It was the kind of remark that gives those for whom faith is important a sick feeling in their pit of their stomachs.
Presumptive Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden is “against God,” President Donald Trump said last week, and would “hurt God” if he were elected.
Given that neither man appears overtly religious, and given that either candidate presuming to speak for God seems to be the height of arrogance, we’d prefer they let God speak for God.
His inspired word, after all, is not hard to find, and though interpreting Scripture too often has been raised to a political parlor game, we believe there are enough words available to suggest definite parameters of human behavior.
However, the stances that one candidate or the other takes, and whether they measure up to the faith claimed by a candidate, are fair game for voters.
They will have to judge, for instance, whether Biden’s Catholic faith squares with his full-throated support for abortion, his opposition to the Hyde Amendment that forbids most public funding of abortion and his opposition to the July United States Supreme Court decision that says organizations that oppose abortion for religious reasons do not have to fund the expense of birth control for their employees.
Similarly, they will have to decide whether Trump’s insults over the years about Mexicans, women and other groups are worthy of a candidate who claims to have a personal faith, and whether his opposition to a porous Southern border is anti-immigrant or a desire to uphold American law.
To be sure, there are political reasons the president said what he did and why Biden responded that the president had tried to “smear my faith in a political attack.”
Catholics have the largest membership among religious organizations in Michigan and Wisconsin, two states Trump won by only a few thousands votes in 2016. If Biden – by touting his Catholic faith – can pick off a small number of those voters, it might make the difference in a close election.
Still, we believe both candidates should make their arguments on the issues without demeaning the other’s faith and without referring to the other in pejorative terms, which both have done. Trump, for example, constantly refers to Biden as “Sleepy Joe,” while Biden has said Trump is the “first” racist president.
We believe each candidate’s faith is a private matter. Biden has said his Catholicism is central to who he is. Trump talks little about his personal faith but has made statements – such as to the National Prayer Breakfast in February – that “faith keeps us free,” “prayer makes us strong” and “God alone is the author of life and giver of grace.”
But we feel, unfortunately, both men have been in public life for so long that they feel justified in compromising their faith with their professions. Both men have moved within the high stakes of those professions – Trump in business and Biden in politics – and have put their success ahead of the tenets of scrupulous honesty and propriety called for in almost every faith.
Biden, of course, had to end his first presidential campaign in 1988 when it was revealed he had plagiarized a British politician in his speeches, has been caught in several untruths about his personal involvement in the civil rights movement and has switched sides on many major issues over the years depending on where support for him might be found.
Trump’s various businesses have been cited for legal problems over the years, his business employment practices have been hypocritical to his public political stances and his penchant for lies, according to his opponents, or stretching the truth, according to his supporters, is commonplace.
So there is plenty of playing field for each man to cover about the other’s honesty without having to resort to bringing the other’s faith into the picture.
The president started the most recent battle last week, but we hope that will be his last foray into who’s on God’s side or who’s side God is on.
Indeed, we believe God can only be saddened about the current state of life in a country that has been so blessed with natural resources, religious freedom, indefatigable pioneers and an indomitable spirit. Too often we act as spoiled children under a federal government viewed only as a wish-granter.
And yet God, being God, continues to want only the best for us, continues to want to give us the best God has to offer, and continues to want us to understand how love, peace, kindness and unity are what will be espoused by those who are “for God.”
It’s probably too much to expect the two major-party candidates to run a campaign that is “for God,” but we hope they’ll at least refrain from trying to name who isn’t.