Faith and Politics

 I'm not really a Rick Warren buff or anything. I didn't read "Purpose-Driven Life" -- can't say that I intend to either. But he did say something in that Presidential interview forum recently that was intelligent. "We believe in the separation of church and state, but not religion and politics." These distinctions are important, and he is quite correct about them. 

 A friend of mine was a political science major when he went through college. He recalled to me a conversation in class after George W. Bush was re-elected in 2004, shocking most liberals around the globe. People were talking about how the "religion vote" helped Bush gain his re-election -- some were quite upset by this -- and how foolish they felt people were to vote based upon religion. One man even said that votes based on religion shouldn't count, because of the separation of church and state. And, I suppose, that in this country of free speech, I will support people's right to say and believe things like this, even if the ideas are dumber than the night is dark.

 But Rick Warren was quite right to make a distinction between "church and state" and "religion and politics." There is quite a large difference between the two. "Separation of church and state" refers to a divide between the public law to which people are bound under penalty to follow, and necessarily religious dogma set up by instituted moral authority, or those essentially acting as one. It's a divide that protects people's ability to exercise their own religion in the way that they see fit, within the bounds of not interfering with other people's rights. This does not mean that religious perspective and understanding must be absent from political activity. 

 Webster's Dictionary, under it's second definition of the word "Religion" states : "a personal set or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices" Hardly something that can be removed from one's entire approach to politics. Really, if that man in college had been honest with himself, he would have his own religious beliefs to bring to the table with him, even if it consists entirely of a belief that religion is useless (which would be an attitude, belief and practice of a question that is necessarily religious in nature). Religion, in this sense, is nothing more than a part of the understanding that shapes a person's view of what is important, and how he is to interact with the world around him. In this sense, it is impossible to separate one's religion from one's politics as much as it would be impossible to separate one's self-identity, or one's view of good and bad from his politics.

 In fact, saying separation of church and state means separation of religion and politics is quite a large amount of hypocrisy. Religion, in it's broadest sense, is unavoidable. People who claim to be "without religion" are not really without it at all. Everyone believes something about the ideas of God, good and evil, faith, and truth. These questions are unavoidably religious. To say that God exists is not somehow "more religious" than to say that he does not. To say that "good and evil" are relative as opposed to clearly defined objectively does not change the fact that in order to answer the question, one must, by simple nature, involve one's self in a strictly religious belief. Same as the fact that saying two plus two is four is not somehow "more mathematic" than saying two plus two in not five. 

 And so, to say that the church and the state must be separated actually protects one's right to mix religion with politics. To say that religion must be absent from one's political approach is to really say that one must act politically as an atheist -- and atheism is necessarily a religious perspective.