Sanders, Ossoff, and the hopeless dream of a religious left

Furthermore, prominent Democrats are increasingly comfortable demonstrating their lack of religious understanding — and tolerance. Senator Bernie Sanders exhibited this rather crudely when he questioned Trump’s nominee for deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget, Russell Vought, who is a devout Christian. Vought had written an article in which he said that faith in Christ as the Son of God is the exclusive means of salvation, an uncontroversial theological claim within many denominations of Christianity. His article came in response to a controversy over comments by a professor at Wheaton College, who had implied Christians and Muslims worship the same God. Vought referred to Muslim theology as more than “deficient” because it rejects Jesus Christ as the Son of God. Sanders jumped on this point, castigating Vought for supposed Islamophobia, suggesting he was a bigot and unfit for public office.

Not only did Senator Sanders betray a misunderstanding of traditional Christian teaching, he implied that Vought’s Christian beliefs made him unsuitable for his a role in government — a violation of Article Six of the Constitution. It is beside the point whether one agrees with Vought that Christ is the sole way to salvation; he has every right to believe it, and Sanders’s militant secularism ought to disturb members of the religious Left who are in need of a political party.