What does religion have to do with politics?  Some would say absolutely nothing; others would say absolutely everything; still others would fall somewhere in between.
     I ask because the other day I thought about U.S. presidential candidate Jeb Bush's well publicized response to Pope Francis's recently issued encyclical on the environment, Laudato Si. Speaking on the campaign trail about what he perceived to be the encyclical's political overtones, Mr. Bush opined, "Religion ought to be about making us better as people and less about things that end up getting into the political realm."
     I have no quarrel about viewing religion as an experience which can teach us to be "better" people, who endeavor to view others with greater kindness, people who decide to live not just for themselves but for their fellow human beings, too  (better, by the way, is a horribly relative term:  we all have different ideas on what it means).  It seems, however, that part of becoming a "better" person includes cultivating a greater openness to the welfare of the world in which we live.  Did not God say it was good?  Moreover, is our religion, whatever it may be, really something we want to compartmentalize, to restrict to encompassing only part of our life?  Do we want to live as half-baked beings?
     We can argue for quite some time about religion's precise role in politics, of course, but we should not be arguing over whether our religion has anything to do with politics. Clearly, it does.  Religion should not be something we allow into only a few parts of our lives. It doesn't work that way.  Practiced rightly, religion is cultural, social, and political. It's everything.
     And if true religion, as the revelation of God, threatens any of our convictions in these realms--or any others--so be it.