Religion and Foreign Policy Webinar: Religion in the 2024 U.S. Election

FASKIANOS: Welcome to the Council on Foreign Relations Religion and Foreign Policy Webinar Series. I’m Irina Faskianos, vice president of the National Program and Outreach here at CFR.

As a reminder, this webinar is on the record and the audio, video, and transcript will be available on CFR’s website, CFR.org, as well as on the Apple podcast channel Religion and Foreign Policy. As always, CFR takes no institutional positions on matters of policy.

We’re delighted to have Adelle Banks and Adam Phillips here with us to discuss the evolving role of religious constituencies in U.S. politics, as well as the intersection of religion with political and social issues in the lead-up to the 2024 U.S. election.

Adelle Banks is a projects editor and a national reporter for the Religion News Service, covering topics including religion and race, the faith of African Americans, and partnerships between government and religious groups. Two of her projects at the Religion News Service have won Wilbur Awards, the “Beyond the Most Segregated Hour” project received the award in 2021 and the project on the fiftieth anniversary of the March on Washington won in 2014. Ms. Banks has received first place Associated Church Press awards in news, convention, photography, and multimedia categories. And she was also honored with the Washington Association of Black Journalists inaugural lifetime achievement award in 2022 as well as winning an award for the best in-depth news writing on religion from the American Academy of Religion in 2021.

Adam Phillips is the chief strategy officer and chief of staff at Interfaith America. He serves as the senior lead in the executive office and leads Interfaith America’s narrative strategy and advancement of its mission and vision. Mr. Phillips previously led localization and faith-based efforts at the United States Agency for International Development, where he oversaw development policy, new and nontraditional partnerships and democracy and diplomacy initiatives in nearly a hundred countries. He has been a TEDx speaker, and his work has been featured in the Atlantic, CNN, Washington Post, NPR, and Christian Broadcasting Network’s 700 Club, to name a few.

So, Adelle and Adam, thanks very much for being with us today to talk about religion in the 2024 U.S. election. I thought, Adelle, we could start with you, if you could give us your perspective on what is happening at this moment. And if you want to make any historical comparisons, that would be great too. So over to you.

BANKS: Thank you so much, Irina. And thank you to the Council on Foreign Relations for inviting me to speak today. I’m happy to be here with Adam Phillips. Looking forward to hearing what he has to say.

You mentioned history. I’ll say that, for those who may not know, RNS was founded ninety years ago. And in 1934 we were dealing in this country with some of the same issues that people are dealing with now. At that time there was a rise in hatred. There was specifically antisemitism, and anti-Catholicism, and racism. And RNS’s founder created a news outlet that would help people, hopefully, have a greater public understanding of religion. So now, we’re nine decades later. RNS is still trying to do that. And we’re seeing that the country is still grappling with misunderstanding and hatred.

So as election day approaches, one thing to take into consideration is that there are numerous religious constituencies that tend to lean one way or another, but one thing the public should understand is that they are not monolithic. So some of the most recent statistics are from Pew Research Center. They conducted a survey in late August and early September that gave a sense of where some of the religious groups are. Those that usually lean Republican are supporting former President Trump by wide margins and religious groups that usually favor candidates who are Democrats are mostly supporting Vice President Harris. So I’ll just give you a few statistics about that.

82 percent of White Evangelical Protestants said they were leaning toward or would vote for Trump. And the same as the case for 61 percent of white Catholics and 58 percent of white non-Evangelical Protestants. On the other hand, Harris has seen the backing of two-thirds or more of registered voters who are Black Protestants, atheists, agnostics, Hispanic Catholics, or Jews. And that research from Pew dealt with a lot of different groups, but some more specifically than others just because of the numbers they were surveying. So I’ll just mention a little bit about what RNS’s staff and our coverage has been on some of them.

So for Muslims, many have in the past been supportive of President Biden. But there has been a, quote/unquote, “abandon Biden movement” that sprung up after some Muslims felt betrayed by Biden’s embrace of Israel in the war against Hamas. Soon after that began, one poll showed that Biden’s popularity among Muslims and Arab Americans fell by from 59 percent in 2020 to 17 percent in October 2023. But more recently, RNS has reported that Emgage Action, a prominent Muslim American advocacy organization, has endorsed Kamala Harris for president. They offered a qualified support for the vice president. And they said it was a difficult choice, but one of their leaders has pointed to Trump saying that he would bring back the travel ban that he was known for in the past administration, and that that’s been a factor for some of their decisions.

As for Hindus, just yesterday RNS ran a story about the growing minority of American Hindus, who are mostly first-generation Indian immigrants, have historically voted Democratic but some are considered supporting former President Trump. And there has been data that kind of backs that up as far as there being a decreasing support among some of them for Democrats. But there also are other polls that show this kind of concern. But on the other hand, there’s also just a general increase in Hindu-American engagement in politics and in candidates for public office in recent years.

And most recently, HinduPACT, which is a project of the World Hindu Council, has released a nonpartisan Hindu voter agenda educational guide. And that’s the kind of guide you’ve seen from a lot of other groups, including different other nonpartisan groups, different religious groups. So it’s interesting to see that they are doing the same thing. And I should point out that, just like in other groups across the country of faith, some are not interested in being partisan at all. And the Hare Krishnas, which is one of the more prominent groups of Hindus in this country, have said that they aren’t going to be endorsing any candidate.

