Religion and Politics: A Marriage Made in Hell

I wasn’t too surprised when religious beliefs and dogma started entering the blog posts and comments on the Patch. As my mother taught me, never discuss religion or politics in polite company.

However, the Patch is anything but polite company. Bitter political battles have been going on for better than a year now and no one should expect to see it soon subside. Invariably whenever political arguments are flying, there will always be those who will call on religion as a source of authority and/or correctness of position and action. The question is first; whether religion has a rightful place in political discussions, and second; if it is rightfully present, then what role is religion to play?

I don’t think I would get too many arguments concerning the role that religion has played in human strife and warfare, especially in European history. From the earliest European settlers in North America, not only were they seeking economic opportunity, but, also religious opportunity.

Of all the social institutions; the institute of religion represents the living archive of beliefs, cultural norms, morals, values, proscribed behavior and myths. For those who advocate religious orientation, personal religious beliefs provide a framework for perceptual being or how we interact with the outer reality of the world. The real role of religion in society is to provide continuity between succeeding generations; and, is just as important as our genetic heritage. Religion also plays a critical role in resisting uncontrolled change and fundamentally is a “conservative force” regulating the process of change. Given that religion’s function is to regulate change, when does the institution, itself, become dysfunctional?

In a heterogeneous society that has a number of cultural and religious traditions, the dominance of any one religious belief system is the antecedent for conflict. The founders of this nation wisely prohibited the government from establishing a state religion. Their vision of American Society was one that was primarily secular in nature, derived from the Age of Enlightenment.

However, since all the early founders were familiar with and preferred Protestantism or at least deism, it would only follow that most American Values reflected the values of European Protestantism. The nation’s economy flourished under Protestantism and sovereign individualism propelled the nation into a full continental enterprise. There was a “fly in the ointment” preventing a national religion, the Constitution. The US Constitution is a covenant between those being governed and those governing. It is a social contract in the truest sense to protect the least of us from the majority. A clear religious majority would necessarily create a form of democratic theocracy.

Injecting religion into politics is a call to create a theocracy, either in actuality or implied. About 40 years ago, religion, although always present in our society, began to inject itself into politics dividing the conservative political movement into social conservatives and fiscal conservatives. Under the Reagan years the two movements found a commonality and now, for the most part, support the other. There is a clear and present danger in this and it represents a call for theocracy.

In my six plus decades I have seen religious beliefs used to justify every type human behavior and activity. We all have seen the disaster rendered by the religious fundamentalists that brought down the “Twin Towers”. Religious motivated politics makes it almost impossible to govern and to move forward through the process of compromise as outlined in our form of democracy. Religion is clearly dysfunctional when it artificially limits the rights of others in favor of those who hold a particular religious belief and are unable to compromise those beliefs without defying religious tenets.

In my view, the proper place for religion is outside the political arena. I don’t wish anyone to legislate their religious beliefs onto me nor do I wish to legislate my belief on others. Politics is best accomplished with people of ethical principles and the house of worship stays in its proper place.