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Should The Church Be Involved In Politics?

I know we have discussed this regarding the Marriage Amendments, but I wanted to focus on strictly the question of Church involvement in politics and not just with this issue.

Should the Church ever express its views in the Political arena? If God did want to become politically involved how would he do it, within the confines of the Church?

Through
The Prophet,
Through the members,

Or is God never politically involved in scripture or in Church history.

Politics Involved Church Should

I think that the leaders of the church do talk politics, but they don't get involved with the worldly politics when they are talking to the people as a whole. I don't think they want us to bring it up in church because of all of the dissention it would cause. Besides it interferes with peoples free agency and perhaps even the test.

I am a constitutionalist and a strong believer in the founding fathers, but I think it would be rude to bring that up during priesthood meeting in front of all of the Bush/McCain/Obama supporters. Even though I am right and they are just brainwashed puppets. I really try to avoid it and invite anyone to discuss it outside of the church in a different place. The church is not a place for worldly political discussions. I am the first one to complain if anyone tries to push their political Agenda at church. That makes me both popular and unpopular. Sometimes when I walk up to people they just shake their head and look down. I usually console them. I bite my upper lip and say "I feel your pain".

Everyone has to consider the fact that the people that are in charge here won't be in charge in the next life. If everyone understood their own doctrine they would know that the "worthy" priesthood brethren will be in charge in the millennium and after. It doesn't get more political than that. Yes Dbacker you will be over your good man Bush. Sorry, just had to stab a little there. Hey, I am not at church right now.

A democrat expressed his opinion on the matter one time to me. He explained this principle to me in the way he understood it. And more importantly, he followed it. I got it and adopted it. I am sorry I learned something from a democrat.

I will even take it further in saying that we are brothers of the priesthood first. Let peoples' chips fall where they want them to after that. In church we should leave politics alone and be one on the things that matter most....

But we are not at church, so you people are fair game.

I am pretty good. Why cant I give myself a charm point for that one?

Once again, my 2 cents.

Should The Church Be Involved In Politics? Studies Doctrine Mormon

I would say that in most cases the church should be uninvolved politically. Preaching should be left to the pulpit, not the ballot box. However if there were ever a time where it was up to a vote to allow rape, or murder it would probably be okay for the church to lobby its members.

Currently as discussed elsewhere, the church is lobbying members to vote against gay marriage, and I believe that it is wrong for the church to do so. My belief is based on something that Quasar alludes to, that this may interfere with our test. I believe we tarnish our faith by inhibiting someones choices based on our supposed moral superiority.

In the War in Heaven we fought for our free agency, so that we could come to earth and make choices that we will be judged for. We all fought in that war, so it is obvious that once upon a time this ability to make choices was very important to all of us. Why, now that we are here, would we want to create laws that inhibit something that we fought so hard for in the pre-existence.

So I guess the measuring stick for whether the church should get involved politically is if the law being passed is something that will affect our free-agency. Obviously there should be laws regarding rape, murder, or theft, because it imposes someones will upon someone else. If ever there was a time that these laws came into question I would hope that the church would attempt to protect them. On the flip side of the coin is something like gay marriage. It doesn't affect those who are not gay, but to tell those who wish to do so that they can't is taking away their ability to make a choice.

In my opinion those who would take away a persons agency will be held accountable.

Politics Involved Church Should

The Church and politics have a messy history. The Church's policy of being "neutral" in politics is a fairly new stance for them. The Church has a history of being very politically active. Joseph smith ran for President, B. Young was a governor, and elder Smoot a senator. in fact its this very messy political church history that really hurt Romney. I think that the church is involved in politics especially on a state level in Utah. The legislature seem to do very little without the church's blessing. I think that a lot of the reasoning the church is not as politically active is that they do not want to give up their tax exempt status and have to pay taxes. It is a money issue. However, I think that the church should be more active on moral issues, such as the war, torture, the crisis on wall street, and foreclosure crisis, and health care. These are all moral issues that many other church's have taken up.

I struggle with this, because if we are not to apply our principals to help improve the world. then what good are we? I think sometimes that priesthood is a good place to experiment on how we should apply our perspective to real world situations, and that at times means politics. I am not sure what you mean by political agenda. I am not a politician so I really do not have one I guess and I am not trying to solicit votes.

I think that God works politically every where. Their are some things that need to be done and the church just is not in a place to get it done. I am thinking civil rights, the church was not in a place to champion civil rights. But he used the Baptist, Martin Luther King Jr, and others to move forward.

Politics Involved Church Should

It depends, what exactly being involved politically means? For me, it is all right that the Church expresses it's view on Gay Marriage, Abuse, etc but I don't agree with asking the members (directly or indirectly) to vote in a certain manner.

Should The Church Be Involved In Politics?

I have to ask this question: At what point does it become absolutely necessary for the Church to be involved in politics? Is it forced to remain politically neutral while society crumbles around it, and maintain the supposed "morally superior" attitude that they do not want to soil themselves while the fundamental ideals that make up the society are being altered everyday?

As we approach the Second Coming, I foresee the Church becoming much more politically active, and I welcome it.

Becoming politically involved does not mean that the members are forced to believe that the church is in the right and they can disagree all they want. There are millions of members who have some disagreement with particulars of the Church.

Should Church Involved Politics

In order to answer that I would like to know what exactly means to be politically involved according to you.

Should Church Involved Politics Mormon Doctrine Studies

I am wondering if Prophets and Apostles actually should state or do any of the following:

Would it be appropriate to state Abortion is wrong and to support legislation that makes it more prevalent is against the fundamentals of the Church and could affect membership if you actively support such measures (akin to the Catholics denying communion for Politicians who support abortion).

Can God using the church to warn a nation's political leaders (through prophets) of wickedness and social decline. If done publicly to particular Politician, would this constitute undue bias?

Should and can a Prophet actually state that a particular piece of legislation is against the wishes of the lord? Let's say for example, though I do not think it will happen, that a particular state chooses to enact a law that will take tax exempt status away if Women are not allowed to hold priesthood offices. Or a Federal judge states that same sex marriages must be performed in Temples because of equal rights laws. These are two extreme examples, but I use them to ask if the Church feels that a particular political movement is actively working against the interests of the Church, is it appropriate to work against those political movements or ideas? Does it open up the Church to accusations of becoming too politically involved? Should these accusations even matter to the Church(since they may be coming from those movements), if it feels that it must be involved to protect itself or an aspect of society that it feels needs defended?

These are only a few of the ideas floating in my head.