Religion is an important part of American politics, and will continue to be.

This assertion was the topic of a panel with James McCormick, chairman of the political science department, Robert Baum, associate professor of religious studies, and Christopher Rossi, a representative to President Clinton’s Advisory Council on Religious Persecution Abroad.

McCormick’s main focus was how important religious lobbyists are to American government.

He said these religious lobbyist first gained power in the Vietnam War era. In this era, and during the conflicts with El Salvador and Honduras in the 1980s, the leading opposition was religion.

Their main issue, he said, has been humanitarian issues on a global scale.

McCormick said these groups have influence on American policy. McCormick said “even with separation of church and state, there is a deep moral state [to the United States] and these religious groups attend to that.”

The second panelist, Robert Baum, focused on the conflict between Eastern and Western political and religious philosophies.

There was a separation between communist and democratic ways of thinking after World War II, Baum said, which created spaces for alternate religions and beliefs.

“These spaces closed down with the end of the Cold War,” he said.

With these spaces eliminated, Baum said, many religious communities felt that the Western world order was dominated by seculars.

Western countries became critical of religiously centered cultures, Baum said.

His main worry, Baum said, is that the individual mind will be hampered by a country whose politics are controlled by religion.

People know of the limited dreams of politicians, he said, especially after months of political campaigns.

“Do we want religion to have that narrow of a vision?” he asked.

Rossi spoke about how religion got to the prominent position the other two panelists spoke of.

He said in the late 1990s “a coalition of groups formed to press the U.S. to direct attention to religious persecution abroad.”

An advisory board was formed in 1997, and various powers were granted to the government, like sanctioning trade, Rossi said.

A yearly report is also issued on the state of religious freedom abroad.

This year’s report said that in western European countries there is concern about attempts to stigmatize minority religions as cults, he said. Many countries also force religious organizations to register, allowing for abuse by local jurisdictions, Rossi said.

Rossi, Baum and McCormick spoke on different aspects of religion in politics, but all three panelists agreed that religion and politics are intertwined in American government.