Politics in Church

This story on the Alliance Defense Fund website, http://www.alliancedefensefund.org/news/story.aspx?cid=5075, is about an agreement between more than 80 pastors to deliver sermons in their congregations that will cover biblical perspectives on current political candidates and leaders. These pastors are arguing that the IRS is limiting their First Amendment rights by threatening to remove their churches’ tax-exempt status if they incorporate political talk during church.

My problem with this separation of church and state is that it is the individual’s decision to join a denomination and it’s their problem if they don’t believe in the denomination they joined. For example, I’m a Missouri Synod Lutheran and we believe that everything in the Bible is true. So I don’t really see what the problem is if our pastor comments that abortion is wrong, because it’s what we believe. If people in our congregation disagree, they’re in the wrong denomination. There are just so many denominations with varying views on the Bible, religion, etc that it would be wasteful to join a denomination you don’t believe in. I’m in a funny situation in that both my parents have different religious views than me (my dad is an Evangelical while my mom is a Catholic), but we’ve all agreed to go to my church. It’s a given that they will disagree with certain aspects of our church, but they don’t try to change it, because it was their decision to go to a Missouri synod church.

And it’s such a waste that we can’t discuss politics in church, because churches are missing out on opportunities that can make them stronger as a unit. I was happy when the Mormons(I can’t believe I’m saying this) rallied for Prop 8, because it was something the churches were to afraid to touch.(But I’m still confused as to how they still have their tax-exempt status). I think people are just afraid that pastors will tell people how to vote, and people will blindly follow them. But people are rational beings and if they don’t agree with what a pastor says, they can go to their scripture(or look into themselves) to find the answer. I understand that people can argue that people like me blindly follow the Bible, but if there’s something wrong in the Bible, I would assume (and hope) that we would have the sense of mind to recognize it. Being a Christian isn't like some kind of cult in which they brainwash you into beleiving everything they say; You still make decisions based on experience, education, etc. And I don’t know if it’s just me, but I think even if I wasn’t a Christian, I would still have the same views as I do now. I would still consider murder wrong(and would still classify abortion into that category). I would probably still disagree with the earth being more than a million years old, because of a lack of evidence of any culture that date back for even fifty thousand years. Even if they were a bunch of apes, we should still be able to find various things like hunting tools. And I've always attributed my views on income tax, public health care, etc to the environment I grew up in(I don't see how religion really fits into those).