SALT LAKE CITY — Don’t be surprised if Christianity comes up in the Democratic presidential debate Wednesday — especially when Pete Buttigieg is talking.
Democratic White House hopefuls have been unusually vocal about faith in campaign speeches this election cycle, explicitly linking their views on policy to religious values. But Buttigieg has led the pack in that regard, frequently using scripture to undergird his policy positions on everything from immigration to minimum wage — to gun policy.
At an Oct. 27 faith roundtable, he said that his Christian faith and teachings of Jesus call him to aim for a “world with no weapons.”
It wasn’t the first time.
Back in August, Buttigieg compared guns to a “false God,” calling out the National Rifle Association in the wake of back-to-back mass shootings in El, Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio.
“Here’s something to think about this Sunday morning, is a gun a tool or is it an idol?” Buttigieg said on CNN. “If the gun corporation lobby, which is what the NRA is, now has people viewing guns as a thing to be loved, a thing to be protected, a thing that is the source of our freedom and power and a thing to which we are willing to sacrifice human life, isn’t that the definition of a false God?”
While we frequently hear conservative politicians connecting faith to their policy positions, it is more rare to hear a Democratic candidate doing so, especially when talking about guns.
Buttigieg, who has been the mayor of South Bend, IN, since 2012, has made faith central to his message. And it seems to be working for him — at least in certain key areas.
This week, according to CNN and FiveThirtyEight.com, Buttigieg took a commanding lead in Iowa polls, where 25% of likely caucus participants intend to vote for him — nine points better than Elizabeth Warren, and 10 ahead of Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders. The Iowa caucus is often viewed as a harbinger in the race for the nomination.
What’s does Buttigieg hope to achieve politically by talking in the language of faith, especially when it comes to guns? The Deseret News spoke to political scientists, theologians and faith leaders to find out.
He’s speaking to rural voters
By incorporating faith into his discussion of policy, Buttigieg may strike a cord with rural Americans, said Emily J. Wornell, research assistant professor for the Indiana Communities Institute at Ball State University.
“The way he’s using this religious language to talk about specific issues, including national security and gun issues, it really does seem to appeal to rural voters,” said Wornell. “I think that Buttigieg has a lot of appeal to rural voters that a Democratic candidate hasn’t had for a really long time given both his really active religious life and his status as a veteran.”
Wornell says that unlike other Democratic candidates in the past, who have used religion to pander to rural voters because they weren’t sure how else to speak to them, Buttigieg’s track record of devotion, as well as his midwestern roots and veteran status, lends him more authenticity.
“One of the things I like about Buttigieg, he speaks Christian,” David Craig, chair of the religious studies program at Indiana University-Purdue University-Indianapolis, told the Indianapolis Star. “He speaks Christian from a position that other Christians have a hard time dismissing.”
While some rural voters may be put off by his approach to the gun issue, said Wornell, by rooting himself in religious principles, he may be opening up a more comfortable space for rural and religious voters to talk about gun violence.
Rather than threatening to take away people’s guns, as Beto O’Rouke did during a recent Democratic debate when he advocated for mandatory gun buybacks, Buttigieg focuses on biblical principles regarding peace and the preservation of life, said Wornell, while also acknowledging the importance of gun ownership to some rural communities.
In this way, Buttigieg uses religion to cultivate an image of himself as a centrist politician, attempting to use faith to unite — rather than to divide, said David Campbell, chair of the political science department at the University of Notre Dame.
“There’s a more religious quality to Midwestern America than either coast, so part of that is him playing for flyover territory where really the election was decided last time,” he said. “I think he’s trying to resist some of the extremities that alienated midwesterners (in the previous election). He’s trying to position himself in the centrist vein on all sort of issues, but religion is certainly one of them.”
Faith and morality
Buttigieg’s religious approach to gun control may appeal to voters who are not Christian, or not religious at all, said Maggie Siddiqi, director of the Faith and Progressive Policy Initiative at the Center for American Progress. Voters want to trust that a candidate’s policy positions are rooted in more than just empty words, but in an authentic belief that appears solid and unlikely to waver, she said.
“I think it’s really powerful when a presidential candidate can speak about their faith values, how that drives their sense of compassion and justice in the world, and how to live that out through public policy,” she said. “That kind of moral vision is something that Americans are really hungry for and I’ve been really happy to see some of the candidates like Mayor Pete are really sharing that part of themselves.”
Campbell agrees.
“I think people are interested in having someone who can have a coherent moral vision and some kind of center from which to govern,” he said.
Doug Pagitt, a self-described progressive evangelical pastor and executive director of Vote Common Good, an organization that seeks to connect with religiously motivated voters, says Buttigieg is inserting a faith-based moral imperative into the gun debate.
“I don’t think he’s trying to convince people not to support the Second Amendment,” he said. “I think what he’s doing is getting people to think, not do I have a right to own a gun, but do I have the moral obligation to do something about the epidemic of gun violence in America?”