Kamala Harris is the first US presidential candidate with a diverse personal religious and spiritual history that is now far more representative of America’s multi-faith makeup. It’s been suggested her multi-religious identity is a map of the future.
An article by Yonat Shimron published on Religion News.
Harris would be the first Black woman to be nominated by a major party for president and the first South Asian. She also has a diverse personal religious and spiritual history that is now far more representative of America’s multi-faith makeup.
Raised Hindu by her mother, Shyamala Gopalan, a native of Chennai, India, she was often taken as a girl to 23rd Avenue Church of God in Oakland, California, by her neighbor, Regina Shelton, along with Harris’ sister, Maya. As an adult, Harris joined a Black Baptist church.
Meanwhile, the man who would become Harris’ husband, Los Angeles lawyer Douglas Emhoff, grew up in New Jersey attending a Reform synagogue.
Harris’ faith connections have frequently played themselves out in her past four years in office as the Second Couple inaugurated a tradition of lighting Hanukkah candles at their residence, as well as celebrating Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights.
Every past U.S. president has identified as Christian, and that will not change if Harris is elected in November. But as she runs for president, her religious biography will be not only history-making but will connect her to how many Americans practice and encounter faith.
Anthea Butler, a professor of religion at the University of Pennsylvania notes, “Nobody grows up in a straight line with religion in America anymore. Few younger Americans have only one religious lineage that they carry on from their parents. Increasingly, Americans choose a different religious identity for themselves and may change course again as they intermarry and interact with, and support, a partner of a different faith.
Brian Pennington, director of the Center for the Study of Religion, Culture and Society at Elon University in North Carolina and an expert on South Asian religion, notes that his students “have multiple influences that inform their spiritual ideas and identities”.
The term DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) is already being weaponised to disparage Kamala Harris. The implication is that she got where she is only because of her race and gender, not because she earned it. “DEI” is increasingly being used as a harmful, hurtful, and hateful descriptor.
Interesting also to note that the Republican Party vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance, is a Protestant turned atheist who married a Hindu woman (Usha Vance) before converting to Catholicism in 2019. He has spoken of how she has made his Catholic faith stronger.
Eboo Patel, founder and president of Interfaith America, said the two couples offer, in their own ways, what may be an ascendant view of interfaith marriage. “It’s a positive diversity story for people from different religious backgrounds to be married to each other and to say, my experience with the other person’s faith strengthens my own and makes me a better person. It’s a display of identity being a source of pride and a display of faith being a bridge of cooperation. I think that those are all very important.”