{"id":48,"date":"2008-05-14T14:16:17","date_gmt":"2008-05-14T14:16:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/05\/the-religification-of-john-mcc.html"},"modified":"2008-05-14T14:16:17","modified_gmt":"2008-05-14T14:16:17","slug":"the-religification-of-john-mcc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/05\/the-religification-of-john-mcc.html","title":{"rendered":"The Religification of John McCain"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reprinted from Wall Street Journal Online.<\/a>
\nWhile Barack Obama was trying to vanquish Hillary Clinton, John McCain has been focused on a challenging target of his own: religious conservative voters.
\nHe\u2019s always had a mixed relationship with evangelicals, heretofore a key part of the Republican base. Apparently his decision in 2000 to call Christian leaders \u201cagents of intolerance\u201d did not succeed in winning them over. Go figure.
\nHis efforts in 2008 to make amends have been somewhat inept, as when he declared that the Constitution established the U.S. as a Christian nation or sought the endorsement of controversial figures like John Hagee. (Hagee Tuesday tried to make peace with Catholics by distancing himself from his own longstanding theological position that the Catholic Church was the \u201cgreat whore.\u201d He has not retracted his anti-Muslim or anti-gay comments.)
\nLast week, Sen. McCain tried again, pledging to appoint conservative judges and combat \u201cmoral relativism.\u201d
\nBut Sen. McCain would be wise to remember that it was not, as Democrats often assume, George Bush\u2019s position on issues like abortion and gay rights that mostly won over Christian voters. It was his personal faith narrative. He cast himself as a ne\u2019er-do-well drunk who turned his life around through his faith.
\nSen. McCain has a powerful faith narrative, too \u2013 how his faith helped him through his POW experience \u2013 but in the past has been reluctant to talk much about his spiritual life. There are signs that he\u2019s trying to come out of his spiritual closet.
\nThe most dramatic example was his Christmas ad, run before the New Hampshire primary, in which he described a powerful moment during his time as a prisoner of war when a guard had briefly loosened the ropes from Sen. McCain\u2019s arm and drew a cross on the dirt.
\nThe decision to use this moment in a campaign ad is interesting in itself. Just as telling is a subtle differences between how Sen. McCain told the story of this \u201cGood Samaritan\u201d in his 1999 memoir, \u201cFaith of My Fathers,\u201d and how he told it in the ad.
\nIn his book, he wrote: \u201cWe both stood wordlessly looking at the cross until, after a minute or two, he rubbed it out and walked away. I saw my good Samaritan often after the Christmas when we venerated the cross together.\u201d
\nIn the ad, he said: \u201cWe stood wordlessly looking at the cross, remembering the true light of Christmas. I will never forget that no matter where you are, no matter how difficult the circumstances, there will always be someone who will pick you up.\u201d
\nIs it possible that the addition of the phrase, \u201cremembering the true light of Christmas,\u201d was designed to change the point from being about finding hidden goodness in the midst darkness, to one also implying Sen. McCain\u2019s devotion to God \u2013 the \u201ctrue light of Christmas\u201d? Was this the first sign of the Religification of John McCain?
\nIn a recent op-ed, Karl Rove, President Bush\u2019s strategist, recounted the cross-in-the-dirt story and added another. While in prison, Sen. McCain had been appointed \u201cchaplain\u201d and led some impromptu services. Mr. Rove quotes a fellow prisoner of war, Bud Day, recalling that Sen. McCain \u201csounded like a bona fide preacher.\u201d Noting that Sen. McCain in the past hadn\u2019t talked much about such intimate moments, Mr. Rove advises, \u201cThere is something admirable in his reticence, but he needs to overcome it.\u201d
\nWhile Mr. Rove likely used the chaplain story to show Sen. McCain\u2019s piety, Sen. McCain explained it differently in an interview with Beliefnet: \u201cI would like to tell you that I was selected to be room chaplain because I had an abundance of religiosity. But the fact is that I had gone to church all my life, I had gone to an Episcopal school where we went to church chapel every morning, I went to the Naval Academy where chapel attendance was mandatory, I knew all of the words to the Nicene Creed and the Apostles\u2019 Creed. So I had an ability to lead a church service.\u201d
\nIn the past, Sen. McCain has tended to emphasize a sense of duty as the key to his survival in Vietnam. \u201cGlory belongs to the act of being constant to something greater than yourself, to a cause, to your principles, to the people on whom you rely, and who rely on you in return,\u201d he wrote. \u201cA filthy, crippled, broken man, all I had left of my dignity was the faith of my fathers. It was enough.\u201d
\nThis is a powerful testament to Sen. McCain\u2019s character and code of honor. What it is not is a declaration that God was the primary source of strength or object of his faith.
\nCompare that to his comments in a recent interview in which he described his religion as \u201cmy sword and my shield and my sustenance and my strength.\u201d Sometimes, he said, \u201cI prayed for another minute that I could withstand what I was experiencing.\u201d
\nThat powerful sentiment is no doubt genuine. It is also a sign that he\u2019s begun to \u201covercome\u201d his reticence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reprinted from Wall Street Journal Online. While Barack Obama was trying to vanquish Hillary Clinton, John McCain has been focused on a challenging target of his own: religious conservative voters. He\u2019s always had a mixed relationship with evangelicals, heretofore a key part of the Republican base. Apparently his decision in 2000 to call Christian leaders…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Religification of John McCain - Steven Waldman<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/05\/the-religification-of-john-mcc.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Religification of John McCain - Steven Waldman\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Reprinted from Wall Street Journal Online. While Barack Obama was trying to vanquish Hillary Clinton, John McCain has been focused on a challenging target of his own: religious conservative voters. He\u2019s always had a mixed relationship with evangelicals, heretofore a key part of the Republican base. 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While Barack Obama was trying to vanquish Hillary Clinton, John McCain has been focused on a challenging target of his own: religious conservative voters. He\u2019s always had a mixed relationship with evangelicals, heretofore a key part of the Republican base. 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