Why Progressives Should Mix Religion and Politics

[dissent1977]

There are times we are so repulsed by the right-wing power grab that is happening in this country that we want to seperate ourselves as far from it as possible. There is no doubt we need to fight this power grab every step of the way, but we also need to make sure that in doing so we do not alienate the people who could help us the most.

Some people believe that the way to do this is to cater to the so-called "moderates" by embracing crony capitalism, homophobia, patriarchy, and war. I could not disagree with these people more.

I instead believe we need to reach out to the people who could become strong voices of dissent to challenge the neo-fascists that are running this country. The way to beat the right-wing is not to become more like them, but rather to fight them every step of the way.

Yet this does not mean that we should ignore certain similarities that some people on the left may have with the right-wing. Quite the contrary is true in fact, we need to use those similarities to our advantage.

Some of the most successful social movements of the past have had a basis in religion. Martin Luther King and Gandhi are prominent religious figures who long after their deaths still are, and always will be major icons of the left. Too often however, progressives forget the influence that religion has had on peace and justice movements in the past.

We are so repulsed by the rights attempts to install a theocracy that we try as hard as we can to separate ourselves from them. We are very concerned about the separation of church and state as we should be. Let me make it very clear, we do not want any sort of alliance between the church and government.

Yet that does not mean that religion and politics have to be kept in entirely separate realms, in fact they CAN NOT be kept in entirely separate realms. Whether you like it or not people's politics are going to be influenced by their religious beliefs, and that will never change. There are ways, as Martin Luther King and Gandhi have shown us, to use religion to bring about social change without violating any notions of the separation of church and state.

I happen to be an agnostic myself. I am not religious, but I realize that we need people who are religious if we are going to win. We can not make it appear is if the Republicans are the Christian party. We need to show that we are welcoming of people of all faiths, as long as those people favor progressive values. We need to build a movement, and we need the help of progressive churches to help us build that movement. We can win this battle, but we will only win if we embrace those who have the potential to motivate a lot of people.

[longship]

1. Religion and Government do not mix

The extent to which it is wrong for religious extremists to mix religion and politics is exactly the extent to which it is wrong when progressives do it.

Keep all religion out of all politics.

[dissent1977]

3. So were you opposed to Martin Luther King and Gandhi?

They certainly mixed religion and politics.

[punpirate]

5. Neither of them ran for office...

... in their respective countries. They were excellent at forming and pushing ahead social movements, which had influence on law necessary to their movements.

That is fundamentally different than what is now happening with the right wing in this country. The right wing has branded Christianity and branded nationalism--and authoritarianism--as essential parts of Republicanism.

I have the feeling that the people who are truly moderate in their political views, and private about their religious ones, are already sympathetic to progressive messages, and are likely part of religious communities which are reasonably tolerant.

The Republicans have been doing this methodically and in sustained fashion for thirty years. They've been successful in branding evangelical Christianity as part of their movement. For that reason, overt attempts by liberals/progressives/Democrats to make inroads into that religious community will be met by stony derision.

Lurking in back of this are their issues--between the conservative Catholics and the evangelicals, there are only three--abortion, birth control of all types and homosexuality--and they are becoming increasingly rigid about those issues. So, it's give those up, and become more like the oppressors, or continue to identify one's self as a progressive.

What needs be said here, and this is not meant to be inclusive of all evangelicals, but Republicans are becoming more and more a cult every day--in large part because of the religious component they've branded for themselves. It's probably more effective to attempt to marginalize them as a cult--to rebrand them as a cult--to find and show examples of how they operate as a cult. Their "big tent" has room for just about every crank, nutball, shyster and totalitarian in the country, and it's about time to get that meme out there and circulating, with a few examples. Moderate people recognize and acknowledge the extremism implicit in cultism and are repelled by it.

Given the current climate of generalized fear (and fearmongering on the part of the administration), I think it's a better policy to have the moderates, the independents and the undecideds running in your direction than for you to trot on over to the dark side trying to hustle a few converts using religion.

