The Puzzle of Religion in Politics

Imagine a space alien curious about the American elections. You give him a Bible and ask him to predict what social policies would followers of this book support? After a quick read, there’s little doubt what he would say. Biblically minded people would support love and compassion at our borders. After all, the Bible tells us 52 times to love the stranger. The Pentateuch’s central characters welcome strangers, and suffer because they were mistreated as strangers. Anyone who takes the Bible at all seriously would support policies that care for and welcome powerless migrants.

The other great issue, our space alien would guess, would be the alleviation of entrenched poverty. This is the overwhelming concern of both Leviticus and Deuteronomy. And Exodus speaks of God’s burning wrath against anyone who exploits the poor. The Bible offers specific policies to prevent entrenched poverty. All land reverts to the original owner every fifty years. Every seven years, crops are free for anyone to take. Even aside from sabbatical years, we are commanded to let the poor glean, and we must save the corners of our fields for the hungry. The Book of Ruth describes a situation where poor migrants reach the Land of Israel and immediately survive because of the anti-poverty policies in place. Ruth meets her future husband Boaz while gleaning. They give birth to the great grandfather of King David. In other words, ancient Israel’s anti-poverty policies ensure the birth of the future Messiah.

So, the space alien summarizes, welcoming migrants and fighting poverty. Religious folk – people who revere God’s word as revealed in the Bible – would support the political party that works hardest to achieve those goals.

Of course it didn’t work out that way. The overwhelming majority of self-identified religious people in the United States voted for the candidate who pledged to jail and expel strangers. They supported the candidate who scapegoated Venezuelan migrants, lied about lawful Haitian immigrants and talked about strangers polluting America’s bloodstream. Neither party, alas, had much to say about homelessness and entrenched poverty. Homeless people don’t form a large political bloc, but our space alien would assume that at least religious voters – a huge bloc – would insist on anti-poverty policies that minimally provide housing and basic welfare. This is, after all, precisely what the Bible commands.

What happened to religion and politics? There was a time when religious movements took the lead in pushing clear biblical social values. Martin Luther King Jr., the great civil rights leader, was a minister who freely quoted the Bible. Religious leaders supported Roosevelt’s New Deal and Johnson’s Great Society war on poverty. Abolitionism was essentially a religious movement based on biblical ideals.

But priorities have shifted. Nowadays religious Americans seem to care deeply about two issues: abortion, and religion in the public square. Abortion isn’t mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, so honestly, I’m not sure where that comes from. And prayer in school and the Ten Commandments displayed at public courthouses may have some symbolic value but it’s hard to see how these performative acts advance the clear biblical mandate of loving your neighbor. I might even agree that prayer in school isn’t a bad idea, but I’d have to admit that the Bible itself – that is the God we worship – has other clear priorities.

Frankly, I’m not sure what happened to religion in politics. To me, it’s one of the great puzzles of the Trump Era. Maybe our polarization strikes at another core biblical teaching – that we’re all created in God’s image. And that we should love each other the way we love ourselves. We’ve lost the religious sense of shared humanity, and that’s made our politics narrower and mean. My prayer is that, with the passing of the current political season, religious political groups will spend less time demonizing others and more time studying the Bible.