Politicians can’t always keep their preachers on a leash

By Darrell Laurant

Published: May 13, 2008

Maybe there is something to this separation of church and state idea—especially if you happen to be running for president.

Ever since Richard Nixon embraced Billy Graham, it seems, there has been a temptation for nationally prominent politicians to seek out nationally prominent preachers. Perhaps they are hoping that a smile and a nod from one of them will be seen by the voters as an endorsement from God.

Such an endorsement would have to be unspoken, of course, since it was decreed that ministers could no longer publicly promote individual office-seekers and still keep their tax exemptions. But our own Rev. Jerry Falwell, may he rest in peace, developed the perfect end run around this obstacle.

“I can’t tell you who to vote for,” Jerry would say, “because that would be against the law. But I can tell you who I’m going to vote for ...”

The current presidential race, however, underlines what a Pandora’s box it can be when a candidate adopts a pet clergyman.

Even Falwell was not immune from an occasional case of foot in mouth disease, as when he blamed the September 11 terrorist attacks, in large part, on atheists, gays and the American Civil Liberties Union.

This was somewhat taken out of context, of course—what Falwell was actually saying was that he believed these groups had angered God, who then allowed 9-11 to happen. Still, the Thomas Road minister, of all people, should have been conscious of the power of a soundbite.

Certainly, Barack Obama has learned the hard way. His favorite minister, until recently, was the Rev. Jeremiah Wright of Trinity United Church of Christ on the South Side of Chicago. Wright married Barack and Michelle Obama, baptized their children, and preaches to them on the Sundays they happened to be in town.

“I don’t see anything particularly controversial about my church,” Obama said earlier this year.

That was before Wright thundered from the pulpit: “Blacks shouldn’t sing ‘God Bless America,’ they should sing ‘God Damn America!’” Like Falwell, he also theoirzed that we brought 9-11 on ourselves, albeit for different reasons.

Nothing new there—African-American church leaders have been saying similar things since before the Emancipation Proclamation. But that’s certainly not something Obama himself would declare, and by having aligned himself with Wright, he caught a lot of the blowback.

Similarly, John MCain appeared at a campaign rally in February with the Rev. Rod Parsley of the World Harvest Church in Columbus, OH. Later, we find out that Parsely believes in (and preaches in favor of) eradicating the religion of Islam. Not eradicating Muslim extremists, mind you, but the religion as a whole.

If McCain happens to get elected and is entrusted with managing America’s foreign policy, that comment could be dificult to explain to our Muslim allies.

There is one good reason why politicians and preachers don’t mix:

Politicians have to please (or fool) enough of the voters to get elected, which means they tend to avoid alientating large segments of the citizenry. Preachers must please only their own congregations (and, perhaps in their own mind, the Almighty).

For a politician, especially on the big stage, bringing such religious leaders to a campaign event has become like bringing a 4-year-old to a wedding. Everyone thinks it’s nice that you’ve brought them, but you never know what they’re going to say.