3 Democratic pastors in Iowa are running for Congress, a snapshot of a national trend

[Cairycat]

https://www.thegazette.com/news/3-democratic-pastors-in-iowa-are-running-for-congress-a-snapshot-of-a-national-trend/article_23361bae-ab4d-5142-8ccd-49c817d87898.html?

The article examines the candidacy of religious leaders in Iowa and around the country, and what they can contribute to the Democratic party and the people they represent.

I think that the religious left has been too quiet and/or too ignored in the past. But tRump and his administration are starting to go too far, even for some evangelicals. I think this could be an opportunity for the party to gain voters. This may be difficult, given the number of people in the party who are firmly anti-religion. Perhaps if those people could respect people to whom religion is important, there could be some real gains. Respecting a person doesn't mean you have to accept all their beliefs, after all. Respect only requires seeing someone who's different from you as fully human and as worthy of respect as you are.

“Because there’s been the tendency to define Christianity as very conservative and with a Christian nationalist lens, I think you are seeing people on the Democratic side saying, ‘Wait a minute. There are different ways to think about how our faith informs our policy,’" said Melissa Deckman, CEO of the Public Religion Research Institute.

Democrats' next challenge is to figure out how to talk about faith for the long haul in a party that's more religiously diverse than Republicans and has a greater number of voters who aren't religious at all.

I could relate to this quote by Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear:

Amid speculation he will run for president in 2028, Beshear, a deacon for his Disciples of Christ church, hopes to communicate his motivations with his forthcoming book, “Go and Do Likewise: How We Heal a Broken Country,” a reference to the Bible's Parable of the Good Samaritan.

“My faith is is my authentic why. It’s what drives me to try to better this world," he said.

I know that my faith influences my politics and my politics influence my faith. I also know that I'm not alone in this, and I think the party would do well to take heed.