Quickly, as far as Jews, polling shows that two-thirds are expressing support for Harris. And some are really curious about how her stance will differ from President Biden’s if she were elected. And she has said that she was for an immediate ceasefire. Was the first in the Biden administration to say that, as far as the war—Israel’s war on Gaza. And but she’s also expressed great empathy for the plight of Palestinians, where there have been so many—41,000 estimated to have been killed by Israel over the course of this year-old offensive. Then there are some younger Jewish activists who are expressing hope for a shift in policy. There are Republican leaders who, on the other hand, paint Harris as being weak on support of Israel.

As far as Latino Christians, while white Catholics are more likely to be Republican. Latino Catholics are more likely to be Democratic. And so Latino Catholics backed Joe Biden over Trump by a thirty-five-point margin in 2020. And there’s a new poll that shows, from September 19, that a third of Hispanic Catholics said that they would vote for Trump if the election were held today, but about half indicated they would support Harris. So there’s differences there too.

And I cover the Black church, as you’ve mentioned, in my work for RNS. And I recently interviewed an author named Jason Shelton. And he pointed out the differences among different Black Christians, whether they attend historically Black congregations or other churches. And he said that statistically Black nondenominational Protestants are far more likely to vote for Republicans than are Black Methodists, Black Baptists, and Black Holiness Pentecostals, which would include Church of God in Christ. So that’s another example of the differences amongst a group when people may want to say they’re monolithic.

And another one to mention is Evangelicals, who some people just painted one brush. And we’ve had a scholar, Richard Flory, who’s written for RNS recently, he broke Evangelicals into five groups, because they are so disparate. And they can range from the “MAGA Evangelicals,” quote/unquote, who’ve been most vocal and visible since the 2016 election and continue to support President Trump—or, former President Trump, I should say. But there also are peace and justice Evangelicals, who focus on racial justice, and immigration reform, environment. And they see their values supported by the Democratic Party. Then there’s some people who are in between amongst Evangelicals, and they don’t know which candidate they’re going to vote for.

And I would note one other interesting point is that this time around there’s an Evangelicals for Harris group that has been contrasting things that have been said by the late evangelist Billy Graham and things that have been said by Trump. And that has actually brought the threat of a suit. So there’s all kinds of things going on in the land of Evangelicals with this election.

So I will close by pointing out something that relates not to any particular faith group, but to a survey that RNS did related to religion in the election. And one of its most significant findings, of a thousand respondents, was that more than half, 52 percent of respondents and 57 percent of millennial respondents, said they’re going to pray before voting on election day. So no matter what group we’re talking about, there are a lot of people who are saying that they’re going to be praying as they head into the voting booth. Thank you.

FASKIANOS: Thank you, Adelle. That was great context for this conversation. Adam, let’s go to you to talk about your efforts and what you’re seeing—the trends you’re seeing.

PHILLIPS: Irina, thanks so much for having me join. And it’s always a joy to be with Adelle. And I appreciate her reporting on this.

So I’m the chief strategy officer at Interfaith America, which was started twenty-two years ago by Eboo Patel here in the city of Chicago as Interfaith Youth Corps. And we have a real strong history around interfaith cooperation, especially on college campuses. But in the last couple of years, we’ve really kind of started to focus not just on college campuses, but in corporate America and in civic spaces around diversity being a treasure, and that our—each of our identities are a source of pride, and that we see our faith as bridges to cooperating across all the differences we have as Americans. (Laughs.)

And I come at this work as someone who was formerly a Biden-Harris administration appointee at the United States Agency for International Development. Really proud of the body of work we did there in my time in service, particularly around the U.S. government’s first-ever policy on strategic religious engagement in international development. So, how do we build bridges for development, is what we called it. And that was about a little over a year ago. How do you work together to work on climate issues? How do you work together on religious freedom and human rights? How do you work together on pandemics, and development, hunger, in general?

So we are a nonpartisan organization here at Interfaith America. We have a strong sense of purpose around identity, as I said earlier, being a source of pride. We each have these disparate identities—me, as a Christian minister, as a dad, as a neighbor—and that we think that our diversities in this country are a real treasure, they’re real strength. And that we see our religious identities, particularly in how we live that faith out, as a bridge to working for the common good. And we certainly see the election this this year, as elections every year, as instruments of a healthy democracy seeking the greater good, the common good.

We’ve developed a program called Faith in Elections Playbook. It’s in partnership with Protect Democracy. And I’ll talk a little bit about that. But I’d love to share just a little bit about some findings from More in Common. They recently released a report called the Faith Perception Gap. But you can look—find this at FaithPerceptionGap.us. And the report, created from conversations and surveys, with a representative national sample of more than 6,000 Americans, be they Jewish, Muslim, Protestant, Catholic, Latter-Day Saint communities. And this report argues that faith leaders have a unique opportunity to bridge societal divides, that they are trusted by their communities, that they can play a significant role in fostering dialog and countering polarization by emphasizing shared moral values and unity across differences.

