There is much that\u2019s wrong with faith in politics today, but not just in how it is abused; also in how it is attacked. And there is plenty that\u2019s right about it too.<\/p>\n
One way of approaching religious issues is fear-based: there are threats to our faith; there are threats to our personal salvation; there are threats of being punished by God for misbehavior. And, of greatest concern in the political realm, is fear that there are threats to the Christian community. It\u2019s not enough to live a godly life; it is necessary, it is appropriate, to attack or at minimum repel those you see as not being godly. This view comes from a tribal society where survival was tenuous.<\/p>\n
In early Hebrew Scripture you find all sorts of directives based on putting the security or harmony of the community ahead of the individual; rules that shun or expel or execute people that might bring disharmony, using disproportionate message-sending responses. Those who can\u2019t breed (and thus drain resources without creating new members) are shunned. Unruly teenagers are stoned to death \u2014 \u201cso you shall purge the evil from your midst.\u201d (Deuteronomy 21:21)<\/p>\n
The same attitude continues in some Christians today, though they may have softened the disproportionality. But there also has been a thread through abolitionism, temperance, women\u2019s suffrage, civil rights, and the anti-war and environmental movements, of invoking Christian themes \u2014 to see that of God in every person and that all are equal under God, to care for the \u201cleast\u201d of us.<\/p>\n