Hello! Hello! Hello! And welcome to episode 10 of We Don’t Talk About P-word. Today, I want to change direction a little and talk about religion. Specifically, I want to discuss the role of religion in politics.

No, I’m not looking to proselytize. I’m not even looking to share my beliefs with you, but there will be some discussion of those. I recognize that there must be. I knew as soon as I stated that I was a Christian in episode one that there would be both questions and concerns. I knew that both sides of the discussion would wonder what exactly that meant. So, I take today to try and answer the question before anyone can ask.

To those who may not be religious, know that I will include some bible verses and talk of Jesus to drive home my point. But, if you stick with me, I hope everyone will appreciate why I include them and how I make my point. 

Also, I hope you still get something out of today’s chat. I don’t even care if by the end you still think of me as a child that believes in fairy tales. That is your right, of course, and I have thick skin. By all means, jump online and tell me how silly I am. I always welcome a friendly discourse. Your disregard for my beliefs holds no power over me. I have had this debate with one of the most intelligent and rigid people I have ever known. If this person couldn’t jar my beliefs, no one will. 

Now that the trigger warnings are out of the way, moving on with my point. When it comes to the role of religion in government, I am very secular in my views. This is not because my beliefs aren’t important to me. It is because my beliefs are unimportant to the laws and regulations of our  nation. Bluntly speaking, any laws or regulations based on faith alone have no place in a free society. We are not Iran. 

Our first amendment begins “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…” I take this amendment very seriously. I hope you do too. 

This is a very frank testimony to the secular nature of our government. If you still want to question it, you can look back at the Constitutional convention. Some Founders wanted the inclusion of the Christian faith in the Constitution. It was argued against strongly. In the end, the argument that our choice of religion should not determine our freedoms won out. Faith in the Christian God would not be the basis of our nation. Freedom would be.

Instead, there was a firm declaration to the contrary. The first amendment declared there would be no establishment of a national religion. This ensured our right to worship or not worship as we choose. The Founders understood that enacting laws based on religious beliefs wasn't freedom for all. 

We are either all free and equal, or none of us are. There is no in-between .

In this nation, it is not the place of the religious (no matter their beliefs) to dictate the rights of others. We would not expect schoolchildren to observe Salah. Why do we believe we should require them to pray to the Christian God? I won’t even get into the conversation that the Gods we pray to are one and the same.

(If you are wondering what Salah is or what I mean by one and the same, I encourage you to look it up. There is nothing more rewarding than researching and expanding your mind. I think we often forget this when we no longer attend school. And of course, we rarely appreciated it when we did.)

In 1785, James Madison waged a successful campaign in Virginia to defeat a tax. The purpose of this tax was to support teachers of religion. In protest, Madison penned a letter circulated throughout Virginia voicing the following sentiments: 

“Religious liberty was in its nature an unalienable right… because the opinions of men, depending only upon the evidence contemplated by their own minds, cannot follow the dictates of other men.” 

In this same letter he also noted that:

 “The Christian religion did not need civil support; it had often existed and flourished, not only without the support of human law, but in spite of every opposition from them.”

This letter was long with several excellent points, but the last one I want to point out is also the one he ended on.

 “…the equal right of every citizen to the free exercise of his Religion according to the dictates of conscience is held by the same tenure with all our other rights.”
We’ve already discussed the intent of our Constitution and its primary author. I want to move on to my purpose for today's episode. 

I want to discuss how we got here. We began as a nation founded on the right to the free exercise of religion. Today, we have become a nation intent on forcing fundamentalist beliefs on everyone. These beliefs are, at best, perverted to fit a narrative. It’s designed to serve the Corporate Political Agenda.  How did that happen? 
Billy Graham may have said it best: 

“The hard right has no interest in religion except to manipulate it.” Parade magazine, Feb 1981

That is exactly what they have done. They have manipulated it to gain favor. They have manipulated it to gain power. They have manipulated it to gain wealth. 

It all began when an actor and a televangelist walked into the White House .

I know. It sounds like the beginning of a bad joke. Instead, it was the beginning of something much worse. Here, the corruption of religion for political and corporate purposes truly begins.

In the 60s and 70s, we started to see a decline in religious affiliation across the United States. The Supreme Court legalized abortion (even though, as we now know, that was only temporary). No fault divorce spread across the country. Racist policies at Christian Universities threatened their tax-exempt status. 

Oh no! Women were coming out of the kitchen, and People of color’s civil rights were being defended! God forbid! 

