Yesterday, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton participated in a Faith Forum in Grantham, Pennsylvania. (John McCain declined an invitation.) They answered questions about abortion, human rights, and global warming. But the most important issue concerning faith and politics never came up, so I'll phase it here:
Many people believe that an individual's faith or lack thereof is a personal matter, something private that should be kept out of the public sphere. They believe that one can easily infer candidate's values from the positions they take, and that public professions of religious belief amount to pandering. Furthermore, they look at the historical impact of religious fundamentalism -- be it Christian, Islam, or anything else -- on public policy and find it largely negative. My questions: What distinctions do you draw between personal values and religion? Are they one and the same, or is religion one of many possible influences on personal values? At what point does religious faith become an inappropriate influence on public policy? Has this ever happened with Christianity in the United States? Has it happened recently? Please cite examples...