Religion and Politics: Can they Co-Exist?

Jessica Crist | Bishop, Montana Synod

Can religion and politics co-exist?

You bet.

My involvement in politics is informed by my faith. I can no more imagine separating the two than I can imagine separating my head from my heart.

There’s an old piece of advice given to people who are going into strange social settings: Whatever you do, don’t bring up religion or politics! And indeed when I told my secretary what I was doing, she said, “What are you going to talk about?” I said, “Religion and Politics!” She said, “Oh no! The two things people least like talking about!”

In recent times the most widely known instances of religion interfering in politics is the relatively new political involvement of the Religious Right. Particularly around issues of abortion and same-gender marriage, Conservative Christians have captured the attention of the media. This means that for many Americans, religion and right wing are synonymous. But I’m here to tell you that they are not.

I’m here as a progressive religious person standing at the crossroads of those who despise liberals and those who are suspicious of people of faith.

All people have values. All people have ethics. All people have morals. The artificial separation of people into values voters, which means they vote in a particular way on a particular, narrow set of issues, and other voters is absurd. Whether you consider yourself to be religious at all, you are a values voter. You have a value system that informs the choices that you make, both personal and public. For some of us that value system is religion. So I’m going to argue that religion and politics can indeed co-exist, that in fact they are integrally related.

Religion gets at the very root of who we are, of why we exist, what is the meaning of our existence, and why it matters at all. Politics is how it all works.

If something matters to us on a deep level then it only makes sense to find ways to implement it on a practical level. That’s politics. There has to be a reason to do things. There has to be a plan, there has to be a larger whole in order to undergird the political action. That’s religion.

Oversimplified? Of course. But it’s a start.

The history of our country is a study in the interface of politics and religion, with a mixture of economics and nationalism and a few other things thrown in. The Massachusetts Bay colony was set up so that the Puritans, who were being oppressed in England, would have a place of their own. Religious freedom? Yes. For the Puritans.

Other colonies followed suit. Maryland and Georgia became havens for Catholics. Baptists who were ostracized in Massachusetts found refuge in Rhode Island. Pennsylvania was a bit more tolerant. It was established as a colony for Quakers who were being oppressed in England. And William Penn set it up so that in the center, in Philadelphia, the English Quakers had a place where they could be. But then he welcomed others. The German Lutherans in the ring outside of that. Then the Scotch Irish Presbyterians in the farther ring beyond the Germans.

We can look back at these original colonies and criticize them for sneaking religious freedom for themselves with no compunction about putting their religious values on others. But we can also look at it as a part of the great experiment that is the first amendment to the Constitution of the United States: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.

The interpretation of the first amendment especially as it relates to the establishment of religion and the freedom of expression is still evolving. But stating unequivocally that it is not the state’s job to tell people what to believe or how to practice their faith was a giant step toward the fundamental principle that religion is an individual choice. Not an imposed thing.

It means that people have the freedom to believe or not to believe, to participate or not to participate. And it means they have a responsibility to be accountable for their choices.

Over the years, since the first amendment was adopted, there have been numerous issues that have arisen and many have even gone before the Supreme Court. In the twentieth century, issues surrounding separation of church and state included: school prayer, mandatory bible reading, Christmas pageants in public schools, placement of the 10 commandments on the court house lawns, and religious displays on public property. As America has become more religiously diverse, there are more and more challenges to previously held assumptions of the status quo.

“Well, certainly everybody must agree on these issues,” was the standard assumption.

No, actually, everybody does not agree on them. And there are more and more points of view. As long as everybody is the same, as long as everybody actually agrees on everything, the system isn’t tested. Diversity tests the strength of our system. And by and large it holds up rather well.

The separation of church and state is a simple doctrine with complex implications because there is a long history of interaction between the religious sphere and the political sphere. The anti-slavery movement in the nineteenth century is a prime example; headed by religious people, it was driven overtly by their own religious convictions. The civil rights movement of the twentieth century is another example. Religious leaders considered it an imperative to address the racism and to work on civil rights for African Americans. It began as a religious imperative, and again it moved out beyond the religious community. But it always had, at its heart, a religious imperative.

Today in the twenty-first century religious leaders are addressing immigration issues with progressive arguing for more hospitable immigration policies based on justice and hospitality. And in Montana the abolition of the death penalty is of deep concern to people of faith as a matter of values and ethics and religious imperative.

We have in our country a deep ambivalence about religion and politics. In 1960 John Kennedy, the first Catholic to be elected president, had to promise that if elected he wouldn’t take marching orders from the Vatican. Jimmy Carter, the first Evangelical to be elected president, made a terrible public relations mistake when he assumed that the rest of America was as biblically literate as he was. He made a biblical allusion that got him into deep, embarrassing trouble. Barak Obama, because of his middle name, has to endure America’s current suspicion of Muslims. And Mitt Romney has to ride out America’s ongoing fear of Mormons.

Americans want presidents to appear to have a religious affiliation, along with good hair, but not to take it too seriously.

