MEN OF RELIGION GET ACTIVELY INVOLVED IN POLITICS

by Samuel B. Batara

The popular song “No man is an island” spells it all. Man by nature is a social being. He cannot
exist in isolation. He needs the skills, talents and contribution of fellow men. He has to make
decisions that affect the welfare and lives of others. He makes choices that by necessity consider
the common good. In the words of Aristotle, man is a political animal. He pursues transactions
that fulfill his desire to exist, move about, develop and be happy with others. He establishes a
family where he exercises his responsibility as father, as bread winner, as protector and educator
of his offspring. His family, in concert with other families, makes up a wider association called
society. It is a society that needs to protect and serve its members through a cooperative venture
among members themselves. They devise rules and conventions that guide their bearings and
dealings with each other. They choose and replace leaders to initiate and manage services and
ensure peace and order among members. By virtue of his social nature, man is, indeed, a political
being.

Mystery and awe confront man and his family. There are things and events that in his limited
knowledge he cannot explain. Man is rendered helpless in the midst of calamity and disaster.
Even assigned leaders are unable to totally solve problems and burdens that beset their
community. It becomes clear to each one that there is a power, positive or negative, that is
evidently mightier than man’s. There is a force that renders man into humiliation. As human
beings together concede to accept their nothingness, they devise means to appeal to or appease
that almighty power. Through rites, they subject themselves to a supreme being they may call
God or some other names. Through faith, they institute rituals and ceremonies that establish and
retain good relationships between them and the Supreme Being or spiritual beings. Faith is
strengthened as the community collectively pays homage to an ultimate ruler who must be in
charge of the affairs of men. Human rulers are powerless and can do nothing in the face of this
supreme ruler. Man is indeed a spiritual being, who needs to deal with a God, or some gods, as
the case may be. Such dealings are governed by the exercise of beliefs and religiosity expressed
through rites and rituals. There is always a longing on the part of man, singly and collectively, to
fulfill an obligation, a duty to communicate and offer sacrifices to an unseen boss or manager
who is so real in their religious experiences. God is not only interested in, but authors and runs
the social and political affairs of men and women.

The wisdom of sages attested to the reality that man is both a temporal and eternal reality. Greek
philosophers like Aristotle, followed later by Christian theologians like Thomas Aquinas,
considered man as a body-soul entity. The body is material; the soul is spiritual. The soul is
conceived as the inner, vital principle, which is the source of all bodily functions. It is that
spiritual part of human beings that animates their physical existence and survives death. Ideally,
the soul should rule and guide the body, and control bodily appetites to ensure a longer
preservation of life. The body is mortal, the soul is immortal. When man dies, the physical body
corrupts and disintegrates while the spiritual soul goes to its original source, the Supreme Being
who is the giver of life. The body-soul nature of man, then, calls for attention to both his earthly
and heavenly citizenships. Man is only a traveler, a pilgrim on earth who is destined to an eternal
abode in a heavenly state, when he will come face to face with his God.

While on earth, it is natural for man to live in society, to chose and submit to authority, and be
governed by conventions of society which are formed into law. A community of families needs to
be controlled by a common authority interested in promoting common welfare issuing from a
self-sufficient, autonomous society called the state. Civil authority is the moral power of
command which the state exercises over its constituent members. But civil authority comes from
God, by virtue of the fact that God is the author of nature, and human nature requires civil
authority to be set up in the name of order, peace, and justice. Man’s natural rights and duties on
earth are determined by the purpose on which the creator determined the nature of man. Natural
knowledge of such rights and duties emanates from the tendencies and needs of nature.

Eternal happiness is the ultimate purpose of man’s existence. He has to attain a measure of
temporal happiness in anticipation of the achievement of the perfect good, in God. The state
exists to help man attain that temporal happiness, while the Church or religion serves to ensure
that man reaches his ultimate end, eternal happiness. The state has its limited domain of
governing its subjects, defining and restricting their rights, imposing civil duties, keeping its
citizens to a proper condition of morality within the exigencies of promoting order and prosperity
among citizens. On the other hand, religion is bound to, among various tasks, declare to subjects
a system of morality, based on the eternal principles of human dignity and social justice.

Men and women of religion, particularly Christians, have to pursue the ideal of the Kingdom of
God. If Christians are involved in making laws, electing officials and themselves running for
office, they ought to stand unrelentingly for the freedom regarded as essential to human dignity.
Freedom should be seen as the foundation-stone of social justice. And without social justice, no
state, or nation, or people, can credibly be called "Christian".

Religion and politics are two spheres of activities in the life of the same person. Citizens who
belong to religious groups are also members of the secular society. Religious beliefs have moral
and social implications, and it is appropriate for people of faith to express these beliefs through
their participation and activities as citizens in the political order.