Faith politics in America is seldom boring

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This article was published 25/07/2024 (445 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Here in Canada, the faith of political leaders is no big deal. We know that both Justin Trudeau and Pierre Poilievre were raised Catholic, Jagmeet Singh is Sikh and Elizabeth May is Anglican. But beyond that, there’s little interest in how often they go to religious services or what role faith plays in their political decisions.

Not so in the U.S., where the faith of politicians is a very big deal. Which prompts the question: Now that Kamala Harris is the presumptive Democratic Party candidate for president, what is her faith background?

In an article in Religion News Service (RNS), Yonat Shimron wrote that Harris was raised Hindu by her mother but was often taken as a girl to 23rd Avenue Church of God in Oakland, California, by her neighbour, along with her sister, Maya.

In a 2020 interview with Interfaith America, Harris spoke of attending that church where she sang in the children’s choir. “That’s where I formed some of my earliest memories of the Bible’s teachings. It’s where I learned that ‘faith’ is a verb and that we must live it, and show it, in action,” she said.

As an adult, Harris joined Third Baptist Church of San Francisco, led by the Rev. Amos Brown, who studied under Martin Luther King Jr.

Harris has traced her belief in the importance of public service to the parable of the good Samaritan “and other biblical teachings about looking out for our neighbors,” as she put it in a 2020 RNS interview.

She added: “The God I have always believed in is a loving God, a God who asks us to serve others and speak up for others, especially those who are not wealthy or powerful.”

Harris also has roots in the civil rights movement, noting she was involved through her parents at an early age. “Marching for civil rights, my parents pushed me in a stroller. That was faith in action,” she said at the National Baptist Convention annual meeting in 2022.

She elaborated on that idea by praising clergy who had been leaders in the civil rights movement in the U.S. They were people, she said who “following the teachings of Christ, built coalitions of people of all faiths and races and walks of life, because they understood and knew the importance of the collective.”

In 2014, she married Douglas Emhoff, who is Jewish. Her Jewish and Hindu roots have been on display over the past few years as the couple lights Hanukkah candles at their residence, as well as celebrating Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights.

Her inter-religious make-up is what strikes some observers in the U.S. as being in touch with current times.

“She represents a lot of Americans’ religious story, because here’s the thing: Nobody grows up in a straight line with religion in America anymore,” said Anthea Butler, a professor of religion at the University of Pennsylvania.

Brian Pennington, who directs the Center for the Study of Religion, Culture and Society at Elon University in North Carolina and is an expert on South Asian religion, told RNS that students in his courses who come from one religious tradition are becoming rare. “These days, they have multiple influences that inform their spiritual ideas and identities,” he said.

As for Harris, “she speaks about these multiple influences so comfortably and seamlessly as if they’re all just part of her story that informs who she is,” he said, adding “it’s not at all hard to imagine that (Harris’) personal religious and spiritual history would speak to younger Americans who demographically have much more experience of this kind of religious diversity in their families and backgrounds than older Americans.”

Added Eboo Patel, founder and president of Interfaith America, about Harris’ interfaith marriage: “It’s a positive diversity story for America, for people from different religious backgrounds to be married to each other and to say, my experience with the other person’s faith strengthens my own and makes me a better person.”

Their interfaith marriage is also a good sign in polarizing times in the U.S, Patel said. “I think it’s an important thing that is on display on the national stage in this way. It is a display of diversity being an American treasure, and it’s a display of identity being a source of pride and a display of faith being a bridge of cooperation. I think that those are all very important.”

Harris isn’t the only person in the race for the White House to have an interfaith story. J.D. Vance, the Republican Party’s vice-presidential nominee, attended a Pentecostal church as a child but became an atheist after serving in the military and attending university. In 2014 he married Usha Chilukuri, a Hindu, and in 2019 converted to Catholicism — he has spoken about how she has made his Catholic faith stronger.

Over the next few months, there will be much more to explore about religion and politics in the U.S., including what critics say is an effort by the Republicans to infuse the government and society with conservative Christian values through Project 2025. If nothing else, when it comes to faith politics in America is seldom boring.

faith@freepress.mb.ca

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