Think of it as political jiujitsu. The Republicans see the religious right wing as an asset. Use their political weight against them--make the wingnuts a liability. As they become even bolder than they are now, they'll start saying things that, when widely circulated, will scare the piss out of a lot of people. I guarantee you that a bootleg tape of just one quarterly meeting of the Council for National Policy distributed widely would open a lot more eyes than all of the attempts to convert the religious right.

Cheers.

[dissent1977]

10. Politics involves more than running for office

It involves building a movement. I agree that we need a strict seperation between church and state, but I don't think we are turning to the "dark side" by trying to build another movement like the one Gandhi built.

This is about fighting the religious right, it is not about actually incorporating religious beliefs into legislation.

We need to fight hard to make sure there is a clear seperation between church and state, my problem lies with progressives who say that we need to keep religion and politics in completely seperate realms. That is quite simply impossible, and is never what the founders intended. Politics and the State are not the same thing.

[punpirate]

12. If it's impossible...

... why is it that in France, the mere evocation of God in a political setting sends the people into paroxysms and fills the streets with protesters?

What you are saying is that religion is an integral part of American politics, and guess who made it that way?

The founders (or some of them) did intend to keep the two separate. Jefferson and Madison certainly did, both in office and in their campaigns.

But, if you think it's a good idea, recommend it to every progressive candidate you know. But, be sure to let us know the results afterwards. My guess is that they will be branded as hypocrites by the religious right for platform planks that are inimical to the religious right as "unChristian."

I speak of candidates, and you say it's not about that, it's about building a movement, so I have to ask: a movement in what direction and leading where? Political change, you'd likely say. Who makes that political change? Politicians. How do they get to make that change? By being elected. Ultimately, this is about candidates and how they campaign, because the will of the masses isn't swaying the likes of the Frists, DeLays, Brownbacks and O'Connells in Congress today.

Religion, as it's practiced in politics today, is a particular branded image--a registered trademark--and the Republicans own that, lock, stock and barrel. It's used to put people in office who then turn around and pass huge amounts of legislation favorable to big business and the wealthy. (If you have not read Thomas Frank's What's the Matter With Kansas?, it would be wise to do so. In the end, he makes some of the same arguments about religion as do you, but offers no constructive means of how to do so, either.)

Religion in politics is dangerous, and as practiced now, does resemble a cult.

Most progressives/liberals/whatevers would be better off showing the ways in which big business is tying itself to religious causes for its own political ends. Here's an example:

http://irascibleprofessor.com/comments-05-17-05.htm

Scroll down to the description of a Eureka Springs, Arkansas school assembly. Then ask yourself why the likes of WalMart and Sam's Club are pumping money into such a program. What's in it for them?

No, religion isn't a necessary or an inevitable part of politics. But some fraudulent and greedy people have made it so.

There are some 70 million disenfranchised and disenchanted voters in this country, people who don't vote because the process offers them nothing, in their view, and yet, politicking for the last fifty years has been a desperate chase for the undecided swing voters. The root of that disenfranchisement is the power wielded by corporate money in the political process for the purposes of enriching corporations and the wealthy. Until that's corrected, all the desires in the world to form a movement, using religion as a tool, is so much wishful thinking. The corporations, in conjunction with the Republicans, own that tool.

There was a mass movement once before--during the 1930's, when people were suddenly forced to examine the economic state of their lives and how the political choices they'd made affected them. They then voted in people who were willing to make the changes which would fix their problems and implement the regulations necessary to prevent a reoccurrence of economic calamity--and religion didn't play a part in that. Roosevelt was elected four times in a row, not by evoking God or building a religious constituency, but by promising, and delivering on his promises, to heal the economic wounds of the country.

Liberals/progressives/whatevers should be doing exactly the same thing now.

Cheers.

[dissent1977]

14. One major disagreement here

You do have a point with France, but France is a very different country. Yet even there people's political convictions are influenced by religion whether they acknowledge it or not.

