Perry: The Christian candidate

“I’m not one to demand ‘In God We Trust’ be taken off coinage,” said Jennifer Rubin in WashingtonPost.com. But even as one who sees a role for faith in public life, I have to admit feeling uncomfortable when Texas Gov. Rick Perry stood up before a crowd of 30,000 evangelicals last weekend in Houston to call on “the living Christ” for help with the nation’s problems. At an event dubbed “The Response,” Perry—who’s expected to announce his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination this week—spoke as if making a sermon, saying, “Father, our hearts break for America,” and calling on “all Americans” to “seek Him, to return to Him.” In organizing the rally, Perry also teamed up with “some of the nation’s most divisive extremists,” said Peter Montgomery in HuffingtonPost.com. Among them was the American Family Association, an organization that insists America was founded as a Christian nation, and that is “vehemently anti-gay.”

Like every other American citizen, Perry has every right to practice his faith, said Richard Land in The Washington Post. No government funds or facilities were used for “The Response,” and “we’re taking a dangerous path when we begin disqualifying individuals for public office” simply because they speak openly of their beliefs. Liberal elites can sneer all they want, said Jonathan Tobin in Commentary​Magazine.com. But Perry’s “public expression of faith probably seems perfectly normal to many Americans,” not just evangelicals. In fact, given the major role religious conservatives play in GOP primaries, Perry’s willingness “to wear his faith on his sleeve” will probably help, not hurt, his presidential chances.

In the short run, it definitely helps, said Joshua Green in TheAtlantic.com. Perry has already set himself apart from front-runner Mitt Romney, a Mormon whose faith still makes many Christian conservatives uneasy. But in the long run, the big question is whether the nation is ready for another religious Texan who, as one Perry fan put it, “looks and sounds like George W. Bush on steroids.” Maybe Republican primary voters are, said Peter Boyer in TheDailyBeast.com, but the general election is a different matter. Many independents voted Republican in the 2010 election because the GOP dropped its focus on social and religious issues, and rebranded itself as the “party of fiscal restraint.” Should Republicans pick the “Right Reverend Rick” as their candidate for 2012, those independents will be up for grabs.

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