Religion and Politics

[secret_stuff]

I have been thinking more about issues of religion these days, and it is a subject that has always intrigued me. Perhaps the proximity of the election is highlighting it in the media more, but since I had always intended that one purpose of this journal would be to ramble on the subject of religion, what the heck

Comments

[overfreak]

Quite insightful of you. It actually outlines some of my rather unpopular stance on voting.

Any counter arguments regarding standing idly by are tricky at best because the concept is if you are not doing something about it, then you are allowing it, which is not exactly correct. Standing idly by is Saul holding the coats of the men that stoned Stephen. Likewise, Jesus wasn't standing idly by regarding the adulteress brought to him when he did not say stone her.

[secret_stuff]

That's a very good point as well. I think that also is something that is more generally American as opposed to be solely limited to Christians or any other group. We seem to want to put a lot of significance behind political affiliation, and we tend to give a lot of significance to the effects of pulling that lever in the voting booth, as if that, in and of itself, is a major accomplishment.

Of course, from the media perspective, I guess it is. They really do often fram it around just getting people to show up at the polls and voter registration as some herculean task.

So I guess discussion about just how much we are responsible for doing is a fair question. From a Christian perspective I think that maybe people focus on stuff like the election so much because the other considerations are a lot less comfortable at times.

[internofdoom]

There are faith traditions within the greater Christian community that actualy encourage political action for the concerp of the greater good. I can speak from experience from the Jesuit side of things. I think it was Arupe that first made a very public case for taking on the responsibility of power in order to effect positive social change. Now, this was aimed directly at poverty issues and social justice which is what Jesuits are all about, but philophicaly you can see how it could apply to political activism against abortion.

[secret_stuff]

Agreed. Obviously the Catholic Church, as a general rule, feels that is correct in many respects. The opinion presented above is purely my own

[themocks]

I don't have the time to go into a deep response - maybe someday I'll actually write why I hate organized religion and would rather go to hell than worship the god that they promote - but will instead just leave with a simple bumper sticker: The Christian Right is Neither.

[secret_stuff]

Well, I'd be interested in hearing / reading it! :-)

[shinotenshi02]

I'd be interested in hearing this rant too. I've come to have some issues with organized religion myself, and sometimes the 'God' I think they worship is clearly a very different one than the one they think they're worshipping...

[bombyamom]

I just wanted to add to the chorus that really liked this post. I also admire your faith as one that seems to be relatively seeped in logic, and not "well, my priest hates Jews, and told me to hate Jews, so I am going to hate Jews." Unfortunately for all the "good" Christians out there, the squeaky wheels always seem to get the media attention - all the crackpots and people who use religion for things other than spirituality and enlightenment

[secret_stuff]

Very true. Anytime you get more than a handful of people together, politics is involved in some capacity.