Montana has taken a bit of a different path. Obviously not one of the original 13 colonies set up by European monarchs, Montana was purchased as a territory from the French. It was in no way ever considered to be a religious haven for anybody. Like the original 13 colonies, Montana was not uninhabited when the Europeans came. Nor was it bereft of religious traditions and practices and beliefs. Among the first non-native people to come into Montana were trappers who wanted to exploit the natural resources, and priests who wanted to convert souls. And they also did things like teach people to read. But there is no question that the religious groups who came into the territory early on were used, in some ways, to colonize and pacify and exploit the native people already there. Many forces contributed to the near erasure of religion and culture of the native peoples, including religious groups, regardless of their intent.

But the fact remains that Montana has been less influenced by religious groups, both past and present, than many other parts in the country. Not only was it founded without religious intent, it remains a relatively harsh environment for the cultivation of religious groups. Of course there are exceptions like the Church Universal and Triumphant, which intentionally relocated to Montana and flourished for a decade or so.

Nationwide, sociological studies look at trends in religious participation, and uniformly they find that there is a precipitous drop at the Montana/Dakota border in religious participation and involvement. In the Rocky Mountain West, the majority of people claim no religious affiliation. Sociologists of religion call this the “none zone.”

Well what does that mean?

People who claim no religious affiliation are not of one mind any more than people who claim an affiliation are. Within the population of the “none zone” there are some hard-core atheists, and there are people who are actively anti-religious. But there are plenty of people who are a-religious. There are people who once upon a time had some third degree affiliation with a great-grandmother who once upon a time maybe went to a church or a synagogue.

And many in this “none zone” category consider themselves to be “spiritual but not religious.”

”Spiritual but not religious” indicates to me they are interested in ultimate things and reasons and questions, openly interested in values and ethics and in bettering the world. And it indicates to me a suspicion of organized religion. There are many reasons to be disenchanted with organized religion. It is true that organized religion has been the cause of war and oppression. It has divided families and ruined lives. It is also true that organized religion has fed the hungry and sheltered the homeless and challenged the oppressors and stood with the exiled.

Rejecting organized religion as hypocritical or evil is like throwing the baby out with the bath water. But it goes along with the anti-institutional bias that purveys our state psyche. I’ve noticed this for at least three decades. It’s nothing new associated with the Tea Party. I have noticed across the political spectrum there is a suspicion of institutions. There is an underlying current of deeply anti-institutionalism that is in varying degrees anti-government, anti-organized religion, anti-university, anti-anything that is perceived of as an institution.

Religion and politics, can they co-exist? Absolutely. Both involve strong convictions and consequent actions. Both seek to influence others. And they are intertwined. Religious language has been used to justify various political agendas. I think of “A city set on a hill…” I think of “Slavery has been established by God…” I think of “All people are created equal…”

And I see religious language infusing a political agenda. Political motivations have been present in religious organizations as well. I think of hunger advocacy, foreign aid, environmental issues, immigration debates, the concern about the trafficking of women and children. And I see alliances of political groups and religious institutions. And I note that there is a kind of suspicion out there that if a religious group disagrees with my position and tries to act on it, than it must be a separation of church and state issue; and if a religious group agrees with my position but is criticized by others for being too political than it must be a violation of the first amendment. The accusation is, if you disagree with me, for instance when I justify my advocacy against the death penalty on religious grounds, then either I’m injecting politics into religion where it doesn’t belong, or I’m injecting religion into politics where it doesn’t belong.

The reality is religion and politics have been inextricably intertwined for all of human history.

And although different spheres of influence have evolved in modern times, bishops for instance no longer have armies and secular leaders no longer have churches, people are still people. We are not divided. We are not divided into the religious and the political. We are whole.

Religion and politics have always coexisted. Sometimes it’s been way too comfortable. And sometimes it’s been way too tense. But religion and politics are here to stay. And they are here to influence each other. We live in a religiously pluralistic world and I thank God for that. Our political system ensures that no religion can dominate the others, no matter how powerful. And no religion can be outlawed no matter how unpopular. In turn, religious people are free to attempt to influence political policy based on their own values.

For me, my religious convictions motivate my political ones.

And so as a Christian I testified against the death penalty in Montana. Did I claim that mine was the only legitimate Christian position? No. Did I insist that the legislators agree with me because the values that I hold must hold sway over them? No. Am I imposing my religion upon others? No. I am simply clear where my convictions come from as a person of faith. And as a citizen I am clear on what I can and cannot do in the political sphere.

As a person of faith, and as a citizen, I am a whole person.

If I were a candidate for political office, I could not pledge that my religious values would not influence my political decisions as John F. Kennedy was required to do. As a leader in the church, I cannot pledge that I would not use my religious values to speak and act in the public sphere. Will I be criticized for injecting religion into politics, and politics into religion?

Of course.

But it matters. Religion and politics, they can and they must co-exist. I am here to tell you.