Poll: Less Religion in Politics, Please

Last week's forum at mega-pastor Rick Warren's Saddleback Church gave the nation the first same-stage meeting between Barack Obama and John McCain since last January's presidential debates in New Hampshire. Given that the candidates have agreed to just three more debates for the remainder of the race, it would seem as though Warren's chat on matters of faith shows that religion has become even more important to Americans than it was in previous years.

But new findings from Pew Research Center show just the opposite:

A new survey finds a narrow majority of the public saying that churches and other houses of worship should keep out of political matters and not express their views on day-to-day social and political matters.

Perhaps most surprising of all, it is conservatives whose faith in the role of religion in politics seems to have eroded the most:

Four years ago, just 30% of conservatives believed that churches and other houses of worship should stay out of politics. Today, 50% of conservatives express this view.

More counter-intuitive statistics?

The greatest increases since 2004 in the view that churches and other houses of worship should not express themselves on political matters have occurred among less educated Republicans and people who say that social issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage will be important in their vote.

So, what does this trend portend for our current candidates? One reason Barack Obama was hailed as a Democratic candidate was the ease with which he talked about his faith. John McCain, on the other hand, seemed awkward about discussing religion. In a way, both men could be viewed as moderating influences for their respective parties. Obama would infuse more religion into the Democrats, McCain would dampen the evangelical fervor that had overrun the GOP.

But preachers like Warren may not be content with a lesser role in the political realm. In an interview with The Atlantic's Jeffery Goldberg, Warren proclaimed:

I believe in the separation of church and state, but I do not believe in the separation of politics from religion. Faith is simply a worldview. A person who says he puts his faith on the shelf when he's making decisions is either an idiot or a liar.

To which Andrew Sullivan responds:

The entire basis for Western secular government, which rests on the capacity of people to distance absolute truth from political affairs, is based on idiocy or lies? I wonder if Warren has ever read Locke, or Hobbes, or Machiavelli or would even understand the term secularism if it knocked him square off his pedestal.

Indeed, Warren's view of faith as a prerequisite for political service gets even stranger when he tries to add a bit of cultural sensitivity, but excludes atheists:

I couldn't vote for a person who was an atheist, because I would think--I think the presidency is a job too big for one person. I would think there's a little arrogance that says, I don't need anybody else. I could vote for someone of different religions than mine, but I don't know that I could personally vote for somebody who denies that we need somebody greater than ourselves to help us.

For Warren, it matters less who or what our leaders are subservient to (Allah, Yaweh, Jesus, or a jug of milk) just so long as they don't try to go it alone. That an atheist might view him or herself as subservient to the laws of nature seems not to occur to Warren as a legitimate form of reverence.

Roughly half of the country seems to agree with Warren on the question of atheists. Though the percentage of Americans who wouldn't vote for non-believers continues to fall, most of the country, too, seems to think the presidency too lofty for solo flying.

My apologies for the delay in posting this column. Tropical Storm Fay -- an "act of God" -- wreaked havoc on Internet connections this morning. I wonder what he (or she) has planned for Denver...