Now, look, I have spent a lot of time in Salt Lake City with LDS Church leadership. And they are very committed to their way of life. And we are not interested in changing their theological perspectives, because we know that the things they hold sacred in their own traditions are bridges to other traditions, be they Muslim leaders here on the south side of Chicago, Jewish leaders in Denver, Colorado. This idea that we have these bridges to work together. And so what I think really is helpful for me in this More in Common report are three findings.

One, that there are more shared values and less politics. You know, contrary to the belief that that faith is heavily politicized, especially we think about Evangelical communities, but we know that our faith communities in the United States of America share more in values than not. We know that non-Evangelicals estimate that 63 percent of evangelicals are Republicans, while the actual figure is actually 46 percent. So this misperception leads to collateral contempt, as we might say, where political animosity spills over to religious groups. Though most religious Americans prioritize moral values, family, and spiritual life over political identity.

A second key finding of the three is that faith is still very, very important. Despite headlines about rising religious nones and declining membership in mainline Protestant churches, 73 percent of Americans say their faith is an important part of their identity. This is especially true among younger generations of Jewish and Muslim Americans, who place a higher value on their religious identity than commonly assumed. However, declining trust in institutions has affected Americans’ relationships with religious institutions, with many of these folks seeking spiritual authority and a sense of belonging outside of traditional structures.

And then the third finding of this report is that religious Americans are more tolerant than perceived. The general public, on the other hand, estimates the commitment to religious pluralism—mis-underestimates the commitment to religious pluralism across faith communities. And so there’s a lot of work to do, I think, for faith communities to demonstrate that 90 percent of Americans across religious traditions value freedom of speech, equal rights, and accepting people of diverse racial and religious backgrounds as core American principles.

So we’ve been working on this Faith in Elections Playbook. We’ve just launched a mini podcast series. It’s six episodes, really centering, platforming ordinary interfaith American leaders in places like Harris County, Texas and Maricopa County, here in Chicago, in Milwaukee—in the battleground states you could say, in some regards—that are doing their part in nonpartisan ways to uphold democracy, free and fair elections, and to really make it known that Americans across faith traditions are leading the way on this effort. I could talk about some of those folks in specifics later, but just wanted to underscore that this playbook can be downloaded online at InterfaithAmerica.org. It’s in conjunction with Protect Democracy.

And this playbook provides other faith communities, like these leaders we highlighted in our podcast, with practical, actionable steps to engage in elections and foster unity, while always making sure that it’s nonpartisan, and on and on. One really exciting thing from this effort is that we launched a video with both Republican Governor Spencer Cox and Democratic governor Wes Moore, who stand united in their commitment, even though they are supporting different candidates, even though they come from different religious traditions. But they both, these governors—these elected governors strongly support the Faith in Elections Playbook because it highlights for them this essential role that religious communities play in safeguarding democracy.

FASKIANOS: Fantastic. Thank you both for that. We are going to go now to all of you for your questions and comments.

(Gives queuing instructions.)

So people are already lining up. I’m going to go first to Azza Karam. Azza, have you unmuted yourself? There you go.

Q: Yes, apologies. Hello, Irina. Thank you very much, Adelle and Adam. Adelle, I’m avid reader of your work. Very happy to have listened to both of you, and for the richness and wealth of your wisdom.

I do have a question to you both, and maybe specifically to Adam, given the position within Interfaith America. Which is how—what has been the role or the engagement of Interfaith America in this particular rift that we see here manifested in the electoral dynamics that Adelle brilliantly referenced and broke down for us, between those who are supporting Israel from the Jewish community side those who are supporting, for lack of better word, the Palestinian dynamics from Muslim and Christian sides. So just keen on trying to understand what Interfaith America’s role is in this context of the elections. Thank you so much.

And, Adelle, if I may just leverage a question to you, I think, given that you’ve also worked quite a bit and are intersecting with issues of racism, are you noticing any of those tensions about Israel-Palestine reflected within the African American religious communities? And if so, what does that look like? Thank you.

PHILLIPS: Adelle, would you maybe go—want to respond first? And then I can get to the bigger, larger question.

BANKS: Sure. I have asked a bit about this. And historically, and since the war began, African American church leaders have been some of the most vocal about their concern and their resonance with Palestinians in particular. So the question is, you know, is that an issue that’s going to be a sort of, so to speak, deal breaker about who they vote for, when many of them are known to be democratic, but not all? And I think that question’s still up there. Some leaders that I’ve spoken to think that there are too many other issues for African Americans who might generally have been supporting the Democratic Party not to do so this time around. But I think some of that remains to be seen. We don’t really know exactly.

PHILLIPS: Yeah. And, Azza, it’s so good to hear your voice and have you join us. We, at Interfaith America, are solely focused on domestic matters. We do not, you know, work on international issues. But of any international issue, as we all know, that impacts American lives, this conflict—this brutal conflict in Israel-Gaza, and now throughout the Middle East, certainly underscores the tensions that we find ourselves, whether they be on college campuses, in your cubicle at your office, or even in your little league or your Girl Scout troop. So we have been focusing our efforts on trying to provide trainings to not just underscore the ways in which both Islamophobia and antisemitism are on the rise, but how do we find perhaps a new paradigm that’s kind of an original American paradigm around civic pluralism.

