It’s complicated and yet so very clear

If there was a status designation for my politics, it would probably read “It’s complicated.” It’s much clearer for my religious faith, although that’s not exactly nice and neat either.

Over the years, my religious life and political designations have both changed. These are often seen as core identities of a person. Many people never change their religious affiliation, and it seems that even fewer people now have any openness to changing their political affiliation. Political affiliation has seemingly become the most important tribal identity that many people have in their life — to the point that I wonder if many would be willing to die or be martyred for their political faith. In many ways it seems as though a person’s political affiliation has become what religious affiliation used to be. Instead of people being condemned to hell, shunned, or excommunicated for their religious beliefs, we now have these type of actions taking place because of a person’s political beliefs. That’s not healthy. When one’s political affiliation takes on the importance equal to or even more so than a person’s religious affiliation, we have serious problems. Religion has a bad history of morphing into politics and attempting to gain power. It causes terrible suffering when it does. It’s far worse when politics takes on a religious form in which one’s politics are seen as equal to the divine. This combines the worst of politics and religion with terrible and destructive results. It usually ends in some sort of war and/or violence.