Religion in Politics

Around 49% of Americans seem to believe that it is not only appropriate, but obligatory for churches to be involved in politics.  While it is illegal, according to IRS restrictions for non-profit tax status, for churches designated as non-profit organizations to support specific political candidates, it is not illegal for churches to support specific ballot measures, initiatives, or even political movements.  While there has been some resistance to churches having any involvement in politics, the percentage of Americans opposed to church involvement in politics is far lower than the percentage for.  In fact, the percentage of Americans who support removing the non-profit restriction for supporting specific candidates is even growing.

Mixing politics with religion has been a controversial topic for almost a century, however, there was a time when few questioned it.  The American Revolution was driven, in a very large part, by Protestant preachers in the colonies.  The religious view at the time was that government was ordained of God, and only He had the right to change it.  There are even Bible passages that lend a good deal of support to this argument.  Many preachers, however, carefully studied the passages often quoted to support this idea, and they found an interesting loophole.  Most of the passages stated or implied that government was ordained of God to serve the people.  They reasoned that a government that does not effectively serve the people is not a legitimate government, by that standard.  By refusing to give the colonies representation in Parliament, the British government was not doing its job by serving its citizens in it colonies.  Many preachers explained this to their congregations, showing that even God could support a revolution against a tyrannical government, because, by His standards, a government that does not properly serve its people is not a legitimate government.  The British government did serve the people of England properly, however, it did not serve its citizens in the colonies properly, thus it was not a legitimate government over the colonies.  Ultimately, this broke down the barriers preventing the people from rebelling against Britain, and the result is that the U.S.A. is now a sovereign nation in its own right.

Our Founding Fathers were very wary of religious influence in government and government influence in religion.  Some groups of colonists had come to the Americas specifically to escape religious persecution, and even much the majority that came primarily for economic freedom and opportunity also had religious freedom in mind.  At the time (and even today), Britain had a state religion, which certain government officials were required to be members of.  The Church of England was literally owned and controlled by the British government.  Certain other religions were banned in Britain (often depending on the mood of the current monarch).  Many other European countries also had state religions as well as specific religious bans.  Punishments for violating bans or even being a member of a religion not endorsed by the state ranged from public persecution to death, depending on the religion and the current ruler.  While Protestantism was the dominant religion in the colonies, there were still some Catholics and Anglicans.  In addition, Protestantism was fractured into a large number of different denominations.  Almost without fail, any state religion would reduce a significant portion of the population to second class citizens.  This did not fit well at all with the philosophy that people should be allowed to worship as they saw fit.  The result of this was strict protections for religious freedom, along with strict condemnation of any laws that might favor one religion over the other.

So now we get to a modern application of this knowledge.  The first important thing to remember is that religion and politics are strongly related.  Government is expected by the people to enforce certain moral expectations.  In a large degree, these moral expectation come directly from religion.  Rights that are supported by all religions are often called "human rights" and are frequently turned into laws called "civil rights."  Even entirely secular laws designed to improve the national economy (including tariffs and such) are based in the Biblical principal that government is ordained of God to serve the people.  This "separation of church and state" idea that religion and government should have nothing to do with each other is both wrong and impossible.  So long as religion is common in the U.S., it will and must have an impact on government.  Likewise, government will always have an impact on religions within the region it governs.  The Constitutional protections necessary to ensure religious freedom make these influences largely indirect, but they cannot be reasonably prevented.

Back to the question: Should churches be involved in politics?  Separation of church and state as an argument against it is not valid.  While direct influence can be eliminated to a large degree, indirect influence cannot.  Churches in the U.S. have a historical precedent of political involvement.  Our Founding Fathers, who drafted the Constitution never spoke out against this practice, though they were fully aware that it existed.  It would thus be unreasonable to assume that they believed churches should not be involved in politics.  Perhaps they were wrong though, and maybe we are more enlightened.  Of course, this attitude of assuming that past generations were stupider than we are is a strong red flag.  This is an egotistical assumption that is often wrong and will cause more trouble than it is worth.  Instead we should look at the relationship between government and religion.

