For the past few months one thing has been noticeably absent from the U.S. presidential campaign: faith.
During last week's presidential debate and nearly all of Tuesday's vice presidential debate, the candidates and moderators focused on the issues that really matter to the American voters: the economy, foreign policy, Donald Trump's taxes, and overweight beauty queens.
But in the penultimate question of the vice presidential debate, moderator Elaine Quijano broke the spell when she asked Kaine and Pence to address the role of faith in their public life.
In response, a personal statement of Christian piety quickly morphed into a give and take on divisive social issues like the death penalty and abortion.
During the debate, both men quoted scripture — Pence in an offhand paraphrase from Romans, referring to mourning with those who mourn, and Kaine in a direct attack on Trump, citing John's aphorism, "Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks."
But it was the question on their personal faith that really got them going.
Kaine went first, citing his Irish Catholic upbringing, his schooling at a Jesuit high school, and his missionary work in Honduras. "I try to practice my religion in a very devout way, and follow my church's teachings in my personal life."
However, he was quick to add that according to the First Amendment we should never put the doctrines of any one religion over another.
He also said that he struggled as governor of Virginia to reconcile his opposition to the death penalty as a Catholic with his commitment to enforce the laws of his state. He promised as a candidate that he would not impose his personal views on this issue. And he allowed 11 executions to take place.
What Kaine did not touch on was abortion, the other half of the traditional Catholic position on what Pope John Paul II called in his encyclical the "seamless garment" of the "Gospel of Life," which the pope wrote extends from conception to death, and forbids abortion, euthanasia and the death penalty.
And it was here that Pence pounced. Raised a Catholic but now an Evangelical Christian, Pence first stated his own personal commitment to Christ and emphasized its role in his public life.
He then grilled Kaine on his support for Roe vs. Wade, his running mate's promise to overturn the long-standing law against federal funding of abortion and his opposition to laws against partial birth abortion.
Kaine repeatedly stated that religious people should live their religion with joy but not seek to impose morality through law. In discussing his struggle with the death penalty, however, Kaine did not say that he would refrain from voting against the death penalty so as to avoid imposing his moral view in legislation.
Pence condemned partial birth abortion and said that public opinion among young people is shifting against abortion on demand. For traditional conservatives this was one of the few times social issues have taken center stage during the presidential campaign season.
"Why do you not trust women to make these decisions themselves?" Kaine asked Pence repeatedly.
Here, Pence got the last word, perhaps the only instance in the evening when he did so. "I believe that a society can be judged by how it deals with its most vulnerable," he said, "including the aged, the infirm and the unborn."
These sorts of exchanges over social issues ranging from abortion to gay rights were central to presidential debates as recently as four years ago.
But that's changed, as Yoni Applebaum of the Atlantic noted last week, calling the debate between Trump and Clinton the "first post-Christian presidential debate." Applebaum lamented the loss, citing a long tradition of what Abraham Lincoln called our "civic religion," which contained and directed our public leaders to common ends with common langauge and values built around Judeo-Christian ethics.
It's easy to forget that just eight years ago, former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pennsylvania) made a strong run at the GOP nomination by focusing almost exclusively on faith and social issues. That same year, The New Yorker ran a piece asking, "Can the Democrats Get a Foothold on the Religious Vote?"
That was also the year that California narrowly voted to define marriage as between a man and a woman, a position endorsed at the time by both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, as candidates for the White House.
In the short eight years since, Supreme Court decisions came down and public opinion underwent a sea change on gay marriage and related issues, and Republican politicians quickly began downplaying social issues.
The New York Times this week noted the almost complete absence of religious dialogue and appeals to religious voters on both sides of this year's presidential campaign. “This is more about this year’s candidates than it is about the country,” Russell Moore, spokesman for the Southern Baptist Convention, told the Times. “I don’t think America is as secular as this campaign would have you think.”
And that held true through most of the vice presidential debate Tuesday night, despite expectations that Kaine and Pence, both openly devout men, would front their faith.
Email: eschulzke@deseretnews.com