No.
I will not separate religion and
politics in my blog.
I struggled with this for a while, but
I have come to my decision. I am going to bypass the argument that
this is my blog, and if you are reading this, you are presumably
wanting to hear my POV. Instead I want to focus on why these subjects
are inseparable.
I thought that maybe in my blog I
should focus on one and leave the other out. If I wrote a political
blog, I wouldn't want to alienate conservative/libertarian atheists.
If I continued with religious themes, I wouldn't want to offend my
non-political or liberal fellow-Christians. However, as I write this
blog about living a holistic life, I find these two subjects (which
happen to be two of my favorite) to be inseparable. Why can't I keep
them separate? Because what you believe about one, effects what you
believe about the other.
My political views are deeply founded in my religious beliefs.
Conversely, many have had their religious beliefs shaped by a
political ideologies.
For instance my political views on pro-life (I believe it's not just
a personal conviction, but a human rights issue) are shaped by the
JudeoChristian idea that life begins at conception. I am not an
anarchist, because I believe that government has a legitimate role
mentioned in Scripture (Genesis 9, Romans 13). From those same
passages I get my stance on the death penalty, explaining why I am
both pro-life and pro-capital punishment (the death penalty needs to
at least be an option). Could I justify these positions without
appealing to "some old book"? Sure, but if you dig deep
enough, the underlying reasons will always biblical for me.
As I said, on the flip side, many have had their religious views
warped by political ideas. There is a great fictitious example of
this in the Fiddler on the Roof. In one scene the Marxist, Perchik,
is teaching two of the sisters from the Bible, the account of Jacob
and Laban. At the end, he concludes the moral of the story is that
businessmen are evil and will always screw you over. Whether or not
you belief the leftist maxim that businessmen and the wealthy are
evil, this is not the point of the biblical story. As in this
fictitious example, many people warp the Bible to fit their political
ideology.
Still not convinced? There are other examples still, like slavery.
Today, skeptics will try to tell you that the Bible endorses slavery.
It
does not. Historians agree that slavery in ancient times was
different from modern slavery. The Bible mostly treats this type of
slavery as an undesirable social reality. The institution of the
Sabbath Law gave dignity to slaves: God commanded that they get a day
off. God makes a point to remind the Israelites that He delivered
them out of slavery. In Psalms
103:6 we see that God is on the side of those who are oppressed.
Jesus said that his mission was to set the captives free, and Paul
wrote an entire book of the Bible to persuade Philemon to free one of
his slaves.
Despite all of this many Christians, even devout and revered
Christians, defended the institution of slavery. They made false
arguments from the Bible to support their views. Slavery remained
pervasive in America, and the supporters became increasingly adamant.
Meanwhile, the Abolitionist Movement grew, fueled by the religious
revival of the Great Awakening. As this movement grew, the (current)
Republican Party was formed to end the institution of slavery. The
Democrats unanimously (and passionately) took the position of
defending slavery. Don't believe me? I am begging you to go look it
up.
What always shocked me when I was in high school American history
class, was the number of upstanding Christian men who supported
slavery. Now I can't judge their hearts, but I would argue that some
of these guys were not down right evil. Instead, they were upstanding
men with a major flaw: they were socialized into a political ideology
which warped their religious views.
(There are plenty of other examples I could go into on how politics
warping theology. The other examples are a little more involved. I
would need to first support my theological position biblically. Then,
I would need to show how political ideology warped that doctrine. I
might also need to show why that particular idea political is wrong.
With slavery I can at least assume that most of my readers believe
that slavery is wrong.)
So there you have it. The two are inseparable. I can make a
non-religious argument for why I hold a certain social or political
view, but my morals are guided by my religion. Furthermore, my
religion causes me to take action on certain political issues. This is
why I write, to bring awareness of these issues.
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