Volume 7, Issue 3, January 1998

RELIGION HAS A ROLE IN POLITICS

There are those who argue that politics should remain out of the church (as if it could). But, having lived a week in the hurly-burly of the world, it is understandable for some to desire to seek something other than a continuance of the secular disputes in their religious refuge.

But, for those who attend church to worship it must be remembered that worship calls for sacrifice. Any faith group gathered in worship is a microcosm, a miniature copy of the community in the world. Worship calls upon the worshipper to realize and commit themself to the larger world around them. It brings one to the realization we owe each other love, and the action that flows from that.

When the church seriously works for the transformation of individual character for the good, then people are led, not away from social questions, but straight into them.

When this happens politics will no longer be defined in the tired, pessimistic, and negative manner as "the art of compromise" but as the art of expression of the people's will and needs.

Religion can cure us of blindness, compelling us to see our needy neighbour. It leads us to clean up the dirt - wherever we find it -including political life. "All that is necessary for evil to triumph is that good people do nothing," said Edmund Burke. As leaven in society we each have great responsibilities and opportunities in a democratic society.

The church, or religious group, that does not endeavour to change the community for the better has separated the spiritual interests of individual souls from the social situation, and thereby lost their function.

The church has a mandate to be persuasive, to help one to look within themself for their "must" and "ought." One should become committed to doing what one feels and believes is good and right.

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"Religion NOW" is published in limited edition by the Rev. Ross E. Readhead, B.A., B.D., Certificate of Corrections, McMaster University, in the interest of furthering knowledge and participation in religion. Dialogue is invited and welcomed.