The Politics of Faith

I always read Relevantmagazine.com's news headlines. Read this one today. Apparently some Pastor's are sticking it to the IRS and risking their non-profit status by endorsing candidates from the pulpit, which would be a violation being that:

Under IRS regulations, non-profits are "absolutely prohibited from directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or opposition to) any candidate for public office."

I believe this is tricky stuff. I don't think a Preacher should tell people who to vote for from the pulpit either, but perhaps for different reasons. To me, I would find it hard to come down definitively on one candidate. This is the first part of the joke of this whole debate: as if one Presidential candidate (or party) has the solution to all of our nation's problems. Preachers do have a responsibility to point their congregations in the right direction; I just think there's too much ambiguity on all sides of the political spectrum to proclaim one party/candidate as "the right one" especially from a pulpit.

The second part of the joke in the article, to me, is the underlying assumption that faith should be relegated from politics. You cannot nor should not keep them separate. Am I saying that we should elect super-Christian President man someday, like some White Knight of WASP lore to rescue all the good and God-fearing folks from liberal degradation and R rated movies? Uh, no.

I'm just saying if your faith isn't informing how you see the world than it doesn't hold much water. Faith is very much a political matter.