RABBI SIMEON KOLKO Religion-culture split needs serious analysis

Recent public opinion polls conducted by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press and other reputable organizations reveal a startling religious and cultural divide in this country, which is perhaps best conveyed in the following statistics.
Approximately two-thirds of those identifying themselves as attending religious services regularly, and for whom religion looms large as a force in their lives, consider themselves to be Republicans. Roughly two-thirds of those whose outlook is secular in nature and who refrain from outward manifestations of religious affiliation identify themselves as being members of the Democratic Party.
For analysis
As we approach the beginning of another presidential campaign, these statistics need to be analyzed and understood for all that they tell about the health of our democracy, and the quality of our discussion of public-policy in this country.
In my view, there are several factors that explain this radical divide in political affiliation based on attitudes toward religion and faith.
In recent years, the Democratic Party has become increasingly uncomfortable talking about issues of values and faith, and it has searched in vain for a vocabulary enabling it to articulate public policy positions in terms of larger moral values. At the same time, the Republican Party has increasingly aligned itself with, and tapped into the organizational resources of, a highly politicized and sophisticated network of religious right organizations.
This dynamic has the Democratic Party, particularly its progressive wing, running for cover or seeking to change the conversation, whenever a particular election seems to revolve around issues of values, faith and morality.
The unspoken assumption is that values and morality have become the exclusive monopoly of the right, and therefore such issues must be identified with a conservative vision for America.
This notion ignores a great deal of our recent political history. It overlooks the fact that many of the great progressive causes in this country have drawn crucial spiritual and intellectual inspiration from religious forces. It airbrushes from history the reality that the great social reformers of this country, including Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., were individuals of faith whose activism was a spiritual vocation above all else.
The Civil Rights Movement and the anti-Vietnam War Movement were nourished, sustained and brought to victory by the waters of faith and the belief in the mandate to seek justice as being fundamental to the religious enterprise. To seek to understand these great modern movements without acknowledging the larger values they sought to embody is to do them and us a great disservice.
First amendment issue
Another source of discomfort among progressives in their public discussion of values and morality revolves around the misguided idea that the First Amendment compels religion and politics to exert no influence upon each other. This view is articulated as the mandate to erect an airtight barrier between religion and state, so that religion is relegated to the private sphere exclusively and stripped of its ability to be a meaningful factor in the dialogue of the public square.
Although the concern to protect religion from the intrusion of government has an honorable history in the United States, it is time that we have a serious discussion about how best to achieve this noble objective.
It is perhaps well that we begin to understand that protecting religion by constructing rigid and artificial barriers for where its influence may be felt and exerted is injurious both to religion and the cause of freedom. The founding fathers sought to create the conditions conducive to religious freedom and the growth of democratic traditions of pluralism and mutual respect. They were not, however, interested in relegating religion to a merely private role or to consign it to irrelevance in the great discussions whose outcome shapes the destiny of this country.
Social work
I recently interviewed for a social-work position that involved working with individuals and their families who are confronting terminal illness. In the course of the interview, it was made clear that I was to use exclusively the social work skills I had attained in having a master's degree in social work in relating to my clients and their needs. Issues of faith, the role of God in causing illness, belief as a source of strength in the healing process, were concerns that I was expected to refer to the wellness specialist on our social-work team.
That I am a person of faith, endowed by virtue of training, background and personal belief with certain insights into these concerns, was expected to play no role in the dynamics of my interaction with my clients. The assumptions underlying that discussion left me more than a little uncomfortable. Upon reflection, it seems as if they are also a metaphor for larger truths about the role of religion in our society that beg to be re-examined.
XRabbi Simeon Kolko is the rabbi at Beth Israel Temple Center in Warren.