Wednesday, June 03, 2015

Politics and Religion. . . and a Religious Crusade

The following is a short article by Allan McNew, and then a response by your's truly is linked below it.

POLITICS AND RELIGION

By Allan McNew

I had written a piece about the importance of religion in founding our country, the moral benefit of religion on our society, and a modern conclusion concerning mixing religion with politics. However, it somehow got lost in cyberspace so I'll just cut to the chase concerning what inspired me to write it. It has to do with converting a political movement into a religious crusade, whereupon the mission changes from political construction to religious dogma.

So, for what it's worth...

Politics, clean or dirty, have a lot to do with “what's in it for me”. If a guy is out of work and you either give him some groceries to tide him over and quickly get him a job or pay him to stay home on other people's redistributed dollar, there's a good chance he's going to vote for you and therefore your agenda either way.

If, on the other hand, political meetings get wrapped up in discussion about “Allah is Satan” (the flip side of the Jihadist view concerning Christianity), that “Obama is an emissary of Satan”, get lost in the belief that the group's desired end is God's will, or buy into the authoritarian, theocratic notion that church membership should be a requirement for citizenship, there will not be political traction. You're wasting time not figuring ways to set up a business climate so the unemployed guy gets a job and maybe votes your way.

It follows that if you give him a religious tract, rant about the Satanic attributes of things and people you don't like, advise him to vote for so and so and part with a “God bless you”, he's probably going to throw the tract in the gutter with one hand while flipping you off with the other and vote for the guy who will direct deposit your redistributed money into his checking account every first of the month.

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