Yesterday, on a classically dreary November night, I happened to be in Chicago again. I drove along Lakeshore Drive and to my left through my rain-blotted window were the bustling, twinkling streets of skyscrapers when suddenly I noticed to my right the blackness of the lake. I could only see a few blue waves wildly crashing close to the shore. I clutched the wheel and turned onto Clark Street. There I met a good friend of mine and over Vietnamese food he gave me our next topic.
Not being religious, he is deeply troubled by the fact that every politician has to at least profess faith to be elected in America. The odds are that many of them have lied (even, maybe . . . Obama and McCain!). Additionally, the segment of our population that has the highest intelligence also has the highest rate of atheism, and so brilliant people from the scientific community, for example, are barred from being elected. These two factors seem to limit the chances that we can have leaders who are both honest and intelligent, or either. He faults religion and America's hypocritical demand for it from leaders for producing bad ones like Bush and potentially Palin, who in his mind are neither honest nor intelligent.
This prompted me to think about whether it is even possible to helm a country like America as a Christian. Do any of you really believe our politicians are faithful? If not, why do we have this requirement for them? Should Christians expect to see a Christian leading America? On the other hand, could you elect an atheist?
So I guess the big question is: what role does faith have in American politics? The small question is: if Obama broke the race barrier, what "transformational figure" will break the religious barrier and is that a good or bad thing?
