Political engagement among religious leaders and their relationships with the media

Abstract

Religious leaders have a unique societal position when it comes to political engagement and media representation. The degree in which it is appropriate for religious leaders to engage in political events and activity varies from religion to religion and from denomination to denomination. This professional project will explore the nuances of political engagement among religious leaders and media representation through a series of interviews with clergy in the American Christian church who have displayed various dispositions towards politics. These semi-structured qualitative interviews serve as a microcosm by which other sects of religion can be discussed and explored. The written report coincides with the professional skills component of the project, which will take the form of a short documentary about a Lutheran pastor who took a leave-of-absence from his congregation to run for Congress as a Democrat in the 2018 American midterm elections. The themes of the intersections of religion and politics in the short documentary are a visual manifestation of the topics that are addressed in the research.