How do we, out of many, become one? Danielle Allen is this tremendous thought leader out of Harvard—scholar out of Harvard. And she kind of plays with that “out of many, one” foundational, you know, saying for this country in our founding documents to say, out of many, whole. And so we’ve been working with Fortune 500 companies, with college campuses, to particularly try to be bridge builders amidst some very horrific things happening in the Middle East, but also as they provide tensions in our American context.

I’ll say something about voters in general. We’ve seen a very much shifting dynamic demographically on voters. And I would say, like, even Evangelicals are not monolithic. So we shouldn’t assume that folks are going to vote a certain way based on certain trends. This is sort of, like, a new frontier, if you will, of voter sentiment. But I truly think that faith voters will likely impact this election. I’ve worked very in depth on the 2020 election and began to see that, you know, Latino voters in Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania mattered a tremendous amount to the turnout, LDS voters in Maricopa County mattered tremendously for the Arizona vote. And we’re seeing those trends again. But we also need to be mindful, of course, of the uncommitted voters, the Arab American voters in Michigan, both Muslim and Christian, that could, in ways, sway the election either way.

So we’re trying our best. We’re centering these stories. One of the stories in our podcast series is Dr. Dilara Sayeed of the Muslim Civic Coalition, who worked on the legislation in Congress this past term honoring the life of this young Chicago boy, Wadea, who was brutally murdered in the immediate aftermath of October 7^th, here in his—in his apartment building, by his landlord. And so we know that there’s plenty of work to do on all fronts when it comes to these matters, in our neighborhoods here in Chicago and around the country.

FASKIANOS: Thank you. I’m going to go next to Robin Mohr, who has a written question but also raised hand. So why don’t you just ask it yourself?

Q: Hello. Thank you very much. My name is Robin Mohr. And I was the executive secretary of the Friends World Committee for Consultation here in the Americas.

And my question is, Quakers are very concerned about the potential for election violence here in the United States, regardless of the outcome of the election. I am personally concerned about public figures and media adopting the language of war, of battleground states, of trench warfare in referring to the election because of the normalization of violence in our country. Quakers have several initiatives going to help—going around the country to help people to prevent and to cope with election violence at the local level. And I’m wondering, are you worried about this? And how are other religious groups addressing this?

PHILLIPS: I’ll go first. I would say we’re very concerned about that possibility. I was living in Portland, Oregon during the height of the protests in 2020, and began to see contours of this very militant polarization across the spectrum. And then moved back to Washington, D.C. to serve in the Biden administration right immediately after January 6. And so you could see not just the scar tissue of that in those early days in 2021, but a real concern that that threat was not over. I think for us, at Interfaith America, we’re focusing working with Protect Democracy, this really important bridge building effort that was started by both Republicans and Democrats called Bedrock, looking at the potential for the breakout of election violence, not only on the day of voting—and we know that voting’s happening already—but at poll places on the day, but also from November 6 to January 20.

And so the high likelihood of possible statewide-type January 6 kind of outbreaks of violence, the concerns around—you know, we’ve had essentially two assassination attempts on the former president. This election season is one for the books. And it’s one for the horror books. (Laughs.) We don’t want to see this happening. And so we are worried about that. But we, I think, you know, whether it’s consultation with Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, whether it’s conversations with folks like the Muslim Civic Coalition, our Jewish partners, there are just some tremendous leaders out there looking to—you know, in my own tradition, I would say stand in the gap, and to be—to be to be peacemakers, to be bridge builders. And I think the more that local, ordinary neighborhood leaders—pastors, lay leaders, imams—just your ordinary folks in communities of faith that can stand in the gap or stand up for de-escalation, to be bridge builders, the better. And that’s one thing we’ve tried to do with this Faith in Elections Playbook.

BANKS: And I’ll add on two scores that I’ve been talking to people, because I’m continuing to work on stories about the election, about this issue of messaging, and what people are saying. And that it’s not only a matter of what people do, but what people say, that the faith leaders think can hopefully continue to create peace and calm, and not—and reduce the possibility of violence. And Faith in Public Life had created a letter—several months ago faith leaders of a variety—interfaith leaders, saying—basically urging people to be much more calmer in their rhetoric to try to reduce the potential of violence, because they believe that one could lead to the other.

I have covered Faiths United to Save Democracy as an example of a coalition of groups of people of faith, and people of no faith, who are concerned about what might happen at the polls. They, again, similar thing, are trying to reduce the potential for violence, and tension, and just kind of keep the temperature cooler. And so I’ve had the opportunity to watch one of their trainings, which is a virtual setting of more than about an hour or a little bit longer, and where they deal with both the notion of being poll chaplains, where people might have a collar or some other symbol that shows that they are a person of faith.

And they would be there to do anything from welcome people to the polls, just make them feel comfortable as they’re walking up if they’re feeling trepidatious, maybe helping someone find a wheelchair if they need it, or helping find somebody who could help translate, if the person who is voting does not have English as their first language. So very basic things, but just human to human things, you know? But then they also—are also training on peacekeeping. And that is more what to do if there’s a need for de-escalation, which could involve distracting people, you know, trying to stand between people if need be, if they’re not getting along well, and to try to just kind of, again, cool the temperature. So that kind of thing is happening.

