engagedspirituality

There seems to be a lot of confusion lately around the difference between belief and imposition of ones beliefs onto another.  The more I have been reflecting on this issue, the more I like the Hindu perspective on people of different spiritual perspectives, but more on that in a moment.

I don’t feel that there is anything wrong with being a spiritual or religious person.  In fact, as a spiritual teacher and priest, it would be sheer hypocrisy for me to find that problematic.  I also believe that everyone has a belief system, even if they have no particular spiritual or religious perspective.  Most of us would agree, for example, that if we say an elderly person in the supermarket struggling to reach something on a shelf it would be a good thing to help them.  Which one of us wouldn’t stop to help a child who had fallen and injured themselves?  Who among us is not moved by video of natural disasters such as the tornado in Joplin, MO last year, and who among us did not feel compassion for the victims of Tsunami and the subsequent nuclear disaster in Japan?  You don’t need an overtly  spiritual perspective to respond to people struggling or suffering,

I would expect that an elected official, whether local, regional, or nation, would respond from their own internal values while in office.  If a tornado struck the next county over, I would expect officials in my county to send assistance because they would be motivated by compassion.  Decisions such as those to create ramps at cross walks so the elderly and those with physical struggles have an easier time crossing the street arise from a basic human concern for the other that gives us all hope for humanity.  We would be hard pressed indeed to find someone who understood the reasons for such actions and still believed such measures were bad ideas.  As human beings, we have an innate capacity for caring for one another.

I believe, then, that it’s fair enough to ask questions of people running for political office questions that help us determine their beliefs.  We will want to know how they feel about helping the homeless, about accessibility issues of all kinds, about victims of crime and natural disasters, and so on.  How would they respond to a natural disaster half way around the world or right next door?  What’s their position on military action?  We need to know the answers to these kinds of questions regardless of our political affiliation if we are to make an informed decision at the polls.

In turn, politicians should be prepared to explain their beliefs and values so that we can make informed decisions.  They should be willing to help us come to understand them better so that we can elect someone who will take the actions that are important to us.  Certainly, there will be times when politicians will have to vote their conscience rather than poll their constituency, particularly when their isn’t a clear mandate from the electorate on an issue or the elected official feels that they would violate their conscience by voting in a certain way.  In turn, if we disagree with their decisions, we have the right to vote them out of office or recall them.

A line is crossed, however, when a politician cannot understand the difference between acting in accord with their own values and imposing those values on other people.  The notion of establishing a theocracy in America is contrary to the Constitution, and regardless of how strongly one believes their own values are correct it is inappropriate to attempt to impose their belief system on others.  This is precisely the flaw in the reasoning of the US Roman Catholic bishops on the issue of providing access to birth control for their employees.  In America, we are Constitutionally guaranteed that no particular religious perspective will be imposed upon us.  That means that you are free to practice your religion and beliefs, but you don’t get to tell someone who is not a member of your religion what they should do or believe.

A similar line is crossed when politicians imply that biblical law should be the law of the land in the United States.  Here we must recall that there is no one, clear definition of biblical law – Rabbis have been arguing about the Jewish Law for thousands of years and aren’t likely to come to consensus any time soon.  There is no small amount of irony in the reality that many of the same politicians who seek to outlaw Islamic law based on the Quran, known as Sharia law, also seek to impose biblical law in America.  The fact that a large segment of the population cannot see the hypocrisy in holding both positions simultaneously is frightening, indeed.

I have come to agree with the Hindu understanding that human beings are growing into new levels of consciousness all the time.  Any number of factors including education, life experience, the culture in which we are raised, our socio-economic standing, and our spiritual practice will affect that growth and spiritual evolution.  There are clearly people, and Rick Santorum is an excellent example, who simply cannot see beyond the confines of their own rather narrow religious perspective and are motivated much more by the teachings of their religion than the Constitution of the United States.  Why?  Not because he is a bad person, but because his consciousness has not sufficiently evolved for him to be able to see over the rather high fence that is the Roman Catholic Church.  The question for those seeking to elect him President is, how would he understand his vow at inauguration to defend the Constitution?  Would he feel compelled to defend it only when it didn’t conflict with his understanding of his Church’s teachings?  The same question could and should be asked of every candidate running for political office on every level.  We deserve to know if they are sufficiently evolved to serve us in the way we want to be represented.

This view also explains why, no matter how terrible a particular candidate may seem to you or me, someone will vote for them.  From our different places on the continuum, we have very different ideas about what make a candidate attractive.  No matter how unattractive, the two ugliest people (physically or behaviorally) at the dance usually end up dancing together.

This is precisely why those of us who enjoy a progressive spiritual perspective need to continue efforts to educate others – not to our positions, but rather to a place where they can made informed decisions in an increasingly compassionate way.  If we tell people they must vote as we do, we are just another groups seeking to impose our will on others.  If, on the other hand, we give others a supportive environment in which they can ask difficult questions and explore alternatives, they will begin the process of spiritual evolution – and everyone will benefit from that development.