The False Package

Why is it that, in many countries, rightward politics is associated with belief in God while the left is perceived as more secular? This is by no means a fixed rule, but it is generally accepted that those on the political right are somewhat more likely to say that they believe in God than those on the left.

By the way, the popular designation of "left" and "right" are entirely arbitrary. It started when members of Britain's Parliament would sit to either the right or the left of the aisle according to political views. The designation could easily be reversed. It is similar in concept to the designation in physics as "negative" or "positive", with reference to electric charge.

This relationship between religion and politics may have begun with the atheistic and extreme leftward economic theory of Karl Marx.

The truth is that the Bible does not endorse any political or economic system. Those on the right can point to Jesus' seemingly harsh Parable of the Talents, where all that the worthless servant had was taken away from him by the master and given to the servant that already had the most. In another seemingly rightward passage, "Those who will not work will neither eat".

But those on the left can point to Jesus' overturning the tables of the money changers at the Temple, as well as his reference to the rich young man that "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle (which would indeed be quite difficult) than for a rich man to go to Heaven. There is also the statement in the Acts of the Apostles that all of the early apostles owned all of their belongings in common, with no private ownership. The left could also go back to the Old Testament, to the criticism by the prophet Amos of the rich taking advantage of the poor.

I consider this linking of the political right to religion, and the political left to secularism to be a false package, and I would like very much to work toward undoing it. In my case, Christianity is the most important thing to me but I am a Democrat/liberal/mild socialist. My economic ideal is that both the capitalism and communism, at each end of the spectrum, have valid points but also serious flaws. The best thing to do is to chart a middle course that gets the best of both and the worst of neither. I see economics not as a slope with one side above the other, but as a peak with the high point in the center.

Politics and religion should be completely separate. Being a Christian should have nothing to do with how one believes the economics of society should be ordered. Politics should come from which system one believes will bring the greatest overall fairness and good.

The linking of politics and religion seems nonsensical to me. Religion is far above politics. One should not support a political party simply because of common religious belief with it's members.
The most important issue of politics is economics. Religion has no influence on whether one would prefer to drive a red or a blue car, so why should it influence one's choice of politics?