Religion and Politics in America (Essay Sample)

Religion and Politics
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Religion and Politics
While the delegates of the 1787 convention on the American constitution failed to uphold suggestions to make the country a Christian nation, it was impossible for them to keep religion out of the politics of America. The relations between politics and religion in America have been quite uneasy from the founding of the nation to this very day. Nevertheless, these relations see to be greatly influenced by the Hebrew covenant laws and the natural law traditions existing before America was born. For instance, religion in America has grown to influence sectarian and partisan politics every time it is invoked in the political arena. Religious agenda has always found itself entangled in non-religious agenda in the entire spectrum of American politics.
First of all, natural laws have been functioning together with the laws of the Hebrew covenant religions since America was born. Statements made by the founding fathers of America in their Declaration of Independence provide an introduction into their religious convictions which could not be separated from the politics of that time (Marti, 2019). For example, the many mentions of “God” in the Declaration of Independence prove that American politics cannot do without religion as it formed a basis on which the country was founded. Statements such as “Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God” and “they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights” confirm that America is a nation whereby religion and politics function hand in hand. As such, the laws of Abrahamic religions are sometimes seen to function together with the natural laws of the country.
Secondly, Americans have been applying both natural laws and Hebrew covenant laws in their daily lives as they are good for all people. It is because of this application that statements derived from Abrahamic religious texts have been included in the laws of land. For example, laws on family and marriage are both natural and religious as well as part of the country’s political discourse. Thomas Aquinas developed natural law theory based on the fact that natural laws are created to ensure that good is done and evil has been avoided. Such a perspective is also in line with the Christian perspective of law (Abulafia, 2019). The Apostle Paul in his letter to the Romans made it clear that both the Jew and the Gentile were bound by natural laws of the time although they shared a mutual necessity of Christ in their lives (Romans 3:6). Thus, Paul called for obedience of both the natural moral law as well as the law of Christ. He explained that from the natural, men can get into the supernatural (Greenwell, 2010). Christians are urged by Paul to obey the natural law as it is a command from Christ. The bible further asserts that Christ did not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it (Romans, 3:27).
Thirdly, politics in the United States have included debates on how the right of all citizens can be preserved. The preservation of human rights is a concept that is contained both in Hebrew covenant tradition as well as the natural law theories of seminal natural law thinkers. For instance, natural laws and Hebrew covenant tradition have been proven to work hand in hand in the political theology of pre-American thinkers such as Zwingli (Charles, 2006). In fact, Zwingli is convinced that covenant law and natural law together function against tyranny as well as safeguarding the rights of all citizens. Working together with natural law, covenant law provides the foundation for civil obligations which bind all people and societies together. Zwingli and other reformers were moved by the conviction that every human being must conform to natural law, which is equivalent to the laws of the Hebrew covenant. The Bill of Rights is one such an example of laws traversing both natural law and Hebrew covenant traditions. For example, the bible asserts that all authority comes from God hence providing a basis for the need to obey those who are in power. Human beings have no ability to act justly if they are not bound by the laws set by God in light of the law of nature.
Lastly, the rise of Islam and Protestantism in the United States politics is a phenomenon shaped by the Hebrew covenant tradition as well as natural law tradition. Islam cannot be left out when discussing Hebrew covenant traditions since it is also an Abrahamic religion. More particularly, the concept of jihad is applicable in the political discourse of the United States. Among the original thinkers on this doctrine of jihad was Sayyid Ahmad Khan, an Indian reformer who lived between 1817 and 1898 (Jihad, 2018). He believed that the interests of Muslims in his country would be met if they closely cooperated with British colonizers. The same mindset has featured in the politics of the United States in which the emergence of Islam as a major religion in the country has been seen to sprout from the push by certain ele