The Power of Religion

Freedom of religion. Separation of church and state. These are some of the more common phrases that people think of when referencing the connection between religion and government. Although our government has made efforts to keep religion separate from politics since the inception of our country, religion still permeates many parts of the political process in our lives. Kids in public schools around the country pledge allegiance to “one nation, under God,” services are unjustly denied to members of the LGBT+ community from different companies due to a “violation of political values”, and politicians disclose their religious backgrounds to voters during election periods. This demonstrates the extent that religion works in our political system. These examples beg the question: how much power should religion have in government?

What is interesting about how much power religion has when it relates to government is that, although it is meant to be separate, government protects religion. In the writing of our Constitution, our founders were focused on avoiding the kind of tyrannical rule that they had experienced under the English crown, especially the laws that forced them to share the same religious beliefs as the rest of England. To show this distaste for forced, shared views, the First Amendment was written to guarantee the right to practice any religion that one chooses. This element of our country’s government convinces many immigrants to move here. In many countries around the world, there is no freedom of religion. People are persecuted around the world every day for not subscribing to the system of beliefs that their countries deem acceptable. This freedom to worship in whatever way we please is enticing to many people and has been prioritized in our country for centuries.

Now, I was raised by two devoutly Christian parents. They taught me to say my prayers every night before I went to bed and to thank God for all the blessings that he provided our family in life. We attended church every Sunday (ok maybe that’s a bit of a stretch, but I didn’t say we were perfect Christians) and we treated holidays like Christmas and Easter as holy days of the birth and death, respectively, of Jesus Christ. Although I still believe in God, I came to question whether my faith was something that I actually believed in, or something that was force-fed to me by my God-fearing parents at one point in my life. This perspective has allowed me to recognize and question the level of power that Christianity has in our country.

Christianity has had more sway than other any other religion in our government. It is alluded to in our Pledge of Allegiance and private Christian schools were funded by the government in some cases in our nation’s history. Many voters in America even use Christianity to determine who they will vote for and which issues they will align with. These issues range from abortion to the death penalty.

Although many of our nation’s citizens practiced Christianity at the time of our country’s inception, the religious demographics of our country have changed since then. We have more citizens who aren’t Christians than we did at our country’s inception. Giving Christianity more power in our government is unfair to millions of citizens who don’t identify as Christians, and who call this country home.

In the future, religion probably won’t have as much sway in politics as it does now. With the increasing number of religions that people in our country practice, it would be both impractical and unjust to give one religion more power over another. Citizens would rise up to protest the favoritism that one religion would receive over another. Furthermore, it would be too tedious to try to regulate and balance religious interests from different religions. It would be far simpler to not give any religion say in government and not risk giving one more power over another. We need to stop pretending as if Christianity is the only viable option for our government and stop letting religion guide our government. We can’t let one religion regulate how we govern millions of people who do not believe in it. This would allow us to stay true to the values that the founding fathers originally embedded in the Constitution.

Kirk Brown ‘20 studies Political Science in the College of Arts & Sciences. He can be reached at kirk.brown@wustl.edu.