Religious Leaders and Politics

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Cross posted at Say Anything: Reader blogs


Iowa's Christian Conservatives Seeking Candidate

I'm not sure which is more irritating, media stories framing religious involvement in politics as religious leaders telling their followers who to vote for or the religious leaders, particularly Christian religious leaders, who think that is appropriate to tell their followers who they should vote for. The pastor interviewed was very careful to note that what he was talking about was what was important to him in deciding who to vote for and to note that those are likely to be things that are also important to other Christians.

As much as the media spends time talking about how religious leaders, particularly Christian leaders, instruct their followers who to vote for I wonder how often that actually happens. The whole notion bespeaks the stereotype that religious people just follow along where they are lead. Any Christian religious leader is free to stand up and say which candidate they are going to support and why (hopefully not in the pulpit because that is not what it is for). Every Christian is free to completely ignore them. I know I do. At this point certain religious leaders have been so much more involved in politics than in anything else that their endorsement of any candidate is an indication for me to take a more skeptical look at said candidate.

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