What is the appropriate relationship between government and religion?  Many people would say that no relationship between the two is appropriate.  This argument is impossible to support though.  There is no way the government can interact with religious without becoming involved with it.  Even wide spread prohibition of religion is a government relationship with religion (and in fact, it is the equivalent of establishing a mandatory state religion).  If the government ignores religion entirely, its relationship with religion will come through the people.  For example, despite the fact that it is unconstitutional to restrict public official to those of a specific religion, Kennedy's opponents used his Roman Catholic religion against him in their campaigns.  So long as religion exists, there will be a relationship between religion and government, and if it is eliminated by government edict, that is, in and of itself, a relationship between religion and government.  It is almost pointless to discuss the question of whether such a relationship should exist, because it is impossibly for it not to exist.  That said, in a democratic government where some of the citizens have religious beliefs, it is entirely appropriate for such a relationship to exist, because the people the government represents include religious people.

Government involvement of the general public is all about beliefs.  A person who supports unregulated abortion typically does so out of a belief that the woman should be free to choose.  A person against unregulated abortion may chose to be against it out of a belief that killing even an unborn child is murder.  One of the most controversial topics that churches have gotten involved in is same sex marriage.  Those who support it believe that homosexuals are otherwise being deprived of rights that are freely available to heterosexual Americans, while those against typically believe that homosexual acts are sinful and may ultimately result in the wrath of God.  It does not matter whether the belief comes from religion or supposed logic; neither position really has a strong argument, and it all comes down to opinion and personal beliefs.  One group may choose to subscribe to a specific set of beliefs will the other may choose beliefs ala-carte, but ultimately it does not matter.  An American citizen has the right to representation, regardless of where they choose to get their beliefs.  So long as some of those beliefs may be obtained from religion, religion is an integral part of government.  Now, this does not mean that we should strip the Constitution of its protections for religion, but it is something that anyone arguing about the propriety of religious influence in government should be aware of.

During this election season, a much larger number of churches supported specific political candidates than in the past.  While this is stated to be illegal, it is technically not.  What is illegal is for a non-profit organization to support a specific candidate, and since most churches in the U.S. are registered as non-profits, it is illegal for them to support specific political candidates.  Of course, this is actually far more complicated than it seems.  This particular law is part of IRS policy for non-profit organizations.  It is also legally questionable.  While it is not addressed specifically in the Constitution, many believe that it could qualify as persecuting churches to prohibit them from supporting specific political candidates, and the specific argument is that it infringes on freedom of speech.  While this argument does seem rather sound, it still has a great deal of opposition.  The opposition's primary argument is the "separation of church and state" argument, which we have already established does not apply to this kind of situation.  Ultimately though, it may not matter.  The 1,600 preachers that have supported specific candidates from the pulpit will likely not face any trouble from the IRS.  The IRS policy is primarily in place to prevent attempts to create non-profits designed as campaign engines for specific candidates.  Churches, even when supporting specific candidates, are not specifically designed to do this.  Churches typically support candidates that agree with their beliefs and that will support their morals in government.  This is little different from supporting specific legislation on a state level ballot (which is entirely legal).  Further though, the primary goal of these preachers is to gain the ire of the IRS, so they can push a case through to the Supreme Court, in hopes that the IRS non-profit policy will be overturned, at least with reference to religious organizations.  So far, the IRS is not biting, and they may never bite, given that these churches are not violating the purpose of the policy.

My opinion on this is simple.  I believe that churches have every right, and in fact, they may sometimes even have a moral obligation, to support or oppose specific legislation according to the beliefs they teach.  I am ambivalent about the issue of churches supporting or opposing specific political candidates, however, I have a hard time seeing any difference if a church is consistently supporting candidates that will represent their moral beliefs.  I do think that churches with non-profit status should not be allowed to make monetary campaign contributions for specific candidates.  This could easily be seen as a misuse of tax exempt non-profit funds.  I suppose, however, I would not be opposed to a specific exception allowing campaign contributions, so long as they are reported and taxes are paid on the money contributed, but these contributions should be entirely transparent, so their followers know what is going on.  (Or, perhaps even better, they could organize a contribution event, where a church official collects and contributes funds for specific campaigns, but where the funds never become the legal property of the church.  This would be sort of like how for-profit businesses have charity events, soliciting and collecting contributions for some charity.)

Overall, trying to separate politics from religion is a fruitless task.  Religion defines the beliefs of many people, and the people are supposed to define the government.  This means, in a large part, religion defines government.  Attempting to completely eliminate the influence of religion on government is impossible, and if history is a good indicator, even trying is a prediction that the government is starting to crumble.  Democratic politics and religion are both belief based things.  This is, in a large part, why religious freedom needs protection from the government.  Trying to take the religion out of politics is essentially saying that a majority of the population is not qualified to take part in government, because they are "tainted" by their religious beliefs.  This is just not how a democratic government operates.