That is not my major disagreement with you however. The statement that you made which I must take exception to is when you said "Who makes that political change? Politicians". I think it is dangerous to leave it to politicians to bring about change, we have all seen the changes politicians have made and most of them have not been good. We need people to fight against the politicians, that is how we make positive change. Martin Luther King and Gandhi were not politicians, but they certainly made political change.

[punpirate]

15. They made that change by influencing politicians...

... like it or not, those changes came about through law--enacted by politicians. Politicians are the part of the process that counts. Martin Luther King would have accomplished nothing without the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act--which were passed by politicians responsive to the will of the people, grudgingly or not. Gandhi would have accomplished nothing without the support of Indian and British politicians demanding emancipation. Gandhi and King did not do those things themselves. They pressured the people who could.

Now, as I've tried to make clear, our politicians today, with few exceptions, are not generally amenable to the public will, but, rather, are to corporate will.

The "movement" you fail to describe in any detail is meant to do what? Make change. What kind of change? Move the country to a more progressive and liberal posture, I would guess. How does that happen without ridding the system of the politicians determined to prevent that from happening? You don't change their minds--they've gotten their jobs through the largess of corporations and the wealthy. All one need do is look at the recent spate of legislation which is harmful to ordinary people in this country--and about which there was considerable outcry--to see that the politicians we have today, in the largest part, are not responsive to the public will.

Yet another "movement" won't solve the problem, simply because the people now in power are completely unresponsive to such. They don't care--it's not part of their make-up. That's why I say that the first thing that must be done is to redefine those people now in power as a cult (or the political equivalent of same). Or, we'll have to wait for the economics of this government to finally hit people over the head.

Once you have people in office who will listen to the ordinary people, then you can get somewhere. If you think meaningful change is possible in this country without the aid of the formal political process, you seem not to understand what it means to live in a country founded on the rule of law. The laws being created now by this bunch of corporate thugs in office is what determines the course of the country, domestically and internationally, and to some considerable degree, the course of individual lives.

You have to get them out of office, first. They control the distribution of wealth. They control the distribution of information. They control the political process. They own the dominant culture, because they've created it--by thirty-five years of steady, inexorable, well-financed and determined propagandizing and by the coordinated effort to bring together groups of disparate interests, all of whom want to share power in an authoritarian framework.

If you want to start yet another movement, make it a grassroots effort to discredit, expose and declaim these people for what they are--a fascist cult in control of the government.

Cheers.

[dissent1977]

18. I wasn't attempting to give a "detailed" description of the movement

If you want detail read a book on social movements, because I certainly do not have time to spell out the enormous amount of detail here.

The truth is that the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act were only passed when the politicians came under enormous pressure. Most of the politicians who voted on it had either been silent on the issue, or downright hostile to civil rights until Martin Luther King had built a massive movement they could no longer ignore.

I agree with you that we have to get the bad corporate funded politicians out of office, there is absolutely no doubt about that. But in order to do that we need to build a movement. We need to expose the politicians for what they are, because we can not expect them to expose themselves. Voting is not enough, if we are going to win this country back we have to do it the old fashioned way and take to the streets.

[longship]

6. Clarification

It would be lunacy to be against religious people being involved in politics. Nobody said that.

Neither King nor Ghandi used their political position to further a religious agenda. The reforms they put forth were strictly secular and political in nature. Neither tried to use politics to force their religious views on others. In the course of 230 years, no POTUS has done that either, until now.

[dissent1977]

9. Exactly, that is what I was trying to get at in the original post

You can allow churches into the movement without forcing their religious viewpoint on others. While King and Gandhi were deeply religious, and made that very clear in their speeches and writings they did nothing that would break the line of seperation between church and state.

That is my main point we can support the seperation of church and state without claiming that all religion and politics has to be kept in completely seperate realms.

I do agree fully that all legislation must be secular, I am referring merely to the movement we need to build before we can win.

On Edit: The trouble I had with your original post is that you said "Keep all religion out of all politics", and this is a dangerous statement because it dismisses the work of people like King and Gandhi. I know that is not what you meant to do, I just want to make clear to all progressives that we want the seperation of church and state, but the seperation of church and politics is another matter all together.

