The midterm elections on November 3 are currently dominating national media coverage. Within that coverage, several religious strands have emerged.
Whether it’s Rev. Adam Hamilton running for Senate in Kansas, seminarian James Talarico running for Senate in Texas, Hindu Vivek Ramaswamy in Ohio, or Muslim Abdul El-Sayed running for Senate in Michigan, religion is unavoidably at the center of this year’s midterms, despite the persistence of narratives that America is secularizing.
As the election nears, this raises an interesting question: Does someone’s religion factor into whether you vote for or against them? Is using someone’s religion against them a form of bigotry and constitutional malpractice? I’m going to argue that religion is a politically relevant category to weigh in one’s electoral decisions, not because we consider religion in and of itself, but because of the moral judgments that result from religion. It’s important to make these necessary distinctions because we need to uphold two realities: (1) the good desire to oppose a religion’s influence that a people believe is deleterious to society; and (2) still upholding religious liberty generally as a constitutional ideal.
To begin, remember that this question isn’t new. President John F. Kennedy’s Catholicism was a major factor in his candidacy, with Protestants fearing that a Catholic president could not be loyal first to the Constitution, but to a Pope sitting in Rome. Evangelicals can recall some of the tensions that arose in 2012 when the only options to vote for were either the liberal Protestantism of Barack Obama set against the conservative Mormonism of Mitt Romney. I voted for Romney despite Barack Obama being a self-identified Protestant Christian.
Now consider Abdul El-Sayed’s candidacy. He’s a socialist and progressive, which means I would never vote for him. But in light of the increased focus on Islam’s growth in America, I routinely get asked whether it would be okay for a Christian to vote against a candidate simply because they are Muslim. My answer, put bluntly, is an unqualified “yes.” A candidate’s worldview is fair game when evaluating whether to vote for them, whether that worldview is called a religion or an ideology. Barring religious considerations when choosing a candidate is another manifestation of Rawlsian strictures — not only are people to abandon their religion when they reason together as common citizens, but we’re now told by progressives to remove religion from consideration when deciding whether to vote for a candidate (except, of course, when the candidate in question is a Christian, which is used to disqualify him or her on the grounds that one may govern in line with their Christianity).
There’s nuance to this equation. Whether someone is legally able to run is a different question than whether one should vote for them. Legally, Article VI of the Constitution prohibits a religious test for public office. However, we need to be clear about what the Constitution says, and what it doesn’t, by distinguishing between legal requirements for entering office and the moral qualifications and considerations for being elected. Legally speaking, there is nothing preventing a Muslim from entering office. As long as a Muslim can take a sincere oath of office, he or she meets the constitutional threshold for office. But legal allowance does not entail moral justification for doing so. Surely, we could all agree that a legal permission to get elected does not mean that someone should be elected, especially if the religious worldview in question produces outcomes that jeopardize the constitutional order itself — which I believe Islam does.
What do I mean exactly?
The law does not consider a candidate’s religion qua doctrine. What do I mean by that? I mean that law does not consider religion purely in itself, nor does it assess its doctrine as true or false. Governing officials or courts lack the competence to judge whether monotheism or polytheism is true. Government is not a doctrinal magisterium. Why? As I said, because law is a poor judge of theological accuracy. Government is accountable to no particular religious confession, nor can it secure the means to perpetually uphold or enforce one. The law is best suited to judging matters of conduct, not belief (Matt. 22:21). This means we judge a religion’s political compatibility with the American experiment by its ethical dimension. We test a religion’s impact by judging how its tenets get applied in society. But private citizens can and should evaluate both belief and conduct, because they are inextricably linked. Where government is not suited to comprehensive judgments about the relationship between religion and ethics, private citizens are.
This matters greatly to me as a Baptist, a free-church tradition that has historically championed religious liberty for all persons.
As a Southern Baptist, I take my denomination’s confessional statement, “The Baptist Faith and Message 2000,” with the utmost urgency. Its language on religious liberty for all is unmistakable: “The state has no right to impose penalties for religious opinions of any kind.”
