Politics and Religion: The Child Still Believes

Politics and religion have more in common than most people realize. Both rely on faith, persuasion, and often—unquestioned loyalty. But the truth is deeper than that. Both begin the same way: in childhood.

Children will believe anything their parents tell them. It’s not because they are gullible, but because they are dependent. Their parents are their first source of truth, and that trust becomes the foundation of everything they understand about the world.

For years before independence sets in, belief is inherited, not examined. Most people never outgrow that first stage. What they believe—politically, religiously, culturally—comes not from study or investigation, but from repetition. They adopt what they were told, and because it feels familiar, they mistake it for truth.

 

 

Very few people ever subject their own beliefs to testing. Politicians and preachers are among the rare exceptions. They must study, read, debate, and defend what they believe. They have to articulate their positions publicly, which demands a certain intellectual discipline and courage.

 

But even among them, many began just like everyone else: children repeating what they were taught until life or experience forced them to think.

 

I know this story intimately because it is my own.

I once believed that salvation existed only inside the Church of Christ. I believed that if I sinned and died unrepentant, my soul was destined for eternal fire. I preached it. I lived it. I taught it. I even began preaching as a boy of nine—confident, sincere, and completely convinced.

It took decades of ministry before I began to question what I had been told. I changed the church’s name from The North Fontana Church of Christ to The North Fontana Church because I could no longer accept that only one label defined the saved.

That act of honesty cost me dearly. Other churches in the fellowship withdrew their association. Yet, it was the best decision I ever made—because it forced me to study, to think, and to grow. It led me to a new understanding of faith, one grounded not in fear, but in relationship and truth.

My political journey followed a similar path.

I began as a Democrat because that was the political tradition of my family. I voted for President Jimmy Carter, and later for President Ronald Reagan. With the exception of Bill Clinton, Barack Obama (twice), and most recently Kamala Harris, my votes aligned largely with the Republican Party.

For most of my adult life, I considered myself a Republican because my moral, social, and spiritual values seemed to align more closely with the ideals the party once represented—personal responsibility, limited government, economic freedom, and faith as a moral compass. Historically, the Republican Party was the party of Lincoln, emancipation, and the defense of liberty for African Americans. That history cannot be erased, even if it has been obscured by modern politics.

But the rise of President Donald Trump forced me to re-evaluate. I voted for him in the first election, but not in the second. His rhetoric and his rollback of diversity, equity, and inclusion policies were an assault on everything I valued. His administration sought to unwind decades of progress and return this nation to an era of division and exclusion.

That was my breaking point. In June of this year, I formally left the Republican Party and registered as a Democrat. But the transition revealed something sobering—the Democratic Party is equally dysfunctional, unorganized, and disconnected from the needs of the people. The government shutdown was the final straw. It was not simply a partisan failure; it was a national embarrassment—a collective indictment of both parties and of a Congress that has forgotten who it serves.

 

As I write this, the Democratic Party has reportedly picked up five additional delegates in the House of Representatives, giving it a narrow majority after the midterm elections. Yet that shift, rather than offering stability, signals another swing of the pendulum.

We have moved from the extreme right under the politics of retribution and rage—and now, as human nature often dictates, we are poised to swing hard to the left. Like the Federal Reserve’s ongoing battle with inflation, America seems trapped in a cycle of reaction rather than reflection: boom and bust, hit and miss, correction and overcorrection.

 

Since the founding of the central bank, we’ve never truly found equilibrium—and our politics mirror the same instability. Each extreme produces the next. What we lack, both economically and politically, is what the prophet Hosea described:

“My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.” — Hosea 4:6

 

That absence of knowledge—of vision—is the real crisis of our time. Not just ignorance, but the refusal to learn.

 

For me, the saving grace of democracy has always been the people. If the American people take voting and civic engagement as seriously as they should, we can at least minimize the dysfunction now poisoning our government.

When I voted yes on Proposition 50*—not because I fully agreed with it, but because I believed it was time to confront political complacency head-on*—I also changed my registration to Independent. And there I will remain.

This decision reflects not disillusionment, but growth. I have finally reached the point where I must think for myself—not as a partisan, but as a citizen; not as a follower of tradition, but as a student of truth. I will vote for the person and the policy, not the party.

Paul’s instruction to Timothy still rings true:

“Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” — 2 Timothy 2:15

 

Though written for ministers, this wisdom applies to life itself. Every human being should study to show themselves worthy of the space they occupy—to think, to learn, to discern, and to contribute to the human story. It is the antidote to childish belief.

This, to me, is what it means to put away childish things.

 

The Apostle Paul once said, “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child. But when I became a man, I put away childish things.”

 

That is the call of maturity—not just in age, but in understanding.

 

To grow up means to test what you believe. It means to stop repeating what others say. Stop criticizing people you’ve never met. Stop complaining about systems you don’t study. Stop attacking ideas you’ve never read. Stop following parties or pastors as if they were parents. And most of all, stop outsourcing your thinking to anyone—politician, preacher, or pundit.

 

There comes a time when each of us must wake up from inherited faith and borrowed conviction. That awakening may come late, but it is never too late.

To awaken is to reclaim your mind. It is to grow beyond dependency. It is to think, read, question, and decide for yourself.

Now is the time for every citizen to rise—to write letters, make calls, and hold our representatives accountable. To study the propositions, understand the issues, and vote intelligently, not emotionally.

This is how we become the America our founders imagined—not the flawed America of slavery and exclusion, but the aspirational America of freedom, equality, and reason.

Let us no longer be ruled by parties or personalities, but by principle. Let us mature as a people who can finally say:

 

“I no longer believe because I was told. I believe because I have studied, understood, and chosen.”

 

Thank you for reading this blog. I appreciate your continued support in raising awareness about the issues that impact our relationships, families, friendships, and the institutions and environments—political, social, and economic—in which we live and work.

 

Please share this blog—and explore my other articles and videos—each one created to educate, empower, and uplift. Together, we can challenge the belief systems that hold us back and press forward into openness, love, consideration, and peace—opening doors of opportunity for all.

 

— Eric Lawrence Frazier, MBA

www.ericfrazier.com  |  www.ericfrazieruk.com

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