The evangelical right felt persecuted by equality. They viewed the Democrats as the source of these policies. So, of course, they gravitated to the Republican party. They flirted with Nixon, but Jerry Falwell eventually embraced the actor-governor from California. 

Falwell was a pastor that founded a small church in Virginia and took it from a congregation of 35 to over 20,000. It was the beginning of an empire, with radio and television ministries as well as a university. At the time of his death in 2007, he had a net worth of at least $10 million. Corporate religion sure pays well.  

Ronald Reagan was no politician. He was an actor who played a politician. Reagan made his fortune and fame in film and television. He knew how to play a part, and play a part he did.

Reagan wanted to be president. He saw the religious right as nothing more than another voter base to court. If he needed to make a few adjustments to his speeches and policy stances, it was just a new role to play. 

Falwell saw politics as a way to grow the audience for his television empire. Grow the empire, grow the income. At the time, his choices drew criticism from many religious leaders. Billy Graham was one of them. Reagan, after all, wasn’t exactly the model evangelical poster child. 

Reagan was a divorcee. He signed into law the most progressive abortion law in the country at the time.  In 1978, he denounced a referendum in California to bar homosexuals from teaching. These were two issues that Falwell’s ‘Moral Majority’ championed. Yet when the chance at power came, all that was forgotten.

Why? Well, at least he wasn’t Jimmy Carter .

If Regan needed to adjust his ‘beliefs’ to align with the evangelical right, then so be it. He was an actor after all. But in exchange, they had to show their loyalty as well. Evangelicals needed to champion the Corporate Political Agenda of the right. 

For anyone that knows their bible, the wealthy and the faithful rarely go hand in hand. The result? The Moral Majority wasn’t very moral by any standards. 

The difference is that Reagan was acting. History proves he had no intention to follow through on any of the Moral Majority’s agenda. This became woefully obvious to Falwell soon after his election. 

Reagan’s focus was tax cuts for the wealthy. He furthered the Corporate Political Agenda propaganda by embracing trickledown economics. He nominated a Supreme Court Justice who would continue to support Roe. More importantly, they would support the Corporate Political Agenda. The one time he supported the Moral Majority agenda, he looked for an offramp really fast. His administration reversed the revocation of Bob Jones University's tax-exempt status. He was not prepared for the overwhelming backlash. Caught off guard, he found a way to make a U-turn. 

Unfortunately for the evangelicals, they needed Reagan more than he needed them. And both sides knew it. The evangelicals supported segregation policies. They demanded the imposition of their anti-choice beliefs on everyone. They displayed contempt for the LGBTQ community. The left looked at them with the same contempt, so they had few options if they wanted power in politics.

They had made their bed; now they had to double down and lie in it. They embraced the Corporate Political Agenda of the GOP. 

They attacked the LGBTQ community by defining their version of a “traditional family." They decried national voter registration as a tool of Satan. Why? It empowered People of color to fight the pervasiveness of systemic racism. It gave People of color more representation. Feminism became a dirty word. Why? It encouraged women to come out of the kitchen and join the workforce. They even ranked members of Congress and television programs, assigning them “morality ratings.” As if they were qualified to do that...

Forgotten were the Christian values to help the jobless, the sick, and the poor. Were they ever a priority to begin with?

As they say, “If you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas.”

Despite Regan’s lack of support for his agenda, Falwell achieved what he wanted most. He raised his profile, and his televangelist empire grew. He demonized the left and the policies they pursued. For good or ill, he also hitched the evangelical right to the Republican horse. 

The non-religious didn’t draw a line in the political sand. The evangelicals did. If you weren’t on their side, you were godless heathens, even if you promoted true Christian policies.

When you conflate ethics and morality with partisan views, you are on a slippery slope. Historically, politicians aren't the best judges of ethics and morality. Politics is one of the most unethical and morally bankrupt jobs in the United States. The other is corporate leaders. When you combine the two and provide them with a holy mandate, you are only asking for trouble. Need more historical examples? Think kings, feudal lords, the Catholic church, and their eight Crusades. 

When you equate morality to one party, you provide them with a pass no matter how immoral or unethical they may be. They can claim to be champions of Christianity, even when they can’t name a bible verse. They don’t show the smallest understanding of the message that Jesus preached. 

“They profess that they know God; but in works they deny him, being abominable, and disobedient, and unto every good work reprobate.” Titus 1:16

We as Christians wear jewelry, carry keychains, and put it on our cars: WWJD. What would Jesus do? Have you ever considered what that means? Have you ever considered if Jesus came to the United States today, what would he do?  

