Growing up in the church system as I did, it wasn’t unusual to hear preachers describe certain types of ‘career choices’ as dirty. Apart from the obvious ones like drug dealing and thieving – if they can be called careers at all – one that often got a bad rep was politics. We’ve all heard, I’m sure, the old adage “politics is a dirty business”. Well, when I was young, I generally got the impression that Christians could be involved in anything safe – accounting, law, teaching – but politics was a place to stay away from.
Fast forward to now. The world, no different from the way things have always been, is troubled and in need of leadership that cares about people. Is it right that Christians, who by definition of being followers of a great leader, are sitting back and watching, only able to comment and complain from the sidelines? It can’t be. The following video by sevenly.org should inspire us to recognize that no matter what we do, we have to live according to purpose.
To answer the question, “do politics and religion mix?”, I am of the opinion that the two do mix very much. I say this in the context of recognizing that every person is created with a unique set of gifts. Some people are born to be athletes, some to be painters and there are those whose gifts lie in the arena of politics. This is not a discussion about separation of church and state. That’s a completely different conversation altogether. Rather, this is a question about whether Christians should get involved in a domain that they’re apparently ‘supposed’ to steer away from because it’s considered to be ‘dirty’. In that sense, politics and religion do mix. People should get involved and not shy away from what they are called to do.
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