Church in Politics

Should there be church and religion in Politics?

In Australia we are starting to see Pentecostal Churches taking an active roll in Government with both Parties lining up to show just how faithful they are.
The claims for this upsurge in faith based politics is much the same as in America, with family values being the main component.
Can we examine this a little further and give a open eye to the family value claim of churches, no denomination in particular.

1. Family orientated: In several christian faiths, require the priest to be celebrate, not married so as to dedicate their life to God and or the faith. Others segregate men and women and children while attending mass or pray. Some of these require women to be down graded in social standings and others require women not to be priest but nuns and also remain celebrate. Therefore their family experience in today's world is based on what they see and their upbringing not experience within there own which we all understands counts for alot.

2. Safe and Nurturing environment: The various faiths have long preached a safe environment in which children can be placed to learn the values instilled within the holy books all faiths follow.....
We are increasingly becoming aware of children being manipulated within these groups into hard line fanatics, each one taught to believe the other is evil..... Although the children within the groups appear safe from physical harm the mental issues as they grow are becoming more and evident.

3. Moral Standings: This is big, As anyone who has attended a church meeting would tell you. All Holy books are full of stories which give guidelines to live your life by. Having been to Sunday school and read a few of these books in my search, I must say the Ten Commandments and others to me are common sense.... we all understand you should kill someone, you shouldn't haven't an affair with someone Else's partner, you should treat people as you want to be treated etc.... these lessons have been around longer than any Holy book discovered so far.
The issue of moral values also comes into question in a big way with the allegation of child abuse by faithful members of most denominations....

4. Understand of differences: This one takes into account understanding towards.... cultural, Social, economic, gender, sexuality and general beliefs. So here goes:

Cultural: Most faiths regard there purpose while on earth as one of conversion. Converting people, societies and country into one united faith ... theirs....most faiths do not take into account the peoples cultural background. For evidence of these just look at the crusades, Inquisitions, and the Catholic - Prodestants battles of recent times.

Social: This one the faiths do seem to help with and several of the long recognised faiths doing a terrific job in helping those less fortunate.... in countries with extreme poverty they play a major part in helping the population.... however in the same countries the conversion rate in also quite high.

Economic: Apart from the faiths above there is a growing number of religious groups which hold money and its pursuit, high on their ladder with people from high economic backgrounds being sort after. These also preach that God wishes them to be rich, accumilating wealth is among his teaching, send money to the church to show your faith etc....
examples of these can be seen in everyday Evangelists, the Pentecostal Churches and various others.

Gender: Well in most faiths if your a male you seem to have more rights than if your female, your social standing and place within the group can be far more advanced if you a male.
A womens place is with the children and looking after her husbands needs.

Sexuality: There is in almost all faiths an intolerance to people who are homosexual. This seems to be an issue more based on fear than fact. The christian churches stance on this subject has been more than unsympathetic in all areas. In the other faiths you very rarely hear of the subject as it is frowned upon and punishments can be quite severe.
This form of intolerance in this day and age should be unheard off.

Given the fact that more people are pulling away from mainstream churches and religions is it relevant to have such groups penitrating our very government with their own views on how the rest should live our lives. I do feel the subjects of religion and politics should be kept quite separate, introduce religion into the political arena and you open a hornets nest of issues and problems which really shouldn't be there.

So given the above thoughts and understandings how can any government regardless of the country or the majority faith contemplate bringing any form of faith into politics.....
If a government is to be Fair and Just to all its people makes it impossible to be either fair just our importial this thought of this happening in any country should be to say the least a frightening prospect to all...
What if it isn't your faith that wins government.