And I was at a session—the same conference, I think, that Adam was at recently, called Test of Faith, that had to do with concerns about democracy. And there was a woman in the audience during one of the panels who was from Georgia. And she got up and literally—she said that she was ready to be a poll chaplain. She’d been through some of this training. But she also was fearful. And she was kind of asking for advice. And she literally said, we need your prayers in Georgia, something to that effect. And I asked one of the leaders of Faiths United to Save Democracy about this. And she said that the fear is there, but it doesn’t need to be debilitating fear. It should be some fear that helps people be more prepared.

And speaking of being prepared, they are also saying through this organization that, as a coalition with lots of people, as I’ve said, that their work isn’t done, as Adam was saying, on election day. That they expect that they’ll be working through the inauguration, maybe later. So that people have been trained for this kind of mindset, and hopefulness related to more peaceable elections, and the aftermath of the election. And but they will be working to try to keep that peace for probably days and weeks, and maybe months to come.

FASKIANOS: Fantastic. Oops. Let’s go next to Elliott Abrams.

Q: Thanks very much. This is a question for Adelle Banks.

In thinking about the Hispanic community—I guess my question is, what are the factors that seem most to affect voting Republican or voting Democratic? I mean, one can think of country of the family’s origin. Is it Venezuela, Cuba, Mexico? Or Protestant, Evangelical, Catholic? Or how recently did the family arrive in the U.S., and how long they’ve been citizens? I mean, what seems to matter? Thank you.

BANKS: I can only speak a bit to that. I don’t know if Adam might have more to add. But some of the reporting we’ve done has shown that Hispanic Catholics, for instance, have said that—40 percent of them said that inflation and the cost of living is one of the most important issues. So sometimes there’s assumptions about what a particular group’s top issue is, but that’s an example of not to make that assumption. But that’s one—that’s the one thing I can recall from our coverage of late that that speaks to your question.

PHILLIPS: Just to add to that, yeah, I couldn’t agree more. Of course, you’ll have—you know, you’ll have kind of cultural divides within Latino communities, or even Catholic communities, which includes a variety of different ethnic and racial backgrounds. (Laughs.) But when it comes to Latino voters, I can speak with some authority that both campaigns that are running for president have had more success in places like Pennsylvania when they aren’t talking so much about the border, but they’re talking about how small business owners will stand to benefit from their respective policies. And they’re very disparate policies, but just as an underscore of that. Communities are not necessarily thinking about the things that we think they’re thinking about. And they’re thinking about a whole host of matters when it comes to their vote.

FASKIANOS: I’m going to go next to Mindie Snyder. If you can unmute yourself, Mindie, and give us your affiliation? And Elliott Abrams is with CFR. OK. We’re having some technical difficulty.

I’m going to go to Anwar Khan next. Mindie, we’ll try to come back to you.

Q: Hi. Can you hear me?

FASKIANOS: We can. If you can give us your affiliation.

Q: Hi. This is Anwar Khan. Shalom to all of you, peace. I’m the cofounder of Islamic Relief USA. Now I’m in consulting. Thank you, Irina, for arranging this event. Great to see you, brother Adam. And thank you so much, Adelle, for your presentation, especially when you broke it down in numbers.

So my question is more for you. I’m not interested just in the faith vote. I’m interested in the faith vote in the states that are going to decide the election. So Adam mentioned Michigan is an important one. Pennsylvania is another one, Georgia is another one. There’s significant Muslim populations in all three. But the activism going on in Michigan with the Arab Christians and with Muslims I haven’t seen in any other state. So states like Michigan, we saw in 2016 the Muslim population were not voting for Clinton. She lost. They went for Biden in 2020. He won. And the number of the population that decides the elections in these states are very small.

So the Hindu American population you mentioned seems to be changing. The Muslim population that you mentioned seems to be changing. So I think it’d be really interesting to see how faiths are making a difference in the swing states, and especially the faiths that seems to be changing from one affiliation to the other. The last time the Muslims didn’t vote for Democrats was 2000. They voted for Bush. They’ve been reliable Democrats, but they feel abandoned by the Democratic Party. And it seems that they are voting for Republicans, Democrats, and third party. And that’s going to have an effect. So I wanted to know what the other states that are having—that could play a big difference in the swing states.

BANKS: I can’t speak to each state individually, but I do think you make a very good point for a journalist like me to make sure that we are going beyond just looking at the whole national picture, to the individual states. I can give an example of that, that in our reporting, that in—related to Michigan. Amer Ghalib was the mayor—is the mayor there of Hamtramck, Michigan, the only Muslim-majority city in the U.S. And he is a Democrat who has been critical of Harris’s response to pro-Palestinian protesters at her rallies. And he called Trump a man of principles. So it’s an example of somebody who is high-placed and of a particular faith, who’s, you know, statements could make a difference. So I think that your point is very well taken, that it’s important to look at the specifics of people of faith in particular states, sometimes even in particular cities or counties. And it would be good for journalists to do that more.

PHILLIPS: And I would just add that—I kind of briefly mentioned the LDS vote in Arizona. But the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is not monolithic, whatsoever. And it’s voting trends—and we began to see in 2020 real shift to supporting a Democratic candidate, like President Biden. The L.A. Times has a really interesting story on this that came out a couple days ago by Faith Pinho that really kind of gets at these dueling voters with dueling signs in the suburbs there, outside of Phoenix and Tucson. I think there’s a really interesting thing happening in that state when it comes to faith-rooted voters that’s worth checking out. Both President Trump and Vice President Harris have gone out of their way in the last three, four, five days to appeal to LDS voters.

