Religion and Politics

“Access to adequate health care is a human right. Human rights generally are antagonistic to corporate interests. As people of faith we are called to stand up for human dignity and human rights. Now would be a good time to go ahead and shine the Light on these corporate con artists, especially the one’s masquerading as Christians.”

Rose Marie Berger, an associate editor at Sojourners, blogs at www.rosemarieberger.com.

My initial reaction to this statement was a hearty Amen. I still will hold to that, but I do take issue with one thing. What I want to point to is a larger problem, both addressed and perpetuated by her statement. That problem is this, I am tired of people telling me that I have to believe x because I am a Christian.

You have to believe universal health care is good, you have have to believe universal health care is bad, you have to believe that the war is justified, you have to believe that the war is evil. You have to believe that welfare is important, you have to believe that welfare is evil. The fact is that being a Christian does not preclude any specific political belief.

There I said, everyone is wrong. Frankly, you could back up any of the above statement straight out of the Bible. And people do.

Being a Christian, or a person of any faith really, impacts your socio-political beliefs. It makes you reflect on what this means in the bigger scheme of morality and rightness. It forces a person to consider more than their intellectual beliefs before they make a decision. People of faith have to reconcile what they believe with what they think and that is often not easy.

It is a struggle we all face, and frankly, if you consider yourself a person of faith and you don’t struggle with this, then you are letting people tell you what you should and shouldn’t believe and that is just wrong.

I have often been accused of being unChristian, of being evil and of being “wrong” all because I have taken stances that are opposed to those of the religious right. Am I unChristian because I believe in gay rights? I don’t think so. I think that Christ made his opinion on accepting and loving those shunned by religious society quite well-known, thankyouverymuch. I could quote a million passages in which Jesus tells us to love one another, not to judge, where Jesus eats with prostitutes and tax collectors, much to the chagrin of the Pharisees.

But does the grounding of my political beliefs in my religious beliefs mean that everyone else is wrong. Well, maybe, but who knows. Frankly, I don’t think God is up in heaven keeping a tally of rights and wrongs, but I do think that He cares deeply whether or not you try to follow His will and do right. The road to hell may be paved with good intentions, but I think it’s also paved with no intentions at all.

I get resentful every time someone in the Religious Right (a term that makes me shiver all over with the pompous, self-righteous, Phariseeness of it) tells me that I have to stand firm against this or protect that.

To me, the over-arching tenant of Protestant Christian belief is this: priesthood of the individual believer. We are trained that God speaks, through the scriptures and “still small voice” to each of us equally. That means that we all read our Bibles, pray our prayers and make our own decisions. It’s this independence that was the foundation of our country.

Let me restate that: it is this belief that we are all independent in our beliefs and should not be held to someone else’s beliefs that is the foundation of this nation. Not Christianity itself, but the belief that every individual should have the equal right and responsibility for their own faith.

When someone tells you that you should believe something or do something or follow something or support something because you are a Christian, they are not only going against this basic tenant of our faith, being unChristian as it were, but they are also being unAmerican.

Think for yourselves, America. You can’t trust anyone else to do it for you.