With a lot of attention on the second spot on the presidential ticket right now - whether it's JD Vance and childless cat ladies, or the range of contenders for Kamala Harris' pick - religion and beliefs are prominent in the converation. E.J. Dionne, a longtime analyst of the American political scene, often through a religion lens, brings his expertise to The State of Belief, Interfaith Alliance’s weekly radio show and podcast. E.J. joins Rev. Paul Brandeis Raushenbush to discuss the candidates, most of which he's interviewed, and the ever-more-vital need to preserve the constitutional separation of Church and State.

“I think in this election, on issues related to religion, one of the fundamental divides is between people who are, directly or indirectly - sometimes they're called Christian nationalists, but they don't all have to be called Christian nationalists - but who really do seem to want to argue that the Christian faith is foundational to everything in the American republic, and they have the idea that we are, in some deep sense, a Christian nation. It's obviously true that Christianity was central to the thinking of many of the founders, but the founders were very conscious of not creating a religiously-based republic. The First Amendment was a pretty radical idea for its time, and it's still a powerful idea in the world.”

 - E.J. Dionne is a longtime Washington Post political columnist. He is also Distinguished University Professor in the Foundations of Democracy and Culture at Georgetown University's McCort School of Public Policy, a Senior Fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution, and a frequent commentator on politics for National Public Radio and MSNBC. His latest book is 100% Democracy: The Case for Universal Voting, co-authored with Miles Rapoport.

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