Should Faith Impact Your Voting?
Should your faith impact your voting? Dwayne Hastings, vice president for the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, takes a look at what Americans said about this topic in some recent research. Here's his opinion column from Baptist Press :
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)--If the results of a recent study are at all accurate, most Americans don't consider the precepts of their faith when they make their decisions on which political candidates to support.
In a recent Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life survey, fewer than one in six respondents (14 percent) mentioned their religious beliefs as having the most influence on their political views. If an individual's faith has an impact, it apparently is indirect and is wrapped up in the amalgamation referred to as "personal experiences" by the pollsters. Most of those who were surveyed (34 percent) said it was those personal, life experiences that most informed their choices. The news media was cited by 19 percent of those who were asked about the primary influence on their political thinking.
Yet the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission's iVoteValues.com initiative holds that not only should an individual's faith drive their Election Day decisions, it should also compel a person to be involved in the nation's civic affairs.
Click here to read his entire piece.
0 Comments posted by: Site Administrator on July 26th, 2008