should church be involve in politics?
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Answer:
Should the Church be involved in politics?
Of the seven answers so far, it looks like I will be in the minority. But I will emphatically insist that “The Church” has absolutely no business trying to impose its influence on “The State”, at least in the US. Anyone who thinks that government should be influenced by or modeled after religion, should live in Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, or any other “bastion of freedom” that currently allows its clergy to run its government. I’m certain they will be in awe of all of the fabulous benefits that living in a theocracy brings to its citizens.
In the US, we have a separation of “church and state”, which in theory, goes like this:
The state will not restrict the free exercise of religion, and the state will not require a religious test for any public office. If you understand the phrasing of the First Amendment of the US Constitution, you will see that the only possible way to ensure freedom of religion, is to make certain that no specific religion ever imposes itself on our government. The other side of this equation is the obvious need for the prohibition of any church establishing itself as a governmental authority ie, legislating its tenets into law.
Clearly, the minute we allow any legislation to be enacted, that establishes the doctrine of any religion into law, we have lost that “freedom of religion” that several others have suggested require the church to involve itself in our politics.
The relationship between Christianity and politics is a historically complex subject and a frequent source of disagreement throughout the history of Christianity, as well as in modern politics between the Christian right and Christian left. There have been a wide variety of ways in which thinkers have conceived of the relationship between Christianity and politics, with many arguing that Christianity directly supports a particular political ideology or philosophy. Along these lines, various thinkers have argued for Christian communism, Christian socialism, Christian anarchism, Christian libertarianism, or Christian democracy. Others believe that Christians should have little interest or participation in politics or government.