Piety and Politics
First, thanks to Matthew Holt and Sarah Arnquist of The Health Care Blog for inviting me to post my article, “Finding 'Original Faith' but not in the health care system” on their blog yesterday.
And speaking of the relationship of faith to one’s views on matters of political policy…
Many people prefer leaders who don’t base their policies on their religious beliefs, if for no other reason than that we live in a pluralistic society. That means that even if you’re religious, somebody else’s religion could get voted into office next election cycle.
At the same time, any office holder is a human being with a life that goes beyond his or her political role and that may well include religion or spirituality.
Do you see any constructive role that a politician’s religious beliefs can have in his or her political life? For that matter, if you consider yourself spiritual or religious, do you see this aspect of yourself as informing your own political thoughts?
Just how would you describe any such constructive relationship that you may see between a person’s religious/spiritual life and his or her political views?
And how – or would you – distinguish this from the manner in which an atheist’s or agnostic’s outlook on life affects his or her political views?
And speaking of the relationship of faith to one’s views on matters of political policy…
Many people prefer leaders who don’t base their policies on their religious beliefs, if for no other reason than that we live in a pluralistic society. That means that even if you’re religious, somebody else’s religion could get voted into office next election cycle.
At the same time, any office holder is a human being with a life that goes beyond his or her political role and that may well include religion or spirituality.
Do you see any constructive role that a politician’s religious beliefs can have in his or her political life? For that matter, if you consider yourself spiritual or religious, do you see this aspect of yourself as informing your own political thoughts?
Just how would you describe any such constructive relationship that you may see between a person’s religious/spiritual life and his or her political views?
And how – or would you – distinguish this from the manner in which an atheist’s or agnostic’s outlook on life affects his or her political views?
Posted by Paul at 11:14 AM Permalink
32 Comments:
Good questions. I do not believe one would ever be able to seperate their spiritual/religious beliefs from the decisions that they make while in office.
If politicians acted by the Golden Rule, instead--
Guess they would be far Leftists, like, uh...Dennis Kucinich?
(His "Department of Peace" idea, for example--now that's way radical!)
FIREBIRD: So you'd distinguish the Golden Rule from a religious belief. How?
It is really applicable to any situation, not just for religious reasons. I think it's amounting to being a decent human being.
3 little things:
1. What I decide is not harmful for myself or anyone.
2. The after effects of the action does not hurt anyone.
3. The action itself must not be morally unacceptable.
Eg, I might want to open a massage parlour because it earns big money. But I cannot expect God to bless my action because it cannot go pass those ticks.
I guess having some sort of base is very important if one is elected leader.
I've been just a tad smarter these past few months in that I put together big writings (big as in lots of words) on a word document before publishing (keeps me out of trouble) and here you pop up in it....
You might just BE Santa, huh?
BONEMAN: That blog is listed on your profile too so I just clicked on it.
I usually do that also - do posts in Word first.
Religion doesn't so much inform my political decisions but my ethics do.
An example of how religion can be used for whatever you believe already might be the proposition 8 thing here in California. It's an initiative to ban gay marriage. The Catholic Church is for the ban, based on religion, and the Episcopal Church is against the ban, based on religion :)
First by pointing out that political opinions are really just political opinions, as per your Episcopal/Catholic example.
Second, with the word "ethics." Isn't it ethics and not particular relgious beliefs that most citizens would hope to find in leaders? A leader's ethics may or may not be associated in the leader's own mind with particular religious beliefs or with any religious beliefs at all.
I wonder what others think about this? And of the relationship, if any, between religious beliefs - or spirituality - and ethics?
Matthew and Sarah had
a good idea to inviting you to post your article "Finding "Original Faith" but not in the health care system" on their great blog.
Let God help you to resolve your medical problem very soon.
I wish you it from deep of my heart!
The first Negro slaves arrived in Jamestown in 1619. It has taken almost 400 years for this so-called "Christian Nation" to grant permission for a coloured man to run for President. Nice.
I am almost certain that Jesus would NOT have been rootin' for those early Faithful Americans to cheat the First Asians out of their land and be able to afford as many African Slaves as possible.
Watching the pageantry of the ongoing Presidential Election process it is easy to forget how hard many of the Founding Fathers fought to ensure that there was a distinct line between Church & State. Unfortunately it's never more blurry than during these dog&pony show campaigns.
America may be on the threshold of electing a Black Man but they are still another 400 years away from electing an Agnostic...
especially in the proud 'States' of Hypocrisy, North Larceny, New Gluttony, West Vanity, and South Denial.
That is not to say I want them immoral, as I do not equate morality with religion.
I expect politicians to be respectful of all their constituents but to steer a middle course. There in lies the problem, of course: the middle of what? Public opinion, I suppose. Issues such as abortion, death penalty, wars, tax liability of 'religious' organisations (no Tom, Scientology is NOT a religion), and any other issue that excites the blood of the religiously virtuous are problematic however. You will never please everyone.
I am assuming that public opinion will determine the election of a politician (by numbers) and that this then forms the constituency that determines his stand on moral issues. Or, flipping that around, his stand on moral issues will determine who votes for him.
