During the recent primary campaigns, more than one candidate was called on to make public statements about his religious beliefs. The question was raised often and specifically, by audiences who would not allow it to be shunted aside with a pro forma answer. There was much discussion in the media of the impropriety, even the “danger,” of injecting the element of religion into the political arena: it endangered, said the media, the “constitutional wall” between Church and State, which protects American democracy from the poisonous effect of religion; and, anyway, religion doesn’t belong in politics.
But injected it was. For politics is a terribly realistic art. And the candidates, who certainly do not waste their time on irrelevancies or risk their chances by speaking unnecessarily on dangerous issues, were quite forthcoming in their answers. Apparently the candidates, having tested the voters’ reactions, did not consider the subject either dangerous or irrelevant.
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