Aspen, Colorado
I have just spent a few days here with intellectuals and high achievers at a conference called a “Renaissance Weekend”. The discussion groups have tackled a wide variety of subjects from business and ethics to foreign policy. And the setting is inspirational. The towering peaks and rugged landscape are good for the soul. The mountains of Colorado are truly God's country.

But despite our splendid isolation, the real world of rough and tumble American politics kept intruding into our conversations. Along with the inevitable debates about race and gender in politics, there was another theme that ran like an underground stream through our high-minded discussions. It was religion. Being back in the USA at a time of political turmoil reminded me that America is God's country in more ways than one.

Governor Palin

For example, take the surprising choice of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as the Republican candidate for Vice President. Her chief qualification for the nomination (aside from her gender and conservative politics) appeared to be her stand on a number of religious issues that are dear to the heart of the Republican Party's evangelical base. At a time when the nation is engaged in two difficult wars and faces an array of other threats including nuclear weapons proliferation and a resurgent Russia, Republican campaign strategists believe that opposition to abortion and Darwinism trump experience in foreign policy.

They assume, probably correctly, that the religious right would not stomach a more experienced candidate, such as Senator John McCain's close friend Senator Joseph Lieberman (one of the country's most experienced statesmen). That's not because Lieberman is a Godless man. He is a devout Jew. No, it's because of his support for abortion rights.

Senator Obama

Here's another example of religion intruding into politics - this time in a more blatant way. One of the most potent untruths about Senator Barak Obama that is circulating in the blogosphere is the accusation that he is a Moslem. Why should that be such a terrible accusation? He is a Christian of course. But what if he were a Moslem? Our dollar bills proclaim "in God we Trust." They do not specify whose God.

America has a few successful politicians who did not come from a Christian background. Bobby Jindal, Governor of Louisiana, is one of the rising stars of the Republican Party. He was raised as a Hindu by immigrant parents from India and converted to Christianity in his teens. But running for office as a Moslem in today's America would be a daunting task. At this conference, I actually met a politician who has done that and won. Omar Ahmad is a high energy City Councilman from San Carlos, California. He does not advertize his faith, but with a name like his, it's obvious. He spends a lot of time talking to constituents to convince them that he is fit to represent them.

But to get back to Mrs. Palin, she sees her religious beliefs as more than a private matter. In a speech last June at her former church, the Wasilla Assembly of God, she asked ministry students to pray for a plan to build a $30,000,000,000 natural gas pipeline in Alaska and said it was “God's will.” A video of the speech, which was originally posted on the church's web site, has been circulating on the internet.

Whether or not God has a say in energy infrastructure contracts is disputable. But what she also claimed in the speech about the war in Iraq was potentially inflammatory. She asked the students to pray for the troops in Iraq, and said “Our national leaders are sending them out on a task that is from God.”