Religions take in all kinds of personalities and tend to burnish what they receive. A mean person, having adopted religion, becomes meaner. A kind person becomes kinder. And a political person becomes more partisan in politics.
Political religion has much to lament. Politics interlaced with religious fervor, or religion intertwined with political fervor, invented many of the techniques of political oppression. The government of gods has been tried and has failed. And so we have the North American experiment separating religion from state.
Religious politicos who draw inspiration from their sacred scriptures always do so selectively. It's not the case that a sacred text determines a political view, but rather a political view determines the choice of the sacred text and also the interpretation of the text. A prior political disposition draws a person to a requisite proof text. And when religious politicos speak for God, they are merely ventriloquists staging a self-styled soliloquy, reducing the deity to the intemperate jargon of a backroom political hack.
On the other hand, for centuries, in various religions, including past and present-day Islam, there have been religious a-political people. They're called Quietists and they pursue their own salvation without recourse to political legislation or political agitation.
For these, the character of a national government (theirs or other nations') is neither a barrier nor a boon to spirituality. A Christian, a Muslim, a Jew, a Hindu, a Buddhist, a Sikh, a Zoroastrian, and the rest, may be devout under any form of governance, no matter which way the wind blows.
Religious a-politicos are those who do not make public displays of their piety but rather go into their inner rooms and pray and meditate in secret. They are typically not well known therefore, and that's too bad. It's one of the displeasures of contemporary religion that its least admirable practitioners make all the noise and get all the attention.
Perhaps Quietists should not be so quiet. Perhaps they should ascend pulpits and platforms and all the pinnacles of public media to announce that they have a more perfect way to embody the ideals of religious politics. They would kindly instruct us thus: 'Hush, be quiet, religious politicos!'
uponreligion.com