ACU is trying to encourage students spiritually and intellectually with a campus conversation Chapel series in Walling Lecture Hall on “God, Politics and the 2012 Elections.” The conversation will host two professors with different political views.
Dr. Neal Coates, chair of the Department of Political Science and Dr. Kristina Davis, assistant professor of Honors Studies and Communication, expressed their political beliefs in a civil manner on the topic, “God, Politics and the 2012 Elections.”
More than 100 students filled the seats of Walling Lecture Hall last Tuesday to listen to two different sides on politics, this upcoming presidential election and how faith functions in politics.
Students can come every Tuesday, until Nov. 13, (the following Tuesday after the election) to hear more from Coates and Davis. They use Christian discussion to debate the harsh issues of the 2012 election from Democratic and Republican standpoints.
“We did this over four years ago during the 2008 presidential election, discussing the questions that might be on the students minds,” Coates said. “At least for this coming Tuesday we tried to order the questions and answer them, while addressing faith and politics, and how politicians try to divide their personal beliefs with their political beliefs.”
Coates and Davis provide a web address where students can ask questions for the professors to answer in the coming weeks as the series continues. Coates and Davis will be speaking about how their faith and personal backgrounds cohere with politics.
“This coming week we are going to be talking about our faith and how our faith affects our understanding of politics,” Davis said. “We will discuss whether or not Christians should be involved in politics, but then also how we view different social issues.”
Davis, the Democratic representative and Coates, the Republican representative have many different views, but try to persuade students to remain objective.
When it comes to faith and politics, Davis expresses how her faith and political beliefs go hand in hand.
“I think my faith definitely influences my political beliefs in that I feel like Jesus calls us to ‘help the least of these’ and He defines, ‘the least of these’ in a lot of different ways, so I feel as a Democrat it’s our job to take care of those who are, ‘the least of these’,” Davis said.
It’s important for students to be informed about the upcoming election. Students attending the Chapel series have posed many questions.
“Students have a lot of questions about social issues, and how the Electoral College works when it comes to election time,” Coates said.
Students can post questions to the following webpage that will be viewed by Coates and Davis and may be discussed later in the series: http://www.tinyurl.com/politicsquestion.
