I believe I have a less common religious identity for a Republican. My father is Jewish and my mother Presbyterian, although she converted to Judaism when she married my father. Thus, I have been raised as a Jew, and although I consider myself non-practicing and rarely attend services, I am Jewish.
As such, I wanted to take a few moments to look at an extremely provocative piece written by Kristen Soltis over at The Next Right on the role of God and religion in the Republican Party. The piece has received a multitude of comments spanning the entire spectrum of possible opinions – and rightfully so, because the questions she raises are immensely important when looking to the future of the Republican Party. Kristen writes:
So since we’re in a spiritual time of the year, what better a time to do some serious reflection on the role that Christianity should play in the Republican Party? For the GOP to position itself as an exclusive club for the devoutly evangelical is to forfeit elections for years to come. But is there a place for God in the Republican Party?
Yes. Absolutely.
…Yet we as a party have painted ourselves into a corner. Part of driving a “base strategy” means too often we’ve turned religion into a divider instead of a uniter. We’ve focused on the aspects of Christianity that fracture while all but ignoring what Republican policies can do to make sure Americans can afford to buy a Christmas tree, to have a roof over their head and a healthy family to celebrate with.
I wanted to share my perspective on this because my extended paternal family is Jewish, not especially religious, and almost without exception registered and reliable Democrats. Almost all of them voted for Barack Obama, and I must admit that many of my family members were quite shocked to find out I was a staffer for Senator Santorum’s campaign in 2006.
Since I can remember, I knew the Republican Party was naturally my party because we shared the same core values: the GOP is the party of freedom, prosperity, and individual liberty. It embraces Israel as our closest ally. It is pro-business and pro-growth. What fascinates me is that on these issues, my family and I agree; yet I am a Republican and they are Democrats. Kristen says that the GOP should “absolutely” have a place for God; I don’t disagree, and neither would any of my family members.
So why, then, are Jewish families like mine so inclined to vote Democratic? I admit that many of my family members are socially moderate or socially liberal, but like me, they for the most part don’t vote on social issues. Instead, when I pose this question to them, they respond by telling me that they see the Republican Party as a party built around the sort of “narrow set of ‘Christian values’” that Kristen outlines in her post – the kind that focus “on the aspects of Christianity that fracture” – and for that reason they will not vote Republican.
I’m not arguing whether the Republican Party is actually built around these types of values; I’m merely making an observation. However, if we want to rebuild the GOP and get back to winning, we must find a way to defeat these incredibly damaging perceptions. Kristen concludes her piece by “encourag[ing] Republicans to remember that there’s a lot more to the Christian faith than the hot-button issues that we’re told drive religious voters.” If we want to expand our base and look to the future, then this recognition must play a crucial role in building a winning Republican coalition.
Last 5 posts by Aaron Marks
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- The Youth Vote and the 2009 Elections - November 6th, 2009
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Ms. Soltis is absolutely right in her analysis. The religious community, whether left or right in orientation, embrace some positive values that can be utilized in political campaigns. The GOP needs to promote religious diversity (including secularists) within its ranks, and return to an embrace of federalism. In the Republican Party, the government furthest from the individual should govern least.
Dr. Rick Warren is set to give the invocation at Barack Obama’s inauguration. The President-elect understands the value of promoing the commonalities embraced by otherwise divergent religious communities. Republicans need to do more to show that they understand the same.
The problem with the Republican Party is not religion. Religion has made the Republican Party competitive in national elections. The Democrats have a problem with religion. They are the ones who are narrow on this subject. The Republicans problem is Bush. I am not one to scapegoat, but he is the reason people hate the party. People were fine when the party was religious. Sure there are some people who have problems with religion, but they are a minority.
Bush spent too much (which is the opposite of conservative) and had a horrible policy in Iraq for 4 years until he finally saw that his strategy was not working. Of course, it took a massive Republican loss in the congress for him to finally see this. He is embarrassing. Maybe one day we will be able to look back on him and say he was a good president, but that will not be for a long time. In the mean time our party is in shambles because of his poor leadership.
The domination of what you’re calling “religion” (which is actually hard-lined social conservative single issue voters) is what has now made us entirely uncompetitive.
The base’s far end is going to have to realize that there is an appropriate way to court certain voters. Moderates, minorities, independents, and the educated aren’t running to a single issue.
The base is the new minority and as such will have to get used to a changing message.
Ali, thanks for stopping by to comment!
I think someone missed the pro Israel part of the blog.
Jews by origin (what you’re calling nationality) (which is a definition by the UN… in what? 1987 or something… something not recognized by intellectual people of faith like myself) still vote Democrat.
Faith and all this hogwash have nothing to do with the issue being discussed on Aaron’s blog. I would strongly encourage you to read the blog instead of Aaron’s faith.
I saw your comment on Twitter.
Aaron, as a person whose parents were Jewish, I’ve been terribly frustrated by how the majorities of Jews vote overwhelmingly for Dems. I agree with your assessment of why. A friend of mine, who knows I’m conservative kinda yelled at me just before the election to “stay of her bedroom” and how the Republican Party has been “taken over” by the “Religious Right.”
We must be able to reach out to all minorities, as well as young people.
There is no such thing as a single issue voter (certainly not a significant percentage of the Republican voting block). I have never met one and I run nearly exclusively in Christian social conservative circles. I only hear that term used to demean others. It is a boogy man invented by people who don’t like other peoples politics and so someone came up with that term to make them look stupid and shallow.
If there are single issue voters…what is the issue? How come we hear about this magical issue everyone comes out to vote for, but we never hear what the issue actually is? Is it abortion? If it is, I guarantee there are more single issue voters on the liberal side of that issue, than on the conservative side.
Even if single issue voters do exist (and they do not), it has nothing to do with what has happened to our party. It wasn’t the single issue voters who set the Iraq policy or decided to deficit spend like there was no tomorrow. They certainly aren’t responsible for the credit crisis. Lol. By definition, they only have one issue, so they wouldn’t care about those things. Those decisions were pushed by other wings in the party.
There are certain people who just hate Christianity and they will do anything to blame for this or that. In this case, the demise of the Republican Party, it is not true and it is a red herring to distract us from our real problems which were Iraq, corruption, and the Bush spending policy.
I too have older Jewish relatives. They have admitted the reason they favor the Democrat Party over the Republican Party is because the DNC platform sees Jews as a minority group and eligible for government hand outs. Whereas the GOP protects individual freedom as opposed to “group rights”.
The right Republicans, Conservatives, build their platform on the same beliefs as our Founding Fathers and they derived their foundation from their Judeo Christian knowledge and beliefs.
Nowhere in our foundation or in the Conservative framework are Jews set apart or a narrow set of Christian values applied.
If there were no Jews, if there were no Old Testament, (Torah), there would be no Christianity.
As example, John Hagee ; Christian Evangelical Pastor, leading evangelical Conservative, recognizes Israel as our fundament and has formed Christians United for Israel.
It is a national association that promotes and supports Israel financially, and politically.
If your family understand Conservatives by what they do and not what was said about them they may have a different opinion.
Conservatives have not set Jews apart, they have set themselves apart. It is time for your family to join those who respect and care for them and do not adulterate their faith.