First, I doubt we would even believe him. But if we could get past that… Would he endorse the racism that leads to so many deaths? Would he praise our hoarded wealth while 14 million Americans go hungry? Would he be proud of the 45,000 Americans that die every year because they have no access to healthcare? Would he look at the lands his father created and be pleased with how we’ve scarred and destroyed its beauty? Or would he look at us in disappointment for ignoring his teachings? 

In the bible, a Pharisee in the temple, a lawyer by profession, wanted to test Jesus’s knowledge of the law. He asked him what the most important commandment was. Jesus told him that the most important was to love the Lord thy God, but he continued. He next said the second greatest commandment was to love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law. 

In the gospel of Luke, he follows this up with the story of the Good Samaritan. If you take the time to understand this story, you'll understand a fundamental truth. There is no greater testament against racism than this story.

We are told that the most important law of God was to love. No qualifications. No judgments. Just love. 

Jesus performed 37 miracles. Twenty of those included healing the sick. He commanded his disciples to “Cure the sick” when he sent them into the world. Four miracles consisted of feeding the hungry. He told a rich young ruler: 

“If you want to be perfect, go sell your possessions, and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.” Matthew 19:21

What would Jesus do, indeed?

We ignore his teachings, and support policies antithetical to them. We champion unethical and immoral candidates. We complain that there is an attack on religion. We claim persecution because we are believers. 

No, my brothers and sisters...

It’s one thing to accept someone who admits their faults and seeks forgiveness. Some might even say that is the very definition of divine.

“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Romans 3:23

It is something else to further the aims of the immoral and unethical who do not seek forgiveness. It is something else to campaign for politicians whose actions deny their words. 

We are all too willing to do the latter because a politician claims to champion the Christian faith. The fact is they are pandering for our vote. 

Fellow Christians, let me be honest with you here. Let me stay true to the statement that facts are not meant to make you feel good. 

We are not persecuted because of our beliefs; we are persecuted for our hypocrisy. 
I’m not trying to claim the moral high ground here. The Lord knows I have no right to that, and you learned enough about me in episode one to agree with that sentiment. I am saying that it is our responsibility to recognize those flaws and seek forgiveness. It is our responsibility to show our faith through our works and not our words. We must do this because we are the ambassadors of our faith on Earth. Non-believers get their impression of our faith through our actions. 

Every morning, I wake up and thank God for another day and ask for forgiveness for the many failings I have. I recognize my own faults. I admit my faults. They are many. I recognize that only one person was ever perfect, and that is not me. 

I have passed through my own personal crisis of faith and come out stronger for it. In that time, I realized that it is not my place to judge others for their choices and actions. I have enough to atone for and carry with me than to condemn others. 

Since the 70s, corrupt theologians and unethical politicians have perverted religion. They have used it to force an immoral political agenda of hate down our throats. We have accepted this agenda as fact because trusted shepherds have embraced it. We haven’t doubted it because we grew up with it. We haven’t questioned it because we were taught not to. That time must end.

We have allowed politics to corrupt our faith for too long. We have ignored the teachings of Christ. We have let our neighbors stumble without giving them a hand. We have failed to clothe the naked. We have failed to visit the sick. We have ostracized those in prison. We have done this to further the goals of unethical and immoral politicians.

It is time we take back our faith with our country. 

Our nation may be based on secular laws, as it should be to ensure freedom for all. That does not mean that we cannot and should not show our faith through our works. If we do that, we will earn our rewards in heaven. God does not need or want a government to coerce belief. 

Thomas Jefferson's Notes on the State of Virginia summarized the philosopher, John Locke: 

“Our Savior chose not to propagate his religion by temporal punishment or civil incapacitation. It was in his almighty power [to do so] he chose to… extend it by its influence on reason, thereby showing to others how [they] should proceed.”
If our savior would not compel faith, why should a government? In fact, is it faith at all if the government forces it on you?

As I have tried to make clear throughout each episode, We the People must find common ground. This is essential if we want the nation we were promised. We must not do the work of the elites for them. We must find a way to work together. That includes the religious and non-religious alike. 

Jesus told us that the most important commandments were to love God and to love our neighbor. If we can’t agree on the first, I sure hope we can agree on the second. Only together can we hope to succeed. 

We the People are the Power.

Before we go, I want to end with one final bible verse. It’s a reminder that it is our works and not our faith that identify us as Christians.

“What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.” James 2:14-26