Religion and Politics

There are two things you do not talk about; like oil and water they do not mix. At least this is what I have been led to believe, yet I don't really believe it. American culture, at least a very vocal part of it, wants us to think that one can separate what one thinks about God from what one wants for the community. We get edgy if people running for public office talk about their faith, and more edgy if they seem to be people of faith and don't talk about it. I remember vividly when John Kennedy was running for president that many people were afraid he would run to the Pope for advice on how to run the country, that America would become a Roman Catholic state, as though one person would have that kind of clout. Kennedy would have been served well if he had run to the Pope for advice on how to be a moral person, if not a good president.

I have always been surprised that the Mafia has been portrayed as filled with devoutly religious people ... kill and cross yourself. The Nazis were often religious people who apparently saw no disconnect between the Christianity they professed to follow and the psychopath they actually did. Images of President Clinton carrying his bible, blatantly lying to the American people, and bringing even more shame on our highest elected office (if that can be possible given some of those who have sat in the Oval Office) seem to give the lie to the idea that religious belief will somehow harm people. It seems clear that the lack of it or the false front some project is what complicates matters.

I ask you, how is it possible for religious conviction to be separated from political persuasion? How is it possible for one's sense of right and wrong, one's belief that humans are more than mere animals (though smart ones), one's commitment to the moral values of Jesus be a problem to one's ability to be a president, a senator, or a mayor? I know that some people who profess to believe in God have turned out to be vicious people; one has only to think of the Mafia and Adolph Hitler (though his god may have in fact been his own flawed idealism) for examples of faith gone wild. But the cure for excess cannot be to shelve one's faith, to act as though faith in God was a little thing to be pulled out on Sunday morning and conveniently put back in the closet on Monday morning. Maybe what we should be afraid of is the disconnection between religion and politics rather than the connection between them.

It is impossible to be Christian and not be political. Christ was for the polis1, the people, and His teachings were designed to help the people reach their best for one another. Humans live in community, must live in community. The twin commandments of the Lord are to love God with all you are and love others as you do yourself. Tell me this is not a good foundation for the political arena, that if taken seriously His teachings would not help rather than hurt. Yet for all the posturing done on Capitol Hill, Jesus of Nazareth is a persona non grata when it comes to social philosophy and the enactment of laws. That is how it seems to me and I hope I am wrong. Yet I still see around every corner the wringing of hands and the expressed fear that religion is hurtful to the social institutions of the American people.

Posting the Ten Commandments is a stupid issue. It is a no-brainer if Americans mean what they print on their coins, "In God We Trust." When it comes to the application of common sense, it seems to me that America is a country filled with Multiple Personality Disorder, and no one to help us overcome it.

Jerry Mercer