A warning about faith and politics

Over at the Commonweal blog, J. Peter Nixon has a post that, it seems to me, all of us who (a) follow politics and (b) try to follow Christ might take to heart.  Here is a bit:

In their statement Faithful Citizenship, the

U.S.

bishops argue that participation in the political process is a “moral obligation.” This may be true, but there are moral dangers here too. You can get so caught up with a cause, a candidate, or a party that you start shaving small bits off the truth and sanding down the sharp edges of the Gospel. 

In an election where issues of great moral import—abortion, war, torture, poverty, marriage—are at stake, it may seem absurd to suggest that there is something more important than who wins this November or how these issues are dealt with in the months to come. But there is. First and foremost, we need to be faithful and we need to be truthful. We need to preach the fullness of the Gospel, even if—perhaps especially if—it embarrasses our comrades and gives comfort to our opponents. We need to remain committed to the search for truth, even if the truth we discover undermines our arguments. We need to trust enough in eternal victory to risk temporal defeat.