Article October 28, 2002 Issue

Spiritual solutions to political impasses

By Sandy Mathiesen

Conservatives Versus liberals. Congress versus the President. Democrats versus Republicans. Incumbents versus new candidates. Every Federal election cycle produces its own share of heated rhetoric that tends to focus on differences rather than on the common ideas that bind us.

What's the best way to respond to the attack ads appearing on TV or to headlines proclaiming that Congress is in gridlock? It may be tempting to shake your head at what goes on in almost any national capital and give up on "the whole lot of them." But I've found it helpful to approach the political process from a spiritual perspective.

Maybe you've heard the saying that "all politics is local." To me, this means that voters generally like the politician that represents them. They may not like the Congress as a whole, but they do like their own representative. Oddly enough, over the years this has helped me—as an American—see members of Congress as individuals, rather than as a collective body comprised of people with differing viewpoints and perspectives. The first chapter of Genesis in the Bible says God made male and female in His image—in other words, like God, and therefore spiritual—and that must certainly apply to each elected official, whether or not you agree with him or her.

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Article

UNITY among the races