On Campaign Trail, Democrats Put Their Faith in Book of James

When Sen. Barack Obama talks about faith, he sometimes invokes the New Testament Book of James and its admonition that "faith without works is dead."

As she competed for the Democratic nomination, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York frequently did the same, often more regularly than Obama (D-Ill.), though what she called her "personal theology" sometimes took a different tack, saying that "works without faith is too hard."

Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) also called upon James in the 2004 election, saying, "There's a great passage in the Bible that says, 'What does it mean, my brother, to say you have faith if there are no deeds?' " Even back in 2000, in trying to characterize George W. Bush's outreach to African Americans as shallow, Al Gore invoked James in a speech to the NAACP: "Show me thy faith without thy works, and I will show thee my faith by my works."

The repeated references to James highlight an often overlooked and sometimes criticized book of the Bible. For centuries, its supposed conflict with St. Paul and the Protestant doctrine of justification by faith alone relegated it to the sidelines of biblical scholarship.

Yet the book is finding new life in American politics, with James emerging as the Democrats' go-to theologian, and his epistle as their favorite passage of Scripture.

" 'Faith without works is dead' translates politically into 'rhetoric without action is dead,' " said Kevin Coe, co-author of "The God Strategy: How Religion Became a Political Weapon in America."

James stresses the theme of faith in action perhaps more than any other book of the New Testament. Unlike other New Testament letters, many of them attributed to Paul, James plays down dogma in favor of practical ethical guidelines that center on loving one's neighbor and, in particular, serving the poor.

Over the past several years, Democrats have succeeded in marshaling the religious left and have built a bigger audience attuned to biblical language. With its calls to serve society's marginalized and its critique of wealth, James represents a good fit for the party's perspective.

"It's a book that the left is likely to have a better chance of using effectively," Coe said.

Which isn't to say Republicans never cite James. Asked in a 2006 profile for Rolling Stone what drove his work to combat malaria, poverty and hunger in Africa, Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.), responded, "Widows and orphans."

It was an oblique reference to James 1:27: "Religion that God our father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world."

James is one of seven "Catholic Epistles," so named because they address the general faithful rather than a particular community or individual, and offers instructions on how to live a moral life.