[longship]

11. It's that nasty nuance again.

;-)

Yes, I was a bit blunt. Sorry.
One of the main issues, and it's the reason why we're having this discussion in the first place, is that the Repugs have so entangled religion and politics that it's difficult to know where the line is drawn.

Another issue is that in caselaw SCOTUS has held time and again that legislation must be held up to a test of serving a secular purpose. More than anything, this can keep the lunacy at bay, but only if it is inforced. I suspect that these new judges would let that very important criteria slip away.

[dissent1977]

13. In that we are in total agreement

[Melodybe]

2. No kidding, according to Jesus, morally we can kick their asses.

I'm glad Dean has taken it upon himself to point such matters out.

[Tux]

4. For the evangelicals

I ask if they serve God/Jesus/Holy Spirit or Falwell/Dobson/Robertson. They go with the first set and I ask them, "Then why do you ignore what Jesus commanded and make his death in vain by following men?" Sometimes, the see that Falwell et al aren't gods they'd like to be.

[bowens43]

7. The biggest threat to our freedom

is Christian fundamentalism. Religion and politics DO absolutely have to be kept in separate realms.

That being said, we have ALWAYS welcomed people of all religions.

[dissent1977]

8. I agree Christian fundamentalism is a threat thats why I want to fight it

And the best way to fight them is to show that they do not have a monopoly on morality. If there were a way to keep religion and politics in completely seperate realms I would be all for it, but the reality is that is impossible.

People's political beliefs have always been influenced by their religious beliefs, that is as it has always been and that is how it always will be.

The great social movements have been influenced in large part by religion. Martin Luther King and Gandhi brought religion into politics all the time.

I am 100% for the Seperation of Church and State, but the founders never intended that to extend to a complete seperation of church and politics.

While I agree we have always welcomed people of all religions, too often I hear them being put down if they say that their religion influenced their political beliefs. We quite are simply are not going to build a movement this way.

[YankeyMCC]

16. Recomend "God's Politics"

by Jim Walis.

As an atheist this book helped me "calm down" a bit about religious people and their involvement in politics. In fact, it helped me better fit people like MLK and Redirected into my understanding of the world.

[Igel]

17. You're right.

In France, people vote their convictions. One of them is to be deeply anti-ecclesiastical.

Church and state mix in all democracies where they properly ought to: at the level of the voter. If the voter mixes his religion-based morality with his politics, the state is powerless to stop him. To do otherwise without the consent of the governed would be authoritarian, and is precisely the problem in societies such as Iraq. To insist otherwise, and demand consent, is a losing proposition if the voters don't agree with you.

This is rather different from establishing a state religion. "Christianity" was not the state religion, but also probably wasn't quite what the Founding Fathers had in mind when they drafted the Constitution.

[cynatnite]

19. People should be religious if they want, but not the government n/t

[dissent1977]

20. I agree with that

I don't want the government to be religious.

[Just Me]

21. You are confusing freedom from and freedom of religion.

Neither MLK or Gandhi sought to IMPOSE their religious views via political control over the people. To the contrary, both utilized the best of their personal religious beliefs to free people from political oppression. Neither sought to utilize the government to impose their particular PERSONAL religious views upon people. Neither sought to MIX religion with politics.

A democratic governance chooses no religion, operates to protect the freedom of people to hold their religious beliefs without oppression.

If we want to co-exist as a democracy, we demand that religion and governance are clearly separated, period.

[dissent1977]

22. Did you even read my post?

I never said that anyones religion should be imposed on anyone. Nor did I argue that they should use government to push their religious agenda. But King and Gandhi DID mix religion and politics, read one of King's books and you will see that his religious beliefs were influenced by his religion.

I support the seperation of church and state, and I made that very clear in my post. But religion and politics have NEVER been completely seperated. People are influenced by their religious beliefs. I believe that ALL legislation MUST have a secular purpose, but that does not mean we can not organize the churches to go out with us and march in the streets to demand change.