Dr. Forbush Thinks

On Sunday all “good” Christians go to church. I don’t know if I would be so bold to declare myself a “good” Christian, but going to church on Sunday continues to be something our family rarely misses. As I have said before, I am Catholic, so the guilt of weekly attendance has been worked deeply into my psyche.

The mixture of politics with religion has always troubled me. Politics always seemed to be man’s business, while religion always seemed to be God’s business. The main problem tends to be that collecting God’s answers on every perceivable issue is mostly impossible. Jesus tells us to take care of the poor and sick, but he doesn’t tell us how we should do that. Man has created many ways to take care of the poor and sick, but it isn’t always clear that giving handouts to people is always the most effective way to persuade someone to contribute to society. And, when power comes to the battle, individuals will push their own ideas over the most effective ideas for society. And, worst of all, when someone declares that their own personal idea is the “Christian” solution or God’s solution there is no possible way to know if that is true or not, because man can not ever know what is in God’s mind.

It bothers me when any religion expends an enormous amount of energy fighting for an issue that isn’t even a critical issue. Abortion and homosexuality come to mind quickly. These two issues have very little support in the Bible, and it is clear that religious people that have opinions on these issues use bizarre Biblical readings to support the conclusion they have already decided in advance. The proof of this is in the lack of such a strong response to issues that are out rightly declared in the Bible. For example, divorce, war and the care for the poor and sick are declared as critical issues many more times in the Bible than the “evils” of homosexuality and abortion. But, religious groups have used abortion and homosexuality as litmus tests to determine whether someone is a “good” Christian. Does this even make any sense?

Well, as I began, I was sitting in church on Sunday listening to the priest give us our weekly lesson. Politics does not directly come up in these discussions. However, issues often do come up, because the object of a lesson is generally a discussion on how one should live a Christian life. From these discussions we generally learn what things we should avoid doing, what things we should strive to do better and how we should find strength to do the first two. When we talk in generalities there normally isn’t much of a problem drawing politics into the discussion. Everyone agrees that abusing alcohol is a bad thing. Everyone agrees that violence is to be avoided unless you need to defend yourself. Everyone agrees that the Ten Commandments should not be broken. And, the list of things that we agree on goes on.

However, I cringe when particular political issues are mentioned in church. During the last election here in California Proposition 85, “Parental notification of a minor seeking an abortion” was on the ballot. I don’t believe that the church should have an opinion on this issue, or seek to influence the members of the church to vote one way or another on this issue. However, in the announcements at the end of mass on several occasions we were asked to volunteer to canvass our neighborhoods in support of this issue.

On the other hand, a local “pregnancy services” group is supported by the church. This group helps pregnant woman have their baby and offer it up for adoption if they can’t keep it for whatever reason. This action does not seem any more political to me than helping the poor. This service offers an alternative for some women who would use it. Even though I understand that the motivation for creating this group is to reduce the number of abortions I don’t believe that the actions of this group will actually result in changing the law and making all abortions illegal. The group’s goal is just to make abortions rarer.

This Sunday was a little different. This Sunday we had a short political insertion and it made me cringe again. I actually agreed with what the priest said during the service, but it still made me cringe because I believe that these political proclamations should not be made in church. Making political proclamations in church is divisive by the mere nature of being political.

This is a paraphrase of what he said. I am so proud of the American people. In my country of Mexico there is widespread corruption and hypocrisy in the government, and it is very difficult for the people to do anything about it. But I am very impressed with how the American people were able to defeat their corruption and hypocrisy in the recent elections.
Even though he did not say anything in particular about any particular political party it was quite clear that he was happy that the Democrats gave the Republicans a thumpin’. He is also saying that he viewed the Republican Party as a party of hypocrisy and corruption. Now, anyone that has read what I have written over the last few years knows that I agree 100% with this idea, but I still cringe at the thought that this idea is being expressed in church. What bothers me is the implicit conclusion that Democrats are now the new “Party of God.” Obviously I personally don’t feel this way, and very few people that I know would believe this, but there still exists a large number of people who take what the priest says as coming directly from the mouth of God. When the priest praises a political party we suddenly have people in the group believing that God sanctioned a political party. In the long run this only leads to more hypocrisy and corruption coming from the other side of the aisle.

I think we need to get religion back to talking about generalities and leave the specifics to the lawyers and the politicians. For the most part people know when they deliberately sinned against God. They have a good understanding of how they should lead their lives by protecting the weak and loving their neighbor. They also know what God expects from them and what actions could be abusive. When people are left to judge themselves they are typically tougher on themselves than the society. However, for those few who don’t feel guilt or compassion the government offers another solution: laws and punishment - the political solution. Society functions best when we keep these two prods separate from each other.



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Politics, Religion