Kamala Harris has several favorite passages in the Bible. One of them is in the book of the prophet Micah, who sums up what constitutes a godly life in one sentence: “Nothing but keeping God’s word and loving kindness and walking humbly before your God.” The long-time pastor of the Third Baptist Church in San Francisco, Amos Brown, reminded Harris of this when she spoke to him after being nominated as a presidential candidate. He has been her spiritual guide for a long time.
Martin Luther King’s former student at Morehouse College gave her a contemporary interpretation on the way to the party convention in Chicago, where he himself wanted to say a prayer on Thursday. “Practice justice, love mercy and walk humbly, with your Creator at your side.” America could use this. There is too much arrogance and egocentrism, said the clergyman.
The new front woman of the Democrats was obviously inspired by this. Her speech at the opening of the current party meeting sounded almost like a sermon. “Carried by the love of our country, knowing that we have more in common than divides us, let us fight for the ideals that are dear to us,” she said to 15,000 delegates. She ended her speech with the closing phrase: “God bless you. God bless the United States of America.”
Different style than Donald Trump
Her style is very different from that of her Republican rival Donald Trump. “I think the left is godless,” said Caroline Sunshine, a spokeswoman for his campaign team, before the party convention. This is not really true of the incumbent president and practicing Catholic Joe Biden. But the campaign attack also misses the mark with the attitude of most Democrats.
According to a study by the Public Religion Research Institute, 31 percent of party supporters do not belong to any religious community. 60 percent identify as Christians and are mainly divided between the Catholic Church and Protestant communities. The politically influential evangelicals represent a small minority and traditionally feel more at home with the Republicans.
According to political experts, this can falsely lead to the impression that Trump is the first choice in the camp of religious Americans. But even among evangelicals, there is opposition. At a recent Zoom meeting of the group “Evangelicals for Harris,” former Republican congressman Adam Kinzinger criticized the personality cult surrounding Trump as “idolatry.”
The Catholic Archbishop of Chicago, Cardinal Blase Cupich, probably did not have the impression that he was with the godless when he blessed the guests at the Democratic Party Convention. He called for unity and peaceful coexistence without racism. This corresponds to the understanding of faith that Kamala Harris says she took with her from home. As a child, she learned “that the word ‘faith’ is actually a verb: we must live our faith and act accordingly,” she wrote in her autobiography “The Truth Obliges.”
Harris influenced by Bible classes
In Bible class, she heard “about a loving God” who “calls us to speak for those who cannot speak for themselves.” It is therefore not least about standing up for the poor and the weak. She heard the same Christian message from her parents, says the politician. Harris’ mother Shyamala Gopalan, who immigrated from India, remained committed to Hinduism throughout her life, while father Donald is a Christian.
The Baptist pastor Brown in San Francisco will also continue to serve as a spiritual advisor to the candidate during the election campaign. But the 59-year-old is also open to other religions, as her marriage to Doug Emhoff, a Jew, shows. She has connected him more deeply with his own faith, even though hers is not the same, Emhoff told the delegates at the party convention: “She goes to synagogue with me on the high holidays – and I go to church with her at Easter.”
