Sen. Tim Scott

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Thinking about faith and family in the first debate between some 2024 GOP hopefuls

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Thinking about faith and family in the first debate between some 2024 GOP hopefuls

President Joe Biden has talked about the battle for the soul of the nation. In fact, he gave a speech about just that in September 2022, two months before the midterm elections, at Philadelphia’s Independence Hall, in order to rebuke Donald Trump and his divisive politics.

“Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic,” Biden, a practicing Catholic, said at the time.

Nearly a year later, the leading Republican presidential candidates came together in Milwaukee for the chance to take on Biden in the November 2024 election. The headline-grabbing elephant in the living room: Former President Donald Trump did not take part.

What emerged from these eight candidates at the Fiserv Forum was an often-heated two-hour debate in which they weren’t afraid to bring up faith and family as a reason why Biden’s America has been a failure. The Fox News debate was the first of the GOP primary season. Trump, meanwhile, staged an interview with the exiled Fox News superstar Tucker Carlson, which was streamed live on the X platform (formerly known as Twitter).

While the candidates vying for the White House agreed America is undergoing a crisis, they differed on exactly why. It set the stage for what will be a very interesting primary and one where issues surrounding faith and family won’t be ignored by millions of Americans, even if they are downplayed in mainstream media coverage.

Faith and family are not new talking points for GOP candidates. It’s a trend that dates back to the 1980s during the Ronald Reagan era and has continued with the rise of the Christian Coalition and, in recent years, the large support of white evangelicals for Trump, especially in two-party national showdowns. The U.S. Catholic bishops have also become more outspoken on many moral and social issues.


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Plug-In: What do we know about the faith of the two latest GOP White House candidates?

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Plug-In: What do we know about the faith of the two latest GOP White House candidates?

A week has passed since influential pastor and author Tim Keller’s death. Look for some of the best tributes to him below.

Making news today: Texas’ GOP-controlled House could impeach scandal-ridden Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton and kick the longtime Christian right culture warrior out of office, The Associated Press’ Jake Bleiberg and Jim Vertuno report.

Jumping into this week’s roundup of the top headlines and best reads in the world of faith, we start with two new entrants in the 2024 presidential race.

What To Know: The Big Story

Political opposites: “One has the most winning personality in politics,” the Wall Street Journal’s Peggy Noonan says of South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott.

“The other doesn’t but has a story to tell about policy,” Noonan says of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Thusly, the Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist and speechwriter for former President Ronald Reagan characterizes the two aspirants who declared for the GOP nomination this past week.

Scott focuses on faith: “A cornerstone of Republican Tim Scott's political career has been an unyielding faith,” USA Today’s Phillip M. Bailey notes.

Monday’s campaign kickoff by Scott, one of the nation’s most prominent Black Republicans, emphasized his Christian faith and personal story, according to the Washington Post’s Marianne LeVine.

At Politico, Natalie Allison asks, “Can Tim Scott actually win with piles of money, lots of faith and a big bet on Iowa?”


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State and federal elections spotlight America's diversity and (yet again) religious nones

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State and federal elections spotlight America's diversity and (yet again) religious nones

The mayhem at the U.S. Capitol last week did not prevent Congress's ceremonial tally of the Electoral College victories of the nation's second Catholic president, Joseph Biden, and of Kamala Harris, the first African-American, first Asian-American and first female vice president.

Simultaneously, diversity was also demonstrated in the two Georgia runoff wins that give Democrats control of the U.S. Senate. Jon Ossoff is this heavily Protestant state's first Jewish senator. Baptist pastor Raphael Warnock makes history as only the South's second African-American senator elected since the Reconstruction era. The first is Republican Tim Scott in neighboring South Carolina.

OK. The press has reported all that.

Less noticed are some diverse Democrats newly elected to state legislatures, as featured in the "mainline" Protestant magazine Christian Century. Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Wisconsin and Oklahoma all elected their first-ever Muslim lawmakers, and the Oklahoman, Mauree Turner, is also America's first legislator to identify as non-binary. Episcopal priest Kim Jackson becomes the first openly lesbian member of Georgia's Senate. Kirk White, founder of the Wiccan Church of Vermont, joins that state's Assembly.

Journalists should also be reflecting on the societal change reflected in the religious makeup of the new U.S. Congress, documented in Pew Research Center's latest biennial report, drawn from CQ Roll Call data. Pew's report page is here and for future reference note you can click on "Detailed Table" for a listing of each member's religious identity.

