Former Democratic strategist Kirsten Powers described on Fox News Sunday how her conversion from atheism to Christianity altered her life, claiming that “Democratic politics” had been “[her] religion, to a certain extent.”
“I think my whole life had centered on Democratic politics,” she told Howard Kurtz. “I was very much in that bubble. I worked in the Clinton administration so I had all these friends from there, and then in Democratic politics in New York, so that’s what we sort of bonded over — that was our religion, to a certain extent.”
Powers described her gradual progression from left-wing secularism to devout Christianity, which she also recounts in a “coming out” piece for Christianity Today. “It was a real culture shock for me, and still sometimes is, honestly,” she said. “It was a world that was completely new to me. It was a world where most of the people I came in contact with were conservative. If I had a dollar for every time somebody said, ‘I don’t understand: how can you be a Democrat and be a Christian?’ I’d be a millionaire.”
“I think what they meant by that was an orthodox Christian,” Powers explained. “If I had been somebody who was sort of ‘Well, yes, I believe in God,’ and wasn’t too serious about it. But the fact that I was sort of this orthodox Christian — I felt a little bit like a fish out of water. I didn’t feel very comfortable there. It was many years until I started meeting other people who were like me: very progressive-minded politically but also very conservative theologically.”
Powers blamed Christians themselves for media treatment of Christianity, telling Kurtz that while “the media is not the most Christian-friendly place in the world for the most part, at the same time, a lot of these Christians bring it on themselves.”