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Politics Is Religion
by Chuck Freeman  Politics is religion. Before you get your Jeffersonian load on give this a whirl. Tune your old tube or you tube to a political rally and a religious revival. Now, turn the sound down. Even without the content the DYNAMICS are indistinguishable. There is a speaker who is the focal point, on a raised platform, delivering a passionate message, whipping the crowd into an emotional frenzy. Now, turn on the sound. If you strip away the specialized language in each setting even the CONTENT is strikingly overlapping. “If you follow me and my plan you will have peace, well being and prosperity.” Sure, in much of religion the payoff is after this side show is over, but the really savvy ones know there has to be some bread and butter results now. I’m not just talking about hucksters. One of the reasons a Spiritual Master like Jesus gained rock star status among the common folk was that he healed people of their diseases and gave them the equivalent of holy food stamps! What we call “grass roots organizing” proceeds from the practices of sacred communities. Each has gatherings of the faithful, who are nurtured and asked to support the cause with their heart, mind, body, soul and greenbacks. They are then commissioned to go forth to “make more disciples.” Insert the word “voters” in this last sentence and you have a political party. The root of the word religion means to “bind back” and to “bind together.” The essence of religion is to get back to the basics which unite us as one. Politics is an existential extension of it’s predicate, religion. Unitarian theologian James Luther Adams maintains, “From the doctrine of the free church the idea of the democratic political order came to birth.” He cites 3 principles from the “Protestant heretics.” All people may approach the altar as equals, the community is responsible for the character of its institutions, and that all persons should be equal under the law. The question before us is not the tired compartmentalized separation of church and state squabble but whether we will have childish or adult political religion. The Palin /McCain (yes the tail is waging the dog) ticket has enjoined the campaign fray with these themes. There are “good guys and bad guys” in the world. America is the good guy. Obama doesn’t believe in the America we do. He pals around with terrorists. Barak HUSSEIN Obama is “that one,” the other, the guy we don’t really know. Here is a portion of one of Gov. Palin’s stump sermonettes. “We know—we know that in the war, it’s terrorists, terrorists who hate America and her allies and would seek to destroy us, and the bad guys are those who would support and sympathize with the terrorists. They do not like America because of what we stand for: Liberty, Freedom, Equal Rights. Those who sympathize and support those terrorists who would seek to destroy all it is that we value, those are the bad guys, OK?” The social psychologist Lawerence Kohlberg posited a respected theory of moral development. In his analysis Palin’s remarks would be in the “Conventional” stage typical of a teenager. Hear now an excerpt from Sen. Obama’s Call To Renewal Speech. “Given the increasing diversity of America’s population, the dangers of sectarianism have never been greater. Whatever we once were, we are no longer just a Christian nation; we are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, a Hindu nation, and a nation of nonbelievers…. Imagine Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address without reference to “the judgments of the Lord.” Or King’s I Have a Dream speech without references to “all of God’s children.” Their summoning of a higher truth helped inspire what had seemed impossible, and move the nation to embrace a common destiny….Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values.” Kohlberg would classify Obama’s sentiments as “Postconvential” adult morality. He calls them “Universal Principles,” the highest state of moral development. Politics is religion. The question remains. Will it be childish or adult religion? Let us allow the great Christian missionary St. Paul to have the final word. His declaration is crisp and to the point. “When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became an adult I gave up childish ways.”
Rev. Chuck Freeman is the Creator, Producer & Host of the radio program, "Soul Talk" on KOOP, 91.7 FM in Austin, Texas. He is also the Founder of the Free Souls Project, expressing the integration of spirituality, democracy, and ethics. Hear podcasts of Soul Talk at www.freesoulsproject.org.
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