The Moral and Religious Incompatibility with Contemporary Politics
Can one be very political and very religious?
You’re reading From the Desk, a monthly newsletter by Miles Farnsworth about the arts, spirituality, and the good life. Subscribe below to get my monthly post in your inbox.
Scroll to the bottom to see a few photos from the last month!
This month, I’m writing in reaction to a recent bit of news out of Alabama. Well, it’s a month old now, but such is life with a monthly newsletter.
Right-wing lawmakers in Alabama effectively banned in-vitro fertilization treatments. The policy states that life begins in embryo, and if life does begin in embryo, then the embryos lost in unsuccessful treatments and other operating room mishaps are tantamount to murder. Or at least that’s what the law suggests.
I don’t feel all that passionate about IVF treatments. My limited exposure happened in high school, when my French teacher, who I love and respect, became the surrogate for her sister and ended up teaching us class by recording videos as she was laid up in bed with complications from the pregnancy. My only thought at the time was that she was unselfish and that learning French from a bedridden teacher was odd.
Still, this news from Alabama frustrates me. There is a blatant hypocrisy that the supposedly pro-life, pro-family party would enact laws that deny willing and desiring parents the chance of children.
Like I said, this news is a month old now. Fate would have it that more faux Christianity would make it into the news when Trump, in another one of his egregious assaults on irony, began shilling “Freedom Bibles” at $60 a pop. I need not describe all the ways this is blasphemous.1
It does feel as if there’s one political party constantly betraying the religious roots on which it professes to be built. Yet while the left wing doesn’t claim as close of ties with religion, you won’t find much moral consistency in the far reaches of progressivism, either.
To give one example, the conflict in Gaza has exposed a lot of horrific logic that somehow excuses and even celebrates the murder of women and children in the name of decolonization. It seems obvious that one could condemn Israel’s aggressive and unrelenting response, and even support Palestine, while also decrying the terrifying barbarism of Hamas. Nevertheless, extreme and vocal opinions from college campuses and left-wing activists would have you abandon any pretense of morality in favor of a myopic worldview capable of seeing the world only through the lens of the oppressed and the oppressor.
The far ends of both political spectrums don’t represent the view of most Americans in the middle. Regardless, trying to approach our current political environment with a moral, religious, or philosophical point of view is difficult. The sort of healthy debate that should navigate our country through ever-grey ethics is non-existent.
I mocked up this diagram as I pondered the frustrating political moment we’re living through. Philosophy, morality, ethics—these are the bedrock of our political system, and the most compatible with our moral or religious selves. Moral compatibility decreases and simplicity increases as you climb the ladder up to policy and political parties.
Unfortunately, power guides our current situation. Both political parties do everything they can to keep control of the country, and individual presidents, senators, and congressional leaders grasp at power, eager to bask in the wealth and prestige that comes from holding office.
Furthermore, we as a people obsess over power. For many on the right, it’s been all too easy to abandon policy and party to blindly follow Donald Trump wherever he leads. To stand in his shadow, heap praise on his supremacy, and pander to the zealots who hang on every word of his rambling campaign speeches is easier than discussing policy or the party’s platform.
Democrats seem willing to front a candidate whose demonstrably dwindling mental capability should disqualify him for office. As I described before, on the far left of the party, activists obsessed with power dynamics offer no deeper philosophy to guide their thinking than binary frameworks such as opposed and oppressor.
I’m left feeling disinterested in politics. Disinterest doesn’t describe it. It’s more a distaste. Whenever religion makes its way into politics, regardless of the policy, it feels like a cheap trick, weaponized to win a few points and tossed aside whenever it’s convenient. Substitute a strong moral framework in for religion, if you want, the results are the same.
I sometimes wonder, and maybe I’m wrong, that one can either be very political or very religious, but it’s a bit impossible to be both. And that’s true regardless of which way you lean politically. Loyalty to a politician or a party will inevitably require some kind of concession, some kind of hypocrisy.
And so, if given the choice, I’d rather be 100% loyal to my faith even if it means feeling lost in the political pool. No political agenda would ever feel worth flipping that balance.
Nonetheless, this is a tricky line to walk. As a Latter-day Saint, I’ve been instructed by my leaders to vote and support causes that I find important to me. Would it be better to divorce my moral self from my political self, perhaps adopt a libertarian approach that skirts ethics in the name of freedom?
Tempting as that might be, the words of Elder Jeffrey R. Holland come to mind, who said, “We never check our religion at the door.” Should politics prove any exception to that? No.
How about throwing up my hands and calling it quits, joining the other doomsayers who feel that we’re going to hell in a handbasket anyway, so why care? Well, that’s no way to live, especially if you’re raising children and want the world to be a better place for them.
I’m left, at least at the moment, with a juvenile wish that political discussions were like a Civics 101 class where we could debate the grey areas of ethics from a philosophical standpoint, forgetting the real and complex task of governing millions of diverse people in a tumultuous democracy. Given the option, I’d even settle for less focus on power and party, and an end to the theatrics that seem to preoccupy our elected leaders.
Cynicism is cheap (a newsletter title for another time), so I’ll do my best to stay informed, vote, and attempt to find moral compatibility somewhere within the political sphere. But I won’t do it at the cost of my beliefs.
Photos from the Last Month
For the record, if you want a free Bible, visit this site. Two young missionaries will gladly drop one off.
As the father of two IVF babies I certainly agree that IVF is pro-life! Pretty unfortunate that anyone would ever think otherwise.