders hinder black aspirations?

Our Staff
Video: How to prepare for student loan repayments returning

Video: How to prepare for student loan repayments returning

Our Staff
Video: The history of Labor Day

Video: The history of Labor Day

Our Staff
Video: Trump allies begin to flip as prosecutions move forward

Video: Trump allies begin to flip as prosecutions move forward

Our Staff
Video Rewind: Trans-partisan practices and the "superpower of respect"

Video Rewind: Trans-partisan practices and the "superpower of respect"

Our Staff
Podcasts

Podcast: How states hold fair elections

Our Staff
14 September

Podcast: The MAGA Bubble, Bidenonmics and Playing the Victim

Debilyn Molineaux
David Riordan
12 September

Podcast: Defending the founding principles of our government

Our Staff
07 September

Podcast: The continuing effects of summer heat and student loan repayments

Our Staff
05 September
Recommended
The show must go on

The show must go on

Big Picture
To advance racial equity, policy makers must move away from the "Black and Brown" discourse

To advance racial equity, policy makers must move away from the "Black and Brown" discourse

Big Picture
Constitution Day conversation with Jamie Raskin: Preserving democracy today and tomorrow

Constitution Day conversation with Jamie Raskin: Preserving democracy today and tomorrow

Big Picture
Meet the Faces of Democracy: Stephen Richer

Meet the Faces of Democracy: Stephen Richer

State
The alchemy of laughter

The alchemy of laughter

Comedy
Work/family balance should be a top tier policy area

Work/family balance should be a top tier policy area

Contributors