Faith in Politics?

Today's New York Times Op-Ed section has an interesting article, "Putting Faith before Politics," by David Kuo who was the deputy director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives from 2001 to 2003, and the author of Tempting Faith: An Inside Story of Political Seduction. Kuo believes that the pundits have not interpreted the election results accurately concerning the evangelical vote. Rather than evangelicals shifting to the democratic party, he believes that "evangelicals aren't re-examining their political priorities nearly as much as they are re-examining their spiritual priorities. That could be bad news for both political parties." He quotes a Beliefnet.com post-election online survey in which over 2000 respondents reported over 40% of evangelicals advocate a moratorium or "fast" from concentrated political activity and instead focus their time and energy on reaching out and helping the poor and downcast.

Quoting John W. Whitehead from the Rutherford Institute, he writes, "Modern Christianity, having lost sight of Christ's teaching, has been co-opted by legalism, materialism and politics. Simply put, it has lost its spirituality." Kuo writes, "C. S. Lewis once warned that any Christian who uses is faith as a means to a political end would corrupt both his faith and the faith writ large." I think that this applies to Christians across the board from conservative to liberal. Whenever politics co-opts our faith, it is bad for our faith and bad for politics. Any thoughts? What do you understand the relationship between faith and politics to be?