Who's in the pews?
Big news arrived recently: Despite turnovers in Alabama's congressional delegation, Baptists still hold four of the state's seven seats in the U.S. House of Representatives.
That should stand to reason since the majority of Alabamians are Baptist.
Despite recent studies showing that religious conservatives — which usually include Baptists — have gravitated heavily to the Republican Party, Alabama's Baptist congressmen are split. Baptists Mike Rogers of Saks and Spencer Bachus are Republicans. Baptists Arthur Davis and Bobby Bright are Democrats. In the open seat that Bright won, his opponent also was a Baptist. In fact, both were deacons in the same church.
Rounding out the group are Episcopalians Parker Griffin and Jo Bonner, but party affiliation again splits the co-religionists. Parker is a Democrat. Bonner is a Republican.
The remaining representative is Robert B. Aderholdt, a Congregationalist and a Republican.
Both of Alabama's senators are Republicans, though Sen. Richard Shelby of Tuscaloosa is a Presbyterian and Sen. Jeff Sessions of Mobile is a Methodist.
To which most will ask, "so what?" To which the answer is, "so nothing."
That is the important point. Although some of the political positions these elected officials take reflect their religious beliefs, in all likelihood most voters did not have a clue about the church affiliations of Alabama's senators and representatives.
In most cases, the only time denominational membership was mentioned in the recent campaign was when someone noticed the irony of opposing candidates from the same church running against each other. Voters may have wondered if the members of the congregation would strike a ballot for their favorite man or their favorite party.
This is not to say that voters do not have a certain loyalty to members of their own church. Nor is this to say that given the choice between someone of their faith and someone who is Catholic, Jewish or Muslim that Alabama voters would cast their vote for one of their own.
However, despite the fact that all our D.C. delegation is Protestant, what is important is that in some extremely bitter contests the church affiliation of the candidates never was an issue.
That is the way it should be.