FASKIANOS: Thank you.

I’m going to take a written question from William Wells (sp). It’s: In reading one of the sections of Project 2025, I am concerned about the over-prioritization of Sunday as a means of preserving the religious and family units in American society. As a person of faith, I’m concerned that this exclusion deprioritizes actual religious freedom for those who keep sacred other days. To what degree do we better hold the historical precedence of separating church and state into a meaningful acknowledgement of faith and being fair and inclusive to all faith communities, given the present religiopolitical landscape?

Adam, do you want to start?

PHILLIPS: I can speak—sure. Yeah, I can speak to that. I think, you know, this nation was founded on a number of first principles. And one of them, chiefly, religious freedom, religious liberty. And for me, at least, the tandem question you ask—you must ask, when you talk about religious freedom is not how can I preserve it for myself, but how do we preserve it for others, for those that might be more minority represented in these countries or in these states, as we’ve been talking about? And the answer to that is civic pluralism. The answer to that is, how do we, out of many, become one people, even though we might worship in different ways—whether it be on Sunday morning or whether it be throughout the week.

I think—I’ll just put my former hat on. We were always worried about, when making policy around religious engagement, that we would inadvertently preference certain groups or instrumentalize relationships with those groups to achieve our ends. And so there’s some really good work done in politics and in government by good faith actors that do not want to prioritize or preference certain religious groups over others. I think this is something that the country always has to wrestle with. You know, how do we not instrumentalize a synagogue, a mosque, a church? How do we not instrumentalize a bishop’s voice so that we can get our certain agenda, whether it be climate change or right to life?

And so it’s a really interesting thing, if you step back and look at it. And I think we have the playbook, if you will, as Americans in our founding principles around religious freedom and civic pluralism, which is truly a bedrock of what it means to be a democracy.

BANKS: I’ll only just add, about Project 2025, is that various religious groups have been speaking about it a lot, as far as concern about the election, and have used it as a rallying point to have people understand the difference between the candidates. So it’s just something that’s come up as I’ve been covering some of the African American denominations over the summer, almost every one of them—if not every one of them that I covered—it came up. So it’s interesting that there’s been kind of a distancing from that, in some ways, from President—former President Trump. But there are others who are very much not distancing themselves from it, and pointing it out as something that’s of concern.

FASKIANOS: Great. Thank you. I’m going to go next to Don Frew.

Q: Thank you for all of this, and this vital information.

I’ve been doing national and global interfaith work on behalf of the Covenant of the Goddess for almost forty years, including a number of years with Eboo Patel. I was glad to hear his name come up. There’s a multitude of smaller religious denominations in the United States. Many of feel threatened in the current political climate. The Wiccan community in the U.S. is estimated to be a little over 1 million people spread around the country, mostly in blue states. That seems like a large number to us, but it’s not a large enough number for any national candidate to care. How large does any religious community have to be to matter to the national campaigns?

PHILLIPS: I can—I can speak to that. Thanks for the—thanks for raising that.

I mean, some of the data is pretty important to remember. You know, back in 2006, 57 percent of the electorate identified as White Christian. Just last year, the data demonstrated that only 41 percent of the U.S. population identified as White Christians. And so this reduction is, I think, probably a combination of disaffiliation and the demographic changes in the United States, where, you know, other religious traditions are growing or coming into prominence in the country, and it’s a really relevant question.

And so that’s why we’re zeroing in on how do we see our various faith traditions as bridges to building a better democracy. We are incredibly nonpartisan about that. We don’t have kind of a point of view, per se, on the outcome of this election, but we know that it takes people of faith from a myriad of backgrounds, and Wiccans and others that you mentioned, that will—that are instrumental in making this a more sound democracy.

But I don’t know. Adelle, do you have other thoughts on that?

BANKS: I’d just say that smaller groups, the minority religions, in our country and beyond get less coverage generally than the big ones. It’s just kind of the way it is, I’m sorry to say. And part of it’s just the bandwidth of journalists and how much we can cover.

But I am very intrigued by your question. And I think an example of one way of coverage is if there are tangible examples that you can share with journalists like me, who would be very interested, of how these groups are making themselves known in their own communities, the difference they are making as the election approaches or as they actually already are going to the voting booths.

For instance, the example I gave about the voter guides within the Hindu community. I mean, I don’t know if there are voter guides within the Wiccan community. But things like that, if those—if that’s happening, I think it would be a good thing for the people who are doing it to make sure they share not only with their local outlets, but outlets like RNS so that we’re aware of that.

And I can say that sometimes we can’t write about each individual group, but we can certainly include some of them in some of our coverage if we know about them. But some of it’s just a matter of both how vocal that group is, and also how much research and time the journalists have to pursue it. But I am interested in what you’re saying and hope that you can share perhaps with me at a later time. Thank you.

FASKIANOS: Wonderful.

I’m going to go next to a written question from Martin Raffel, who is a Jewish Council for Public Affairs consultant: Would it be advisable for faith leaders to call on both candidates to explicitly agree to accept the election results, or is that considered partisan?

