What are two ubiquitous misconceptions that interface faith and politics?

Misconception (1): The utmost nobility for Christians in a toxic socio-political climate is apoliticism.

Response: Apoliticism does not negate the political. The human personality is webbed in the throes of the political by default, notwithstanding an abstention from party politics.

The political is bidirectional: The mortal, cannot be estranged from the political, and the political cannot be divorced from the human element.

A matured piety, regardless of social stratification, is active in tranquilizing the imbalance of socio-political power.

Misconception (2): The piety of prayer, must be exercised in lieu of pragmatic social justice deeds.

Response: The nobility of prayer has become weaponized, commodified, and exercised as a perfunctory ritual. The piety of prayer must not supplant the civic ethic of prophetic critique, which should impel one to remonstrate against a regime’s socio-political misdeeds, e.g., criminal, social, and constitutional injustice.

A pragmatic parishioner should find unmitigated wisdom in the axiom of Frederick Douglass, who parlayed: “I prayed for twenty years, but [I] received no answer until I prayed with my legs.” The poetry of prayer must consign one to material socio-political deeds.