Who Owns The 'Faith' Issue?

You have to go back to before Ronald Reagan's election as president in 1980 to find a time when religion wasn't regarded as the exclusive domain of the Republican Party.

Thirty years ago, in 1976, faith seemed to belong to Jimmy Carter and the Democrats. Carter's "born again Christian" appeal brought a lot of evangelical Christians into the political arena, but it was really Jerry Falwell and the Moral Majority who mobilized the evangelicals for the Republicans in 1980 and delivered them as a voting bloc for the next quarter century.

Now, political observers are wondering which party the evangelicals will support in the next presidential election. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., told reporters, after speaking to a congregation of evangelical Christians in Greenville, S.C., Sunday, that, at a time when evangelical leaders are talking more about issues of social justice, like AIDS and poverty, "I think it's important, particularly for those of us in the Democratic Party, to not cede values and faith to any one party."

Obama and his campaign certainly seem to be targeting religious voters in the South Carolina primary, which is scheduled to be held in late January. The Obama campaign is reaching out to evangelicals in a promotional effort dubbed "40 Days of Faith and Family." Gospel concerts and faith forums highlight the agenda.

There may be evidence that the image of Democrats as being friendly to people of faith is improving. The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life Survey reports that, from July 2006 to August 2007, the percentage of Americans describing Democrats as being friendly to religion went up from 26% to 30%. In the same survey, the percentage of Americans who described Democrats as being unfriendly to religion went down from 20% to 15%.

Fifty percent of respondents described Republicans as being friendly to religion.