Religion's role in political arenas

By Brandon Dow

Despite our low campus crime rates and diverse education, the events that followed 9/11 have hit Santa Clara hard. That's right -- this campus is divided. Some Bushies can't stand some of these "naive left-wingers," and those same overly idealistic liberals are getting sick of the "blindly patriotic pro-war conservatives."

Senior Heidi Kallen, both a member of the Santa Clara Community Action Program and a devout Catholic, at times felt alienated from her secular liberal peers throughout her time here.

"My faith influences every decision I make, so it's impossible for me to take religion out of politics," she said.

A strange tension exists on our campus, and President Bush's particular blend of "religitics" has come to play an important part of this hostility. America has warped itself into an unstoppable political war between these anti-U.S. liberals and those Bible-hurling neoconservatives.

In this delightful two-party system, pushing theology into the current political landscape is hazardous. According to a Dec. 2004 article in Christian Century, as Christians (or people of any faith) we must always be cautious of treating our religion "as a means to some greater end rather than a good in itself."

President Bush was not the first to "claim the United States is under the wing of Providence," as reported in the Feb. 2003 article, "Bush's Messiah Complex." Actually, many presidents have done both very good and bad things while invoking the Almighty.

However, by fusing his deep-rooted faith with his overall right-wing agenda, Bush has allowed religion to become our defining political ideology factor.

Gay marriage, abortion, evolutionary theory and the war on terror: These matters should be approached with our faith, as they are undoubtedly important.

Yet, Christ's Sermon on the Mount did not answer whether we should allow gay marriage, and the Old Testament did not profess a Messiah that would come to take a stand against the pro-choice movement.

So what happens when these issues set the boundaries of religious discussion? It creates a divide, and this is something we should seek to remedy.

In order to do that, a balance must be attained. This balance entails that we look at the central message of our faith: humanitarian justice. In fact, the core of Christianity centers on poverty, the pursuit of peace, and our inherent connection to the environment. Go on, take a look for yourself.

According to Psalm 72:12-13, Jesus' life, ministry, death and resurrection represent a call to "deliver the needy who cry out, the afflicted who have no one to help, take pity on the weak and the needy, and save the needy from death." Christianity, like all religions, is the ultimate expression of care for humanity.

In this case, the awareness of humanity can unite us.

Whether you're for or against the Iraq war, we should be able to come together and grasp the human cost of war: in both the U.S. troop and Iraqi civilian loses. And we shouldn't look at ourselves as Republicans, Pikes, DG's or SCCAP'ers.

Christianity allows us to see that despite our economic standing, ethnic background or sexual orientation, one truth remains: poverty, drug addiction and starvation gravely affect our world, and therefore, our very lives.

"We would do well to remember that the founder of Christianity was killed for standing up to authority, both religious and civil, not for defending it in the name of so-called moral values," said Paul Crowley, S.J., an associate professor of religious studies.

"To be a Christian today requires that we become involved in the political process, not in order to defend the status quo, but in order to challenge its comforting assumptions," he said.

This is historically evident with the Civil Rights Movement, which started with a group of religious southern blacks trying to remove the "sin of segregation." Despite the religious ethos of this movement, it sought to ensure equality for all.

Therefore, our faith does not belong on the right -- it belongs to us as students and as citizens. But in the same sense, we must confront liberals who think religion has no place in politics.

Not only does our current liberal ideology exclude the importance of religion in the political arena, it shows a complete lack of respect for faith.

* Brandon Dow is a senior political science major.