Introduction
How does Christianity fit into the American two-party system in the USA? Most people in the USA as this question. Christians cannot just stop or pretend to stop being involved in politics to preach the gospel. Christians who tend to shy from political discussions and engagement easily cast a vote for the pre-existing state of affairs in social, religion, and political issues. The field of political science is huge and involves various approaches, such as pluralism and institutionalism. These approaches could be used to define a position for this controversial topic. The political science approach of pluralism emphasizes that there is no single correct logical decision; there is more than one correct logic regarding an issue. In this case, involvement or avoidance of politics by Christians, according to pluralism, should be entirely based on more than one logic, where an individual can have a political stand while another cannot. Additionally, institutionalism defines how people behave by shaping preference. Christians have been shaped by religion for long, which impacts how they view a two-party system. Understanding how Christians fit into the two-party system can help identify how Christians vote and what influences them to vote. This research targets Christians and is relevant in helping them understand how their belief fits into the two-party system.
Literature Review
Although not little research has been done to determine the relationship between Christianity and politics, some studies have been carried out. The conducted studies try to argue on whether Christians should be either democrats or republicans in the USA. O'Callaghan, in 2019 carried out research to determine whether Christians were conservatives or liberals. The main aim of the research is to determine whether Christians are more of conservatives than liberals. According to O'Callaghan (2019), Christianity is an integrative religion; Christians only reject sins, which they believe sets them apart from God. Since Christianity does not exclude something substantial from human life, it can be viewed as either conservative or liberal. Adam Hilton, a methodist pastor, acknowledged that he is both conservative and liberal. He states that being liberal enables Christians to have grace and direction while being conservative enables Christians to be anchored (O'Callaghan, 2019) . This means that the political side taken by a Christian is based on their reasoning and logic.
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Closson (2019), in his research, investigated whether Christians had a moral obligation to participate in politics. Additionally, he investigated whether Christians had a distinct way of engaging in political processes or had a duty to vote. Closson notes that modern-day politics are polarized and can become messy at times, which all Christians strive to avoid. However, Closson believes that Christians have a duty to participate in politics and its processes. Closson (2019), notes that politics are unavoidable and influences the lives of Christians, thereby demands involvement. Closson (2019) goes ahead to quote the book of Peter, where he described Christians as "sojourners and exiles" who live in the "city of man" (O'Callaghan, pg 7, 2019). To abide by God's laws, Christians must use their influence to advance laws, regulations, and other activities that allow their neighbors to flourish.
The researches serve as a reflection of what religious and non-religious people view religion and politics. While others dislike and like to distance themselves from politics, others are in the front line and use religion to force political reforms. Despite this knowledge, there is a research gap in these studies. The researchers concentrated more on voting rights and political preference of the Christians. Both researchers emphasized that Christians have an obligation to participate in the country's political process depending on their reasoning and logic they apply. However, not much research has been carried out to determine how Christianity fits into the USA's two-party political system. This research will contribute to the field of political science by providing knowledge on the research gap about how Christianity fits into the two-party system. This will help political science scholars, Christians, and community members on how Christianity is affected by the two-party system.
Variables and Hypothesis
A variable is anything in a research study that has quantity or quality that varies. There are often three variables: the dependent, independent, and the control variable. The independent variable is a variable that doe not change with respect to the other; researchers are not often interested in the independent variable. In contrast, a dependent variable is a variable that depends on other variables; this is often the variable that researchers are interested in. A control variable is an experimental component that does not change throughout the investigation.
For this research, the research question is, "How does Christianity fit into the American two-party system in the USA?” From the research question, both the dependent and the independent variables can be derived. In this case, the independent variable is the two-party political system; the Democrat and the Republican. In contrast, the dependent variable is Christianity; this is because it is influenced by political power compared to politics, not affected by religious power. These variables are very reliable since they are never changing. Although evolving, Christianity has not changed in terms of belief, while political parties in the USA remain unchanged and with their initial ideas. Testing and retesting the data would yield the same or close to similar results, hence reliable.
The most appropriate level of measurement for these variables is ordinal. In ordinal measurement, values or data are ranked with values, allowing categories with a natural and reasonable order to be created. Some examples of ordinal variables include the Likert chart. In this research, data provided by individuals like Christians in the form of interviews can be recorded on a Likert scale, then values assigned to the answers. The control variables will affect the first-order relationship by affecting their influence on the research. By keeping the first-order variables constant, accurate results will be achieved; however, if the first-order variables are varied, the research's errors could increase.
Methodology
For this research, data will be gathered from Christians who have voting rights, from the political party leaders, the Federal Election Commission, and the U.S Census Bureau. The rationale for selecting this population is that they can provide information regarding personal stands regarding religion and political parties. The FEC and the Census Bureau can avail statistics regarding political parties based on religion. The best technique for data collection for this research will be questionnaires and interviews. This research will involve many individuals from different parts of the country to reduce the generalizability of the study; through interviews and online questionnaires, people from different parts of the country can be engaged. This helps to increase the accuracy of the research findings.
When collecting the data, I would ensure that all political science ethical standards when conducting research are met. During the research, I will ensure that I obtain information from all participants willingly and only after their informed consent. In this case, I will ensure that all participants are aware of the research topic and how I will use the information they give to provide. I will also ensure that I keep the participants’ details and their identity confidential before and after the research (IIT, 2011). Additionally, I will ensure that I do not subject the data to bias and do not harm the participant, either physically or psychologically.
For this research, the obtained data will be analyzed using the two techniques. First, descriptive statistics techniques, which summarizes data using indexes (Kaur et al., 2018), such as mean and standard deviation, will be used for the data obtained from the election and the census bureau. This data will be analyzed to determine the mean number of Christian democrats or Republicans. Additionally, inferential statistics will be applied to draw conclusions from the interview and questionnaire data. After initial data analysis, further analyses will be done correlation to identify the relationship between Christianity and political parties. Additionally, I will use a t-test to evaluate the assumption that Christians are not interested in being part of political parties.
Conclusion
This research design can be used to determine how income distribution impacts people regarding political parties they support. Income distribution and political party membership can be correlated to determine how it works. Such research could impact the ethics of leaders in office to consider become moral and ethical to encourage proper resource allocation.
References
Closson, D. (2019). Biblical Principles for Political Engagement: Worldview, Issues, and Voting. Family Health Council. Washington, D.C.: Christian World View.
Ethics Codes Collection. (2011, October 24). Illinois Institute of Technology . Retrieved from https://ethics.iit.edu/ecodes/node/4965
Kaur, P., Stoltzfus, J., & Yellapu, V. (2018). Descriptive statistics. International Journal of Academic Medicine, 4 (1), 60-63.
O'Callaghan, P. (2019). Is the Christian believer conservative or liberal? Church, Communication and Culture, 4 (2), 137-151. https://doi.org/10.1080/23753234.2019.1616580
