Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly managing editor Kim Lawton recently fielded questions from the
PBS Engage audience on the role of religion in the public square:
Why do you think religion is so central in politics? Should it be?
Religion has been involved in American politics to one extent or another since the founding of the country. Many religious traditions teach that practitioners have a moral obligation to vote and to be involved in trying to make the world a better place. Religion deals with people's deepest-held beliefs, how they see the world, and that will inevitably affect how they see political issues too.
One activist I interviewed recently told me, "My faith influences the friends that I have, the woman that I married, it affects my decision for a career, so why wouldn't it affect how I vote?"
I think the question up for debate is not whether religion should be part of politics, but rather, how the two should interact, and what the appropriate boundaries should be. I think as a nation, we're still trying to work out the answers to that.
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