In light of that statement, am I being hypocritical toward my own confession?
Notice what it says and does not say. It says the “state” has no right to impose penalties for religious opinions. Nothing prevents a private citizen from making judgments along those lines.
For the private individual, as a moral agent deciding which candidates’ policies best align with the voter’s worldview, religion does factor in. But even here, more nuance is needed: electorally, what matters more is the ethics that religion produces. Religion is a relevant condition, but it is not decisive in itself.
I acknowledge that, legally speaking, Abdul El-Sayed can run for office and, if elected, he should be able to serve regardless of his religion. So, legally, I affirm the constitutional structure and my denomination’s commitment to religious liberty.
Privately, if I were in Michigan, I would unquestionably evaluate his religion and a particular religion’s ethics as grounds for disqualification. When I survey what results when Islam gains power, I find an oppressive system in its wake.
To be clear, it’s not religion qua religion that is in view here; it is religion qua ethics.
On the one hand, I want everyone to become a Christian. Politically, that would be desirable. But realistically, if you’re a Muslim or you worship the flying spaghetti monster — if your worldview materializes in cultural and ethical practices that Islam does — then I don’t want you in office. Think about Hindu Vivek Ramaswamy versus the Jewish Amy Acton, both of whom are running for governor. I share neither of their faiths, and yet, on paper, the Jewish and Christian faiths bear more in common. Weighing which worldview is more or less compatible with my desired political outcomes, I would choose Ramaswamy over Acton because Ramaswamy’s worldview, at least as it relates to politics, is less problematic than Acton’s, even if I still find Ramaswamy’s Hinduism ultimately false.
The distinction I’m making is that legal permission to run for office is separate from moral evaluations of the realities that flow from it. I am against whatever worldview posits the cultural and ethical practices that Islam does, and I don’t want to be represented by individuals who hold those beliefs. In my view, El-Sayed may have legal justification for office, but not moral justification for executing what the office entails. Why? Because he would govern wrongly and produce bad outcomes. The same would be true if identical practices resulted from secular beliefs, too.
And here is where it gets tricky: James Talarico’s progressive Christianity is as equally disqualifying as a Muslim’s worldview. Talarico is on record making the most obscene defenses of progressive policy preferences from distorted appeals to Christian Scripture. Those errant beliefs about Christian Scripture lead to a worldview and policy preferences that I deeply disagree with.
To put it differently: If I were asked to choose between a Muslim who was against abortion and for traditional marriage (and generally pledged to govern in ways inconsistent with what Islam itself demands), I would have to concede that this worldview is preferable to someone like Talarico, whose bastardized Christianity offends my moral sensibilities and brings demonstrable harm to the common good.
The law is a poor adjudicator of which theology is right or wrong. However, the moral consciences of individual voters who see what Islam produces can make those determinations on the basis of religion and its moral implications. We must evaluate religious coercion and religious tests imposed by the government according to justice, civil jurisdiction, and the common good — not merely because the same legal requirements could someday be imposed on Christians. Religious liberty is not something to value for self-protection; it is a substantive conclusion of public theology, drawn from reflecting on what government is suited to judge versus what arenas are better left to private citizens.
While it’s true that some religions, more than others, aim toward the truth, religion itself is not the only sufficient condition. The question is what the religion produces when evaluating its public significance and impact.
As a Christian, I have immense concern about the state barring a Muslim from public office just because they are Muslim. I do, however, have a compelling interest in persuading voters to keep toxic ideologies out of government. If that means I will have to argue against Islam, then so be it. It’s about the merit of the positions taken — not primarily theology proper.
The bottom line is this: With the alarm about the growing influence of Islam in the United States, what matters is not giving it any further beachheads than it already has. One avenue — not the only one — for Americans to stop its advance is to deny Islam any political footing. Michigan, it’s up to you.
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Andrew T. Walker, Ph.D., is Dean of the School of Theology at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and Professor of Christian Ethics and Public Theology. He is a Fellow with The Ethics and Public Policy Center and the Managing Editor of WORLD Opinions. You can follow him on X: @AndrewTWalker.
