D.C. Episcopal Bishop: Mid-Term Elections Showed Electorate Anger at Misuse of Religion

[DeepModem Mom]

WP: Mid-Term Elections Showed Electorate Anger at Misuse of Religion
John Bryson Chane, Episcopal Bishop of Washington

Candidates have used their personal religious views in past presidential campaigns, and I see that this election will be no different. Candidates will continue to do so at their own peril, however.

For better or worse, such discourse has been at the heart of the American political scene since the beginning of American politics.

But Americans are quite sensitive these days, given the misuse of religion and religious rhetoric and the way it has been exercised by some in the current Administration and in Congress. Using moral imperatives from a narrow Christian perspective in informing legislation and defining public policy has lost traction with many faithful Christians and has been received with anger by a large number of non-Christians.

The most recent mid-term election results are a prism of this sensitivity and anger. Presidential candidates beware!

(The Right Reverend John Bryson Chane is the eighth Episcopal Bishop of Washington, a diocese that encompasses 93 congregations and about 45,000 church members in the District of Columbia, and the Maryland counties of Prince George's, Montgomery, Charles and Saint Mary's.)

http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/john_bryson_chane/2007/01/candidates_have_used_their_per.html