Christians act like they want to make religion a public issue for elections and political purposes. Everything in their rhetoric points in this direction: they complain that atheists try to drive them out of the public square or to suppress religious beliefs, they claim that religion is necessary for public values, and they won't vote for candidates that don't discuss religion and faith. Christians don't see the dangers, but atheists may have the ability to teach Christians the truth.
Christians & Public Religion
Secularists argue that personal religious beliefs should not be part of public policies or political campaigns. Christians, both liberal and conservative, have pushed back forcefully to insist that it's appropriate for voters to demand statements of religious faith from politicians. They say it's fair to ask a politician about their religious faith and for politicians to base their policies, agendas, and laws on their religious faith.
There are good reasons to dispute this, even from a Christian perspective. If a person has to make a big deal about their religion in public, one has to question whether their "faith and values" are genuine or merely adopted for public consumption. When does talking about faith become pandering to the faithful, and how much damage does it do to religion? Furthermore, public discussion of religion contradicts the principle that public policy should be based on ideas and values that can be defended by impersonal reason, not personal religious beliefs derived from spiritual revelations only accepted by some. Perhaps that is why politicians are loathe to get into specifics when they proclaim their public piety.
People of Faith & Values?
If we look closely at common Christian rhetoric, we find it is characterized by vagueness and feel-good platitudes designed to get people think they are making a good "brand" choice without telling them what they are really buying into. Candidates proclaim how their values are derived from their religion without saying what teachings of their religion they accept. Politicians appeal to "people of faith" without saying what that "faith" is supposed to be.
There is a method to this madness: the less specific a politician is, the less likely they are to say anything which might cause voters to stop supporting them. Why focus on the specifics of Methodist doctrine and practice, which might exclude non-Methodists, when you can make vague statements about "people of faith" which might appeal to all theists, or at least all Christians? This is disingenuous because it replaces an honest discussion of religious differences or beliefs with vacuous appeals to theistic tribalism.
Christian Beliefs are Specific Beliefs
I have often argued in the context of church/state separation that government cannot promote, endorse, or encourage "religion" generally because religion is always specific: religion is always about specific beliefs, doctrines, rituals, etc. This also applies here: politicians who proclaim their religion, faith, and values never do so on the basis of some vague and nonspecific "religion." Instead, they necessarily have a specific set of religious beliefs which excludes other specific religious beliefs.
To cite just a few examples, self-professed Christian politicians do or do not: believe that the only way to God and heaven is through Jesus Christ; believe in the Trinity; believe in the efficacy of infant baptism; believe that the Bible is inerrant; believe that one is justified through faith alone; believe that the pope in Rome leads the Christian Church; believe in continuing gifts of prophecy and revelation; believe that women should not lead or teach; and many more questions of doctrine, faith, and practice.
Atheists: Demand Full Religious Disclosure
Because atheists stand outside various Christian traditions, we don't "fill in the blanks" like Christians do when listening to politicians. We don't imagine that politicians are using the terms faith, religion, and values in the same way that we do. As outsiders, atheists recognize that politicians are using vague terms in the expectation that voters will fill in the blanks, causing people with radically different beliefs to all imagine that they are voting for someone who believes the same as they do. This is an illusion which needs to be shattered.
It's not that believers are entirely unwilling to do this — conservatives' discussions about the beliefs and doctrines of Barack Obama's church reveal that they are capable of engaging in at least some of the necessary analysis, but it also reveals that they are more likely to do it for opponents than for their own party. This gives atheists a good starting place: every church and denomination has a statement of faith or belief which candidates can be asked about. Do they accept their church’s position that the only way to God is through Jesus, that only adult baptism is valid, that the Bible is inerrant, etc.?
There is much more that we must ask, though. When a politician makes a habit of proclaiming the importance of faith and religion, we should ask if they regard Mormonism as a valid Christian denomination or an unChristian cult, if Islam is a genuine religion or just a terrorist political ideology, etc. If politicians answer, they will reveal the fault lines and disagreements in American Christianity; if they refuse, they will reveal how superficial, vapid, and meaningless their proclamations of public piety really are.
In the short term this may cause rancor and bad feelings among American Christians, but the solution to this is also our long term goal: to stop using religion as a political football and restrict discussion of public policies to arguments, premises, and values which all can share. If it is fair for Americans to ask that their politicians have faith or for politicians to make decisions based on their faith, then it's fair for us to ask exactly what that faith is. Faith doesn't matter unless the specifics of one's religious beliefs matter, so if they won't give details and explain specifics, then they should simply stop bringing up the subject of faith and turn to more substantive matters.