An aside: My view of religion in days gone by was that it was a political tool used by the elite to keep the masses quiet. Would the serfs of olde England have put up with their miserable lot if they had not been pacified with the line that they wouldn't get to Heaven if they didn't shut up and plough the lord of the manor's fields? In many ways it is no different to the 42 virgins promise of Islam: shut up and do the dirty work here, pleasures await you later. It is a political bludgeon.
DONN and LEE – A couple thoughts:
Certainly religion has both historically and at the present time often been used to perpetrate grossly immoral behavior.
Certainly religion has both historically and at the present time often been used to promote highly moral behavior – consider the Dali Lama, Martin Luther King Jr., Gandhi…
I think it may be the case that entirely different ways of looking at life and responding to it get labeled as “religion” or “spirituality.” Think, for example, of two American presidents who considered themselves religious: Abraham Lincoln and George W. Bush.
If you could somehow be a fly on the wall in first one and then the other of these minds while each was “alone with his God,” I’m pretty sure the two spaces that you’d inhabit would be so unalike that calling each of these men religious would strike anyone who’d visited these two places as really odd. Metaphorically speaking, my bet would be that the face of Dubya’s God greatly resembles his own but that the face of Lincoln's God went far, far beyond the end of his own nose.
That sure was an odd sentence, but hopefully you see what I mean, lol...
I suppose I need to clarify the bottom line. Personally I think that Mankind has outgrown every single Religious notion that he has invented, re-invented, and nurtured. While it is certainly valuable to understand the need for these inventions and the psychological soother that they provided, the time has come to put away such notions and focus on the tangible.
Your Spirituality modifier should be transferred to the scientific/medical community as part of our fledgling investigation of the Brain...
from "which we live, and breath, and have our being".
Anything outside of that is just conversation...
and however scintilating that conversation may be, any suggestion that we have met or understand anything about the cosmic watchmaker or have idea as to their true identity or existance, unfortunately, remains tenuous at best.
Behind almost all of Mankind's amazing record of self destruction are the gods...
which have been recycled long enough.
Anyway, you're equating all religion and spirituality with beliefs about how the world works - doctrine. (And of course there's ritual.)
There's also a whole domain of religion and spirituality that isn't necessarily connected with belief or ritual...
Ugh. Gotta go. Anyway, it's in the realm of experience.
I now have believe that we are all destined to be cared for by a large Jamaican Nurse that we call Mama.
If a belief that strikes one as manifestly false helps someone else lead a more positive life, what's the problem?
I'd also reiterate: there's more to religion and spirituality than doctrine. William James... you couldn't ask for a more rational, clear-headed thinker. His "The Varieties of Religious Experience" remains highly regarded though written early in the twentieth century.
If it all ends in a Nurse, I'm gonna figure out a way to bust out...
Nothing against nurses, we need more of them, but to need one long term - that already feels close enough to an eternity...
The problem is when that person becomes a politician and tried you run your life by their beliefs.
Yet the problematic part when it comes to politicians isn't the belief per se but a predisposition to try to run others' lives by it. So JFK, for example, is distinct from Bush or Palin.
Also, it strikes me that it's seldom if ever a core religious belief that such politicians try to impose on the country but some political opinion which the politician connects with his or her religion. In the states, it's the familiar "hot button issues" that mostly center on sex and reproduction.
I totally agree! thats what alot of ppl fail to realise.
Keshi.
VISHESH: "Broad minded" is an interesting phrase. Something like that - not sure it's exactly right, but it's at least close - seems to be what's needed in a leader who's personally religious but also truly committed to separation of church and state.
I suppose policies are eventually measured by their outcomes rather than the principles they are based on.
I don't know as the US has ever had a leader so proud of his "unwavering" principles and "staying his course" according to his preconceived notions. The whole world has seen all the good that does...
Today, national well being is so interconnected with international events that I think it will be increasingly true that a leader who serves a nation's interests will also serve the interests of the larger world. I would think that therefore the love of humanity you cite would be a much more important spiritual/religious attribute than trying to connect specific political opinions to scripture or public displays/professions of piety.
While whether one will be a able to separate their belief system from politics remain uncertain..
I believe, religion is a very private, personal affair..
and that affairs of the nation, needs to be dealt separately-- with no religious underpinnings...
if so, i feel much of today's political problems including terrorism could be mitigated...i mean they would not rise to these levels....
that's the perception, i have..
hope you are doing good!
wishes!
devika
After looking at numerous world religions, the way those religions influence spiritual beliefs, and the way politics tries but fails to separate state and church, I'd say that one's thoughts and consequent actions are informed by ALL his/her beliefs - religious, spiritual, and political - and that any constructive relationship between them ought to be fluid and inclusive. What happens, I think, is that when our beliefs are unexamined, we tend to grab onto whatever scares us least (or in some cases, excites us most), hence, the ugly mob mentality of some of the campaigners and campaign-goers. When we cling to a belief without examining it, we are a slave to it. To reserve the right to change our beliefs upon examination is, I think, a step on the path to enlightenment.
Kind of a metabelief maybe...
What I have found is that if a person really believes strongly in any religious concept they are unable to seperate themselves from it. If they can divide their spirituality and their politics, most likely they believe more in their political views than their spiritual ones.
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