PHILLIPS: I certainly hope that’s not partisan. I think that that—that folks from religious traditions bear witness to higher values, to a higher sense of what it means to be neighborly. And—(laughs)—and turnout—sorry, election results certainly matter.

I mean, the way I’ve been thinking about this lately is that elections have clear outcomes. They certainly are consequential when it comes to policy decisions. But it shouldn’t be a zero-sum game when it comes to our democracy and our way of life as Americans. And so I would—I would hope that asking either candidate to uphold the results was not seen as partisan, but more seen as just quintessentially what it means to be an American.

FASKIANOS: OK.

I’m going to Shaikh Ubaid (ph). Why don’t you ask your question?

Q: Can you hear me?

FASKIANOS: We can.

Q: Yes. Thank you so much for this opportunity.

You know, the anger at the—at the Gaza genocide is so bad that the Muslims—especially, we heard about the study in Michigan. The Muslims are so angry that they are even willing to let Trump win by voting for the third party. And we are trying—we have an organization called—CeasefireNow.today is the website. We are trying to convince them, OK to show your anger; vote for Jill Stein in the non-swing states, but in the swing states you should vote for Harris, you know, and swallow the bitter pill. So that is one problem that we are facing.

The second thing I was really surprised to hear that we are mentioning World Hindu Council, a well-known supremacist violent organization involving heinous programs against Christians and Muslims, that they are running a PAC and we are even giving them credibility here. You know, we do not deal with the KKK or ISIS. Even if they form a PAC, we do not allow them to sit with us at the interfaith table. We should treat the World Hindu Council, Vishva Hindu Parishad, the same way. I mean, U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom or Amnesty International, even the CIA Factbook has called them what they are. So that was one thing.

And just now in Canada we saw how the Canadian government has said India is using this kind of elements to kill people. And same thing was tried in the U.S. So we have many problems here. So we should—we should be very wary of giving them credibility.

FASKIANOS: Thank you. Who wants to start?

BANKS: I can only say that RNS tends to write about a variety of groups, and some that people don’t agree with, but we may still write about them to some extent, but also write about a whole lot of others as well. But I hear your concern and thank you for mentioning it.

PHILLIPS: Yeah. And I would just say that alongside religious freedom is this bedrock principle around disestablishment of any kind of state religion, which is important. And, you know, certainly some shining light examples even in some tough places, like Kenya where in their last election—certainly they’ve had some hardship since the election, but the election itself was pretty fair and peaceful. And that was in large part because of Protestant, Catholic, and Muslim faith leaders doing faith out loud in bridge building ways to ensure the safety and security of the vote.

FASKIANOS: Thank you.

I’m going to take the next question from Ralston Deffenbaugh.

Q: Thanks very much. I’m Dalston Deffenbaugh. I’m retired from the Lutheran World Federation.

And I hope you all can help me with a question that’s really got me puzzled. Mr. Trump is the first major presidential candidate to be a convicted felon. He’s the first one to have been found liable for sexual assault. And, furthermore, he’s unrepentant. Why is it that so many people of faith are supporting him?

BANKS: I can’t speak for all of the whys or—because, as a journalist, that’s not really my role. But I do try to help people, as to RNS, to help people understand different perspectives. And some of those who are supporting the former president are—the line in the sand for them is abortion. And they feel like he has answered their request about that, with the overturning of Roe v. Wade. And for some of them, that’s just it. And for other people, there are lots of different issues. So that is just one factor, but there are many others that I’m sure others could explain better than I can.

PHILLIPS: Yeah. I think for me a really important principle I’ve learned lately is this idea of troubling the narrative, which is—I borrow from Amanda Ripley, who wrote a really great book called High Conflict. And the narrative is certainly like, oh, faith voters vote like this, or people think like that. And it’s clear to me in recent years that Americans see the country in very different ways. And in this very polarized state, how do we do our level best to show up and listen, but also to help people knit back together these institutions that are under duress, the media landscape that is very loud with disinformation, misinformation, et cetera. So I don’t have a good answer for you on that, unfortunately. I wish I did. But I know that we’ve got to figure out different ways to listen and work together.

FASKIANOS: I’m just reminding people to—we have a few more minutes left, so if you want to ask a question you can drop it into the chat or raise your hand. And I will ask one while we see if there are any final questions.

How do each of you see your own roles and highlighting stories from the religious communities? And what impact do you hope your storytelling will make in the lead up to the election?

BANKS: I’ve appreciated the opportunity to be able to talk about the differences—you know, the differences within groups because I think for a long time as a reporter I’ve felt like my role is, in some ways, to bash stereotypes, and to let people realize that there’s a much wider picture out there. So I see that as my role, and the role of RNS is to, like I said, you know, foster public understanding of religion. And part of that understanding is not just making assumptions about people, but recognizing that there may be ways that you actually agree with one another if you just took the time to learn a little bit more about each other.

FASKIANOS: Mmm hmm. Adam.

PHILLIPS: Yeah. Yeah, I—you know, in 2022 I had the fortune to go to Iraq on a diplomatic mission with USAID. And I was in a room with leaders from across a variety of traditions, religious and others. And they were all sort of fighting for their five minutes to get their kind of requests into me and other U.S. government officials. And it was very loud and noisy. And it was heartbreaking, because there was—you could feel the conflict in the room. And that conflict goes back generations, if not millennia. But I remember writing down on a pad of paper that day, pluralism. If they could figure out pluralism, they might be able to make it. And I thought to myself that—in that moment, wait a minute, we have a problem back home on that too. So that’s why I’ve dedicated my work in this season to bridge building, depolarization. I have very strong convictions on my own faith and policy outcomes. Have, you know, served in the Biden-Harris administration.

