Faith in pluralistic America’s politics — those who use it, misuse it and attack it

Last updated on: October 9, 2012 at 8:10 am by Andre E. Johnson

Faith in pluralistic America’s politics — those who use it, misuse it and attack it 2012-10-09T08:10:00-05:00 Andre E. Johnson

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There is much that’s wrong with faith in politics today, but not just in how it is abused; also in how it is attacked. And there is plenty that’s right about it too.

One way of approaching religious issues is fear-based: there are threats to our faith; there are threats to our personal salvation; there are threats of being punished by God for misbehavior. And, of greatest concern in the political realm, is fear that there are threats to the Christian community. It’s not enough to live a godly life; it is necessary, it is appropriate, to attack or at minimum repel those you see as not being godly. This view comes from a tribal society where survival was tenuous.

In early Hebrew Scripture you find all sorts of directives based on putting the security or harmony of the community ahead of the individual; rules that shun or expel or execute people that might bring disharmony, using disproportionate message-sending responses. Those who can’t breed (and thus drain resources without creating new members) are shunned. Unruly teenagers are stoned to death — “so you shall purge the evil from your midst.” (Deuteronomy 21:21)

The same attitude continues in some Christians today, though they may have softened the disproportionality. But there also has been a thread through abolitionism, temperance, women’s suffrage, civil rights, and the anti-war and environmental movements, of invoking Christian themes — to see that of God in every person and that all are equal under God, to care for the “least” of us.

While, to me, love is a higher standard than fear, this also is intruding with your opinions on the public sphere. I believe that exploiting the environment is an offense against God, an abdication of our responsibility to be stewards of Creation, but someone else’s spiritual views or absence of any spiritual beliefs may lead them to think it’s a non-issue, that there is no moral component. What gives me the right to impose my view?
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