Conformists

Some pundits were stunned to hear God-talk coming from Democrats | Gene Edward Veith

Sojourners, a politically liberal evangelical organization, hosted a Democratic presidential candidate debate last month, and some pundits were stunned to hear God-talk coming from Democrats.

Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus believes this new openness to religion is good politics. "Democrats' best hopes for 2008 and beyond," she says, is making "inroads by luring moderate evangelicals and Catholics who once voted Democratic but have drifted away."

But there is no reason to be overly cynical when Democrats talk about their religion. Hillary Clinton is a life-long Methodist who was shaped even as a teenager by her denomination's social activism. John Edwards was formerly a Southern Baptist, but now he too has joined the United Methodist Church. Barack Obama is an active member of the United Church of Christ, another mainline Protestant denomination.