The Old and New Politics of Faith: Religion and the 2010 Election.” This is the title of the new study by Brookings Institution on the role of faith in American politics.I found the following exchange from the Wednesday’s NPR interview with two of the Brookings Fellows to be the most profound of the survey’s results……as well as pretty much anything I had heard lately about religion and politics in America (scary, is how I describe it).
Question: But when you speak of American exceptionalism in these terms, what are you speaking of?
Answer (Mr. GALSTON): Well, the idea that America is a chosen nation that has been singled out by God for a distinctive mission in the world, we put a very strong version of that proposition on the table in this survey and 6 in 10 Americans affirmed it. Indeed, 30 percent of people who probably don’t believe in God at all affirmed it. So, this is a remarkably persistent part of America’s cultural and political DNA that I think our political leaders ignore at their peril.
Silly me, I thought it was the Islamic regime in Iran that had a mission to lead the world with Allah’s “help”…
———————-
Here’s the NPR interview transcript (you can also listen to audio).
