So does Christendom have the right to speak on moral ground if they think they are right or should they stay well away from the world of politics...
Lets go back in time to 1919, where the Pope pleads for the League of Nations and has a petition signed by 14,450 clergymen was presented to the U.S Senate.
1924 Germany, the Nazi party held 32 seats, by 1928 they had dwindled to 12. In 1933 on the back of the Great Depression and the Nazis gaining seats, a Papal Knight, Von Papen ensured Hitler took power by winning the support of the Catholic religion.That same year Pope Pius X11 signed a cordat in Rome between the Vatican and Nazi Germany.
In 1965, the Roman Catholic church along with Protestants, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists representing thousands of milion of the earths population celebrated their support and admiration of the United Nations.
The fact is, as so many political leaders have a faith does it all become entwined...
And what about the Muslims trying to impose Sharia Law, is that right?
So in the UK the Archbishop of Canterbury and York have urged the public not to vote for the BNP and state, "that they are the very opposite of the values of justice , compassion and human dignity that is rooted in our christian heritage."
So i'm sure you can think of many more instances in your own part of the world, so where is the line drawn between politics and religion or are both apart of the same message these days... And does the Church have the right to voice their opinion?
In my opinion if you have a strong belief, fantastic..it should give you the moral values, the hope in mankind and strength in adversity...But politics is a different beast, can become dictorial, power thirsty, opressive and corrupt....and will never satisfy everyone. So the two should stay apart, but they certainly have become two sides of the same coin.
1) They are both founded in belief (tick!)
2) The are both predicated on unprovable hypotheses and opinions (tick!)
3) They both result in attempts to control and direct human behavior in accordance with their philosophies, which often overlap. (tick!)
4) They both require rather more intuition than intellect of their practitioners.(tick!)
And so on! Yes - these religion and its bastard offspring, politics, are indeed different sides of the same coin I guess.
Now in contrast to these meager practices, we have the practice of science which works only with testable hypotheses and destroys illusions and lies through the objectivity and rigor of its method. And so, the power of science being evident and much admired by most rational people, both politics and religion attempt to co-opt its imprimatur of integrity for themselves, although religion tends often to shirk the truth revealed in the light of science and conceal itself under the nearest fairy cake, whilst politics tends to harness science for its own nefarious ends. (Tick!! Both politics and religion abuse science, possibly because it has succeeded so well where they have failed so miserably.)