Is religious right losing its influence on US politics?

|PIC1|WASHINGTON - A high-power panel of left-wing experts on religion and politics assembled Thursday afternoon to discuss the impact of the religious voice, including that of the religious right, on the presidential campaign.

Panelist EJ Dionne, Jr - a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a syndicated columnist for the Washington Post, and professor at Georgetown University - started off the discussion by saying he was surprised by the extent in which Senator Barack Obama has been "tormented" by religious questions given the amount of effort he spent to think through and explain his faith in the public square.

The author of the new book, Souled Out: Reclaiming Faith & Politics After the Religious Right, commented that although he was not surprised, it was still noteworthy to point out the waning influence of the traditional religious right.

"I think what you saw in the Republican primaries is how weak those forces were," Dionne contended. "John McCain won the nomination in the face of the opposition."

Furthermore, Mike Huckabee, whom Dionne called a "fascinating character," was noted to have won primaries even without the large support from the established religious right organisations.

"So I think even in the Republican Party you are seeing what we thought of as the old religious right weakening very substantially," Dionne, who is a Catholic, said. "And while I'm not shocked by that, I think it is a very important development."

Likewise, fellow panelist Amy Sullivan - national editor at Time magazine and author of The Party Faithful: How and Why Democrats Are Closing the God Gap - commented on the religious right and their opposition to McCain.

She said that while many experts have long known that the Republican Party does not have a "monopoly" on religion, she was surprised by the extent of the change in the 2008 presidential race.

"If you told us four years ago that in 2008 that it would be the Republican nominee who was under attack from the religious right," Sullivan said, listing several examples, "Yet that is what we have this time around, a Republican nominee who is not on good terms with many of the religious conservatives and who is often quite uncomfortable talking about his faith."

Meanwhile, the Democratic candidates are more at ease speaking the language of faith and drawing connections between their moral foundation and their policy stance, said the Time magazine editor, who is a self-described evangelical.

But the Rev Jim Wallis, who is considered the face of the religious left, highlighted how fast the evangelical agenda has broadened to include poverty, Iraq, health care, climate change, and torture.

He noted that in recent polls these newer issues are given high priorities among born-again Christians than abortion and gay "marriage".

"I've been shocked that a lot of folks on the religious right are wanting dialogue with some of us on the progressive end," said Wallis, who is the president of Sojourners and author of the new book The Great Awakening: Reviving Faith & Politics in a Post-Religious Right America.

Last month, Wallis was invited to the book launching event of two Christian right leaders - Tony Perkins of Family Research Council and Bishop Harry R Jackson Jr of High Impact Leadership Coalition.

The two conservative leaders argued that the religious right was not dying, but was rather growing and expanding its public policy agenda.

Wallis also said at the event that he does not believe that the religious right is dead, and urged its members to be more vocal on tackling poverty.

Later in Thursday's dialogue, hosted by the Center for American Progress, all the panelists agreed that evangelicals still care about the issues of traditional marriage and abortion, but now the issues are only two among many that born-again voters are concerned about.

Dionne, Sullivan, and Wallis are currently touring and promoting their books on religion and politics which were all released earlier this year.