So I bring a full self to this, but I also bring a real, true sense of purpose around the fractious nature of this moment in American history. And we’ve got to figure out new ways to stand in the gap, in terms of maybe an old verse that I lean on right now in my own tradition. That, how do we stand in the gap so that this this nation can prosper, that the communities and neighbors that make up this nation can flourish?

FASKIANOS: Great. Joe Charnes has raised his hand, so we’ll go to you next. If you can accept the unmute or unmute yourself.

Q: Sorry. Sorry.

FASKIANOS: There you go. There you go.

Q: (Laughs.) Yes. Hi. I’m a rabbi. And I just wanted to thank everybody today for the way that you’re discussing the issues, and especially the last question that came in.

I really genuinely was hoping you were going to answer in the way that you did about why are so many people of faith voting for Trump. The easy answer is to say because they’re all demons and demonic and hate-filled people. And the truth is, if we put aside a lot of our own approaches to life and politics, we can often see that there’s a decent person who we simply drastically may disagree with, but they might be decent people. So I just wanted to thank both of you, all three of you, for this wonderful discussion that didn’t just turn into bludgeoning the other because they’re not us. So thanks, again.

FASKIANOS: Thank you for that. I just wanted to share Don Frew commended Tim Alberta’s The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism. Says it addresses the question of Evangelicals supporting Trump very well. So I just share that.

And I’m going to take the next question from Jennifer Thomas, who I believe is from Mormon Women for Ethical Government. I’d love to hear of any examples of faith communities who are making a positive impact, either bridging divides, supporting pluralism, or using faith to affirm first national principles.

BANKS: I have had the chance to write about a few organizations that do that, and that’s their goal. And there are clergy that are striving to do that too. So there are people out there that are—that are for that. (Laughs.) But I will say that one of my favorite examples from earlier in the year about the efforts towards depolarization was covering an event at the National Cathedral that was connected to the Governor Cox that Adam mentioned earlier, who’s part of an effort with the National Governors Association called disagree better—is that the right name, Adam? I think that’s—

FASKIANOS: That’s correct.

BANKS: Yeah, and so Governor Cox was sitting next to Governor Moore, a Democrat, in front of this audience of people under the arches and stained-glass windows of the cathedral, getting along, talking about how they could work together. And that they might have differences politically, but that doesn’t mean they can’t treat each other civilly. And then on top of that, Governor Cox ended up sitting next to Donna Brazile, a long-time Democratic strategist. And once he heard her talking, and they were—they both were people of faith, talking somewhat about that and about other things, he actually said that he loved her. And he was just really struck by her, after having watched her on TV as a much younger person and thinking he wanted to just argue with her. But seeing her in person and hearing—and actually listening to what she had to say, they found a place of agreement. So that was an example of a bridge dividing.

PHILLIPS: Yeah, I couldn’t say enough about Governor Cox’s leadership with Governor Polis at the National Governors Association. The disagree better work has been tremendous. MWEG, y’all have been doing great work on pluralism and ethical governance. So I really want to celebrate Mormon Women for Ethical Government. I think too about the Minaret Foundation, which is run by a friend of ours named Shariq Ghani, in and outside of Houston. He’s bringing interfaith partnerships together over Smashburgers and other ways to talk about equal representation, religious freedom, the democratic process. The Sikh Coalition as well. They’re running a GOTV, a get out the vote, fellowship program reaching out to gurdwaras, fostering more civic participation. There’s just a lot of really exciting things going on. And I know RNS is covering it. And we’re trying to highlight some of that in our Faith in Elections Playbook podcast series that just started.

FASKIANOS: Fantastic. Thank you both. We really appreciate your spending the time with us today, and to all of you for your great questions and comments. We encourage you to follow Adelle Banks on X, at @AMBankstw and Adam Phillips at @therevadam. So you can find them there.

I also appreciated the comment from Rabbi Charnes about this conversation. And we have an election project underway where we’re doing public forums. CFR is holding public forums in four states. We’re co-hosting with colleges and universities. We just returned from Phoenix. We will be in Atlanta, Georgia on Thursday, and Grand Rapids Valley—at Grand Valley State University in Grand Rapids, Michigan on Monday, and at Franklin and Marshall on Tuesday. And they are an attempt to have a nonpartisan conversation on America’s role in the world and the foreign policy issues at stake in the election, and the tradeoffs. So if you have colleagues in those states or you yourself are, please email [email protected]—or, actually, [email protected]. Use that email. The link is also posted in chat, and we can send you more information about that. We really are trying to get out to as much of the community as possible.

So, as always, please send us your suggestions and feedback to the religion program at CFR.org. And, again, thank you very much to Adelle Banks and Adam Phillips. This is a really very busy time, so we do appreciate your giving us your time for this conversation. So thank you.

BANKS: Thank you, again.

PHILLIPS: Thank you.

(END)

This is an uncorrected transcript.