SALT LAKE CITY — Joe Biden has released a video on his Catholic faith, written a column on his religious upbringing and taken breaks from campaigning to attend Mass.
But, according to a survey released last week by Pew Research Center, 39% of U.S. adults doubt he’s even a “somewhat” religious man.
The disconnect between Biden’s statements on faith and
voters’ assumptions should be familiar if you’ve paid attention to
Democratic Party politics over the past few decades. Candidates on the
left have long struggled to convince a sizable chunk of Americans that
they care about religion.
“I’ve met so many religious people around the country who
think that when they go to the ballot box they have to choose between
voting for the religious party, the GOP, and voting for the secular,
liberal party, the Democrats,” said Guthrie Graves-Fitzsimmons, a fellow
with the Faith and Progressive Policy Initiative at the Center for
American Progress.
This belief will likely become even more common as the
share of registered Democrats who identify as religiously unaffiliated —
which was at 28% in 2016 — grows. One-third of U.S. adults (33%) already believe religious “nones” have too much control over the Democratic Party, Pew reported last year.
“The candidates (in 2020) are up against a pretty strong
headwind in terms of people recognizing that Democrats can be religious
and are,” Graves-Fitzsimmons said.
But widespread doubt about their sincerity hasn’t stopped Biden and, to a lesser extent, Sen. Bernie Sanders,
I-Vt., from talking about faith. They’ve credited their religious
upbringings with inspiring their activism and promised to partner with
faith communities in the pursuit of their policy goals.
Temptation to stay quiet
John Carr, the founder and director of the Initiative on
Catholic Social Thought and Public Life at Georgetown University,
worries a growing group of “Democratic elites” would say, yes.
As the party has increased its outreach to religious nones, some leaders have expressed a desire to leave religious language behind.
“My sense is that Democratic elites think ... faith is less important to people than it really is,” Carr said.
Even Democrats who identify as religious or see the value
of religion in society sometimes think its best for candidates to
downplay their faith, Graves-Fitzsimmons said.
“We live in a pluralistic society and to some, (religious language) feels exclusive,” he said.
But sharing your own religious experience isn’t
inherently insulting to people who believe different things,
Graves-Fitzsimmons said. He highlighted Sanders’ comments about his
Jewish faith, noting that these comments on Judaism haven’t prevented
the candidate from forging strong bonds with the Muslim community.
“We shouldn’t try to keep religion out of the public
square. One of the things that makes America so special is the diversity
of our religious beliefs,” he said.
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