Whose Bully Pulpit Now?

By NANCY GIBBS

It wasn't any one note Joe Lieberman struck that set the separation-of-church-and-state watchdogs growling. It was the whole sacred symphony. Sure, he began his maiden speech last month with a prayer and some Scripture, but no one wanted to pounce the moment the first Jewish national candidate mentioned God. That was before he cited George Washington's admonition last week to never suppose that "morality can be maintained without religion"--as if agnostics, atheists and secular humanists are by definition immoral--and called for the nation to renew its dedication to "God and God's purpose."

"When it reaches a certain crescendo, you know it," observes Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, who fired off a letter to Lieberman calling his remarks "inappropriate" and "unsettling." But the vice-presidential nominee was just getting started. He praised the Democrats' prescription-drug plan as a way to keep the Fifth Commandment to honor thy father and mother, likened Al Gore to Joseph for shepherding the surplus to prepare for lean years ahead, and cast Clinton as Moses for parting the Red Sea with his economic program. The latest battle over the appropriate place for piety in politics was joined.

It is a measure of the importance of the debate that all sides are impugning one another's motives. Lieberman is under a microscope just because he's Jewish, argued his defenders; his faith is central to who he is, and voters deserve to know where his values are rooted. But his critics counter that he never dipped so deep into Scripture in his past campaigns. This, they charge, is just cynical, focus-group politics by a campaign that has deployed Lieberman as a kind of moral turpentine for an Administration badly in need of a fresh coat of paint.

Lieberman, of course, isn't the first candidate to wax religious. George W. Bush called Jesus his favorite philosopher, and Gore said he often makes decisions by asking, "What would Jesus do?" Both parties are parsing the same polls, which show a country troubled by a sense of moral breakdown. Gore adviser Elaine Kamarck has vowed, "The Democratic Party is going to take back God this time." A Gore strategist notes that while Northeasterners may be more straitlaced and tight-lipped on matters of faith, Lieberman's holy spirit is touching people in all the right places: "Blacks dig it. Catholics in the Midwest dig it," the adviser says. "It's great for Reagan Democrats."

But the real question last week was not about religion and politics; it was about religion and policy. Gore has been running a campaign based on "specifics," hammering Bush for not offering more high-fiber proposals, but it is the Democrats who seem deliberately vague about whether the principles they cite would have any impact if they made it to the White House. "You're not running for king of heaven; that job is already taken," says columnist Cal Thomas, co-author of Blinded by Might, a study of the toll that an engagement in politics can take on faith. "People want to know if you're being a hypocrite and using faith for political ends or if it is genuine and permeates every area of life. If it is going to have connection to policy, we need to know about it. If it's not, then it's irrelevant."

While no one doubts the sincerity of his beliefs, Lieberman seems to be dodging their implications on the campaign trail. He calls for "a constitutional place for faith in our public life," and yet he is against prayer in school and defends church-state separation. So what, specifically, does he mean? He complains that "Hollywood doesn't understand piety" and deplores its coarse product, and yet vows not to resort to sanctions to change that culture. And though many Orthodox Jews argue that abortion is immoral, Lieberman is pro-choice because, as he said in 1990, "while I might personally argue against abortion, as a lawmaker I cannot impose my personal judgment on others." In the end, does it make any difference what the man believes? Lieberman suggests not. "This is really less a matter of programs or legislation than it is of giving respect to the constructive role that faith can play," he said last week. After a decade in which Christian conservatives have tied their faith to policies from abortion to taxes to school reform, Lieberman's stance may seem refreshing. But it may have dangers of its own.

"When religion and politics are too closely aligned, it's more often the religion than the politics that is compromised," warns Thomas. Lieberman has said he hopes his religion will be irrelevant by Election Day. "The only way that's going to happen," says Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, "is if he stops talking about it all the time."

--With reporting by Tamala M. Edwards/Nashville

With reporting by Tamala M. Edwards/Nashville