Over the past few weeks I have been tracking an intriguing trend: assorted presidential candidates are acknowledging that nonbelievers might actually be decent, patriotic Americans. The first raising-of-the-glass to the godless occurred a few weeks back. Mike Huckabee, under tough cross-examination by Tim Russert, asserted that “he wouldn't have any problem at all appointing atheists” to posts in his administration. “I probably had some working for me as governor,” he went on to observe. Who knew?
A few days later, Mitt Romney, while delivering a silver medal speech in New Hampshire, intoned: “Even those who don’t believe in God believe in something bigger than themselves.” Considering his rather ungenerous assessment of secularism in his “Faith in America” address, these kind words indicate that he wants the healing process to begin.
This brings us to the surging Barack Obama. Let me stress that his rhetoric on secularism is nowhere near as shrill as those of his GOP counterparts. I don’t get the sense that atheists and others have much to fear from him. Still, he can, when necessary, really pound out those Faith and Values themes in ways that will make some secularists uncomfortable.
It was for this reason that I found an aside he made on Martin Luther King Day refreshing, doubly so because it was pronounced in a church. “The believer condemns the non-believer as immoral,” said the junior Senator from Illinois, “and the non-believer chides the believer as intolerant." Obamalogists will recognize this as his vintage oratorical Two Step. Step one: posit a destructive dialectic in American society. Step two: insinuate that he will somehow bring about its resolution.
Most recently there was Huckabee making an unsolicited reference to nonbelievers during last week’s rather staid Republican debate: “The fact is, this country has always been a country where people were able to respect people who had faith. And frankly, we ought to be able to respect people who don't have any.”
Does all this mean that Huckabee staffers are perusing the website of the Center for Inquiry looking for talented atheists to fill future cabinet positions? Is Mitt Romney watching back episodes of Carl Sagan’s Cosmos on his campaign bus to better comprehend the naturalist world view? Of course not.
These unexpected tributes are not intended to garner the votes of nonbelievers. (Their numbers are not large enough to merit shameless pandering anyhow. And if you're Mike Huckabee you probably kind of already know that "The Brights" are impervious to your charms). My surmise is that these overtures should be seen as a defensive measure. All of the aforementioned candidates, especially Romney and Huck, have come to understand that outraging Secular America does have its drawbacks.
Nonbelievers are no mass constituency. But they are disproportionately influential in newsrooms, universities, the arts, the entertainment industries and, rumor has it, commenters on the On Faith page of WashingtonPost.com. Overplaying the Faith and Values cards tends to whip these not-voiceless folks into a frenzy
So one should see these reaching-out gestures for what they are: a (not necessarily unwelcome) ploy to get all those persnickety Church/State types to become less of a distraction than they have been so far.
Jacques Berlinerblau is the Rabbi Harold White Chair in Jewish Civilization in Georgetown's Walsh School of Foreign Service and senior advisor to the Center for Jewish Civilization, where he was director from 2006 to June 2020. Berlinerblau has published on a wide variety of issues ranging from the sociology of heresy and modern Jewish intellectuals to African-American and Jewish-American relations.
