Rubio’s Awkward Balancing Act Between Evangelicals and Catholics
By Patricia Miller / January 11, 2016
Marco Rubio’s “Faith” evangelical outreach ad, which debuted in Iowa over the weekend, can be seen as confirmation of a trend that’s long been brewing in politics: the rise of Evangelical Catholics in the Republican Party.
As I noted in a new paper for the journal Religions, these Evangelical Catholics have been fueled by the emphasis of the Catholic bishops on voting for anti-abortion candidates, and more recently, supporters of their brand of “religious liberty.” And importantly:
“… these Republican Catholics are markedly different from moderate, swing-vote Catholics who have been so important to presidential aspirations since the 1970s. These Catholics marry strong support for orthodox Catholic social teaching on moral issues, particularly abortion, with equally strong support for Republican free-market economic policies. Many of these conservative Catholics, especially those in the public eye, have become more outspoken in asserting a “gospel-centered”, biblical morality in the public square as central to their Catholicism. This is a departure from more conventional notions of Catholicism that focus on private religious practice and charitable works.”
Rubio’s ad falls squarely into this camp, using language that would be familiar to evangelicals:
“Our goal is eternity, the ability to live alongside our Creator for all time, to accept the free gift of salvation offered to us by Jesus Christ. The struggle on a daily basis as a Christian is to remind ourselves of this. The purpose of our life is to cooperate with God’s plan.”
But then things get weird. Rubio pivots from an evangelical assertion of salvation through Christ to a Kennedyesque call for the common good (which was itself derived from Luke 12:48: “For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required”):
“…to those who much has been given much is expected and we will be asked to account for that.”
http://religiondispatches.org/rubios-awkward-balancing-act-between-evangelicals-and-catholics/
