When Thomas Buckel, Jr., included a large section about his religious life in his candidate biography, he wove the vivid thread of his faith right in the middle of his political tapestry.
“I can’t be separated from it,” he said.
Buckel, a Democrat, is running for the 7th District seat in the Onondaga County Legislature. He comes from a strong Catholic background with a progressive social activist tradition. And he is among local politicians for whom religion is a tie that binds them to political beliefs.
Religion and politics is a mixture as old as the country, say experts on both. Many candidates, like Buckel, list their religious affiliation on campaign material. Some seldom mention it. Sometimes, religion is the catalyst for political activism. Sometimes, it is an organizing principle for a community. And often, religion is a symbolic sharing of values.
Politicians can identify with a broad range of voters simply by showing a moral grounding, said Robert McClure, a political science professor at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. In a historical comparison, he cites Abraham Lincoln as an example.
“In general, either here in Syracuse or anywhere else, candidates such as Lincoln, shared their moral view with people and for many, that sense of moral purpose flows from religious belief,” said McClure.
Besides their own religious fervor, candidates also have a practical reason for sharing their religious backgrounds. Candidates try to identify with as many people as possible.
And most Americans still believe there is a God. In fact, a whopping 84 percent of Americans identified themselves as Christian, according to the Association of Religious Data Archives. Only 9 percent said they are non-religious.
In naming a place of worship, candidates are simply trying to identify with the vast majority of voters.
Political science professor McClure explained, “So particularly if I’m running for local office, I’m going to put all that stuff out there, as least as much to signal that I am a mainstream believer, that I’m a God-fearing person as much as to indicate what particular sect I belong to.”
But one local party official does not think it is necessary to even include religion in candidate biographies. “Local candidates are known,” said Pete Kavanagh, the Syracuse chair for the Onondaga County Democratic Committee. “Their religion doesn’t have to be broadcast.”
Most voters and candidates here, he said, don’t like to see religion enter the elections. “Most people view that as personal or private,” he said. “People look at that with a certain amount of jaundice.”
But a Republican Party official disagrees with that assumption. “People are receptive to religious language,” said Charles Duprey, director of special projects for the Onondaga County Republican Party. “It just doesn’t come into play a lot because the issues are less profound and prevalent.”
Local officials and candidates say they are comfortable with telling voters which house of worship they attend. “I do because people want to know something about the inner person,” said Dorothy Matthews, member of the school board. She has been a member of Catholic Women and a civic group at St. Paul’s Methodist Church.
James Corbett, who has spent more than 10 years in the Onondaga County Legislature, also has no problem sharing his religious background. He is a practicing Roman Catholic. “I was one of the few legislators who sought and received the endorsement of the Right to Life Party when they had a ballot line,” he said.
Corbett is a Republican representing the 8th District in the Onondaga County Legislature. He describes the local relationship between religion and politics as an invisible thread, often woven unnoticed in the tapestry of local politics.
“This is a unique community. People have very strong beliefs, but there is not someone standing and waving a banner of their beliefs,” said Corbett.
William Simmons, who represents the 5th District on Syracuse Common Council, doesn’t list his home church now just because of his long tenure in office. “It’s just not as meaningful for me after eight years on the council and the school board before that,” said Simmons. “Some candidates do, especially starting out.”
Demographics explain some of the relationship between religion and politics in Onondaga County. Onondaga County’s largest religious group is the Roman Catholic Church. Catholics make up 32 percent of the population and worship in 60 different parishes, according to a survey done by the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies in 2000.
That helps explain some of religion’s subtlety in local politics, say some experts. “There is a reticence on the part of Roman Catholic politicians to speak out much in terms of personal faith,” said Gustav Niebuhr, professor of religion at Syracuse University. “I think it is a mark of Northeastern culture.”
At the same time, voters in Onondaga County have a wide variety of religious backgrounds. “There is simply much more religious variability here and that makes it difficult to have broad, public religious celebration,” said McClure, professor of political science at the Maxwell School of Citizenship.
The most apparent way religion and politics meet comes when churches host candidate forums or Election Day dinners. But of all of the connections, this is the most symbolic, say political and religious experts.
The churches hosting the events do not endorse candidates or push issues. They merely give communities the opportunity to meet candidates. Candidates, too, do not equate the host church with religion in these cases.
“They go because people are there,” said Kavanagh, Syracuse chair of the Onondaga County Democratic Committee. “You’ll see a Jewish candidate at Our Lady of Pompei spaghetti dinner and vice versa. It has little to do with particular religious beliefs.”
For the African-American community, the church has long been a vital political force. Civil rights leaders — such as the Rev. Martin Luther King — were often ministers. And the churches were often the organizing forces for the Civil Rights movement.
For the Syracuse African-American community, church-sponsored events remain vital. Simmons, the 5th District Common Councilor and member of Southern Missionary Baptist Church, was just one of at least ten local candidates who attended a breakfast at South Presbyterian Church two years ago.
“It was a forum set up by a community group to bring people together to meet the candidates and talk to them,” he said. “It was just this particular church that took the initiative to host the event.”
He attends two or three forums a week during an election year, Simmons said, but only two or three are held by churches.
But, in the African-American community, he said, the most successful forums in are held by churches. “We rely on the leadership of the church for political direction,” Simmons, who is African American, said.
The Rev. Nebraski Carter, who is also African American, is minister of Living Water Church of God in Christ and an active community leader on the South Side. He regularly invites candidates in to his church to talk to the churchgoers.
“I am an advocate for people voting and trying to select good government,” he said. “So I give all the candidates the opportunity to come to church and meet the voters.”
The African-American community has the strongest connection between faith and politics. “Black protestants tend to be brought up with a tradition of oratory from the pulpit,” religion professor Niebuhr said. “It would be no stretch for a politician to get up and be asked to pray.”
For his part, Thomas Buckel Jr., the Democrat running for the 7th District seat in the Onondaga County, is returning to politics after a long hiatus. He last ran for office in 1984, when he was a Democratic nominee for a U.S. House of Representatives seat.
He links his politics and religion to his heroes: His uncle and priest Ron Buckel and Robert Kennedy. Both, he said, were inspired by spirituality.
He is compelled by the Jesuit influence of his uncle. Contemplatives in action, Buckel called them. “It has a preference for the poor,” said Buckel. “It is action that is non-judgmental and uplifting.”
“Faith,” Buckel said, “can be a unifying message.”
(Nancy Madsen is an ’07 graduate student in magazine, newspaper and online journalism.)
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