My thoughts..

Politics is the quest to strike that sensitive balance or compromise between universal justice, governance and fiscal management of public/community resources. Religions (not to be confused with sects/cults) get interloped in this meshwork by the fact that they all tend to assure justice and peace to all adherents, both in this life and thereafter. They could be used as pillars to support appropriate governance and so could play a positive role in politics.

Problems with religion begin when mortals unilaterally take up the roles of spokespersons for their relevant deities and in so doing become judges of others in their struggle to self-justification. The other negative role of religion in politics is when the adherents tend to relegate their obligations to their relevant deities and just lay back awaiting their gods to mend the wrongs of bad politics. Prayer alone may not get the wrong persons out of office-it may come down to walking to the polling stations and actually voting to get this done.

Striking that perfect balance is an elusive venture since man became enterprising enough to  meddle into the affairs of his neighbour-which is what politics is all about, the shortcomings have ended up in global wars, ethnic cleansing, assimilation and displacements,  and rise of empires. Man’s progress has been loosely tied to politics though there’s a paradox in that good politics hasn’t always guaranteed ‘progress’.