Religious affiliations do not necessarily define members' policies and voting records. Consider all those Democrats who call themselves Catholic but are pro-choice on abortion -- churchgoer Biden among them. But the numbers tell the media something about society's broad religious trends.

Diversity rundown: Way back when, Congress was exclusively Christian and heavily Protestant. The new House and Senate have 33 Jews, three Muslims, three Hindus and two Buddhists. Like Jews, Unitarian Universalists are over-represented relative to the U.S. population with three members, while Pentecostalists are under-represented, with only two members.

Several organizations have compiled religious censuses of Congress over the years. Pew Research issued its first after the 2008 election.


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Washington Post ponders the future of Sen. Tim Scott (all but avoiding the word 'Christian')

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Let’s see, am I at liberty — after a week of big-time PTL scandal flashbacks — to discuss a completely different kind of religion story?

I have not been watching the major-party political conventions (for mental-health reasons, let’s say), but I have been spending a few moments watching reactions on Twitter. I tend to prefer baseball over the live visuals of advocacy media slugfests.

I saved a few links to materials about the interfaith strategies of the Democrats. I also looked for signs of the role that issues of religion and culture could play in the post-Donald Trump GOP. And in that context, I looked at some of the quotes from the short speech by U.S. Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina.

It’s obvious why this man once considered going to seminary. He’s a fine orator and has a knack for making references to Christianity in ways that are more graceful than, well, posing with a Bible for news cameras. It’s impossible to dig into Scott’s career without paying serious attention to his faith.

However, a recent lengthy Washington Post Magazine profile of Scott came close to doing just that. Here’s the epic double-decker headline:

The Burden of Tim Scott

As the only Black GOP senator, he has walked a delicate line between schooling his colleagues — and the president — on matters of race and remaining silent. Has that helped his political future?

I understand that this was a political piece and that Scott is tiptoeing through the Trump-Twitter era. The long opening anecdote in about Scott asking the president to take down the infamous “white power” tweet is totally justified.

However, to be blunt, I think that the word “Christian” should have been just as important in this long, long story as the word “token.” Read it all and see what you think. I think this story would have been completely different, if a religion-beat pro had been asked to take part in the reporting or editing.

So here is the political angle that is at the heart of this story:


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'God made me black on purpose': Be sure to read Politico's exceptional profile of Sen. Tim Scott

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Twitter has spoken: Tim Alberta's in-depth Politico Magazine story on U.S. Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., is a must-read. 

It's a fabulous profile. 

It's a powerful look at the most prominent black elected official in America today.

Amen. Amen. Amen.

For his part, Alberta — the magazine's chief political correspondent — tweeted that Scott is as complex and fascinating a character as he has met in politics." The journalist's exceptionally well-told story reflects that.

Now, about the faith angle: From the piece's title — "God made me black" — to the revealing details shared about Scott's religious journey, Politico does a nice job with that crucial element of what makes this influential senator tick. 

A big chunk of the compelling opening scenes:

NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. — At the end of Forest Avenue, a narrow artery slicing through blocks of muddy lots and decaying one-story homes, Tim Scott kicks at the gravel and waits. He had shared a table Saturday night with the world’s wealthiest man, Jeff Bezos, at the annual dinner of Washington’s Alfalfa Club, the ultra-exclusive gathering of the political and financial elite that began as a celebration of Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s birthday. Now, it’s Monday morning and the junior senator from South Carolina is back home, in one of this challenged city’s most challenging neighborhoods, to get a haircut. The dramatic change of scenery doesn’t faze Scott, a man who straddles disparate universes with unusual ease. But he is not without powers of observation. As conspicuous as he was at the Alfalfa dinner—one of the few black faces in the Capital Hilton ballroom—I am all the more so here. “You know,” he says, leaning in, “you’re about to be like the third white dude ever inside this place.”
The Quick Service Barber Shop is the aesthetic pinnacle of Forest Avenue; its cream-colored exterior is dressed in red and blue paint announcing the proprietors and proclaiming Hebrews 12:14: “Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.” That’s easier said than done around these parts. There was a shooting inside the shop a few months back, Scott tells me; his friends urged him to find a new barber. The senator wouldn’t hear of it. Scott got his very first haircut here a half-century ago, courtesy of Charles Swint. His son, Charles Swint Jr.—a minister who took over the family business—is the only person Scott trusts with a pair of clippers. When his white Cadillac Escalade finally pulls up, Swint Jr., a small, salt-and-pepper-haired man wearing a dark three-piece suit, jumps out and grins at Scott: “Praise the Lord!”


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