Religion and Politics

Pastor Richard C. Church

It is common to hear people say, "Religion and politics don't mix!" But shouldn't a true faith affect every area of our lives? Can our obligation to God be segmented off in one dark corner, never to affect other areas of life?

Unfortunately, many people live their lives this way. They attend church on Sunday, but live like the world the rest of the week. They feel their one hour of church attendance is so valuable to God that He is willing to overlook the other 167 hours of ungodliness per week. God gets a one hour time slot in their weekly schedule. And if they should give Him two hours per week, then God should count Himself very fortunate indeed!

But this kind of segmented worship is not what God desires of us:

"I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service." - Romans 12:1

"What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?" - 1 Corinthians 6:19

Not only does the Bible say that we should give our entire selves as a sacrifice to God, it claims that our complete devotion is only reasonable! If we want to "press toward the mark", as in Philippians 3:14, we must allow God's word to affect every area of our lives, including our politics. Do we suppose that when called to give an account of our lives before God, that our political choices will be excepted? The believer cannot leave his faith outside the ballot box, nor can the Christian politician leave his faith outside the halls of government.

It is disheartening to hear so many politicians today who profess to be Christians, but claim that their faith has no bearing on their political decisions. For instance, Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito, a practicing Roman Catholic, says, "My personal religious beliefs are important to me in my private life. But I have a particular role to play as a judge and that does not involve imposing any moral views that I have on the rest of the country." Certainly we would expect Judge Alito to impose his moral views concerning murder, theft, perjury. Why not in other areas of morality?

Many Christians are hoping that as a Roman Catholic, Alito's appointment to the country's highest court will bring us closer to stopping the holocaust of abortion. But statements such as the above don't give much hope. Neither do the long line of extreme pro-abortion rulings by Judge Alito, who in 2000 even voted to keep legal in New Jersey the most horrendous of abortion procedures, Partial Birth Abortion (http://kgov.com/docs/AlitoReportCard.html).

Whether a politician or a voter, any person who does not allow their politics to be affected by their faith lacks integrity. As Christians, let us devote all of our activities, even political ones, to the glorification of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.