Religion and Politics: Frenemies

Religion and politics are what Steven Colbert would call “frenemies,” two forces that don’t mix well together, but can never be successfully separated. They enjoy a somewhat hypocritical relationship in which they are simultaneously drawn together and repelled from one another by the forces of society. In an ideal world, the United States would enjoy a true separation of church and state; however, in today’s current conditions, a distinct division between the two concepts is impossible. As a result of this complex, intricate relationship, religion and politics have been in a power play throughout history. Recently, religion has appeared the more dominant opponent, entering into almost every sector of politics with the help of the Religious Right and groups such as Moral Majority.
Jerry Falwell founded and spearheaded the Moral Majority, uniting millions of Christians and inspiring them to get involved in politics. It helped create the infamous “values voters” who were so influential in recent elections. However, despite Falwell’s enormous success bringing together the Christian community, he also managed to divide America. He split the country into moralists and pagan voters. He drew a big, red line down the middle of the country, separating value voters from the people they rallied against. Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, criticized Falwell, saying that he was the “founder and leader of America's anti-gay industry, someone who exacerbated the nation's appalling response to the onslaught of the AIDS epidemic, someone who demonized and vilified us for political gain and someone who used religion to divide rather than unite our nation.”
Falwell is just another example of how religion can be used to create a majority or marginalize a minority. Falwell unified the country by preaching that politics should be executed with a moral compass as its guide, but divided it with his outlandish remarks about “the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians … the ACLU (and) People for the American Way" being responsible for 9/11. Similarly, the incendiary actions and statements by Identity Christians ostracize them from the mainstream political system.
Christian Identity is an extremist group of the Religious Right that believes that the Aryan race is the true people of Israel, that Jews are the seed of Satan, and that blacks are a biologically and spiritually inferior species. All of their tenets are based on religion and this religion influences their politics. However, their religious beliefs fail to ingratiate them into the American political spectrum, as did those of evangelicals. On the contrary, they hurl them off the face of the political map.
Religion has the unique ability of being able to join together groups of differing individuals and also tear apart relationships. This concept is true whether it is applied to culture or politics. Therefore, perhaps it wasn’t Identity Christians, or Jerry Falwell that united and divided our country, but religion in general. Religion is a Frenemy all on its own, politics is merely its current counterpart.
"Falwell was a uniter and a divider"