What is politics? Generally politics refers to the art or science of governing, and in democracies to the process by which groups make decisions. Also, politics is the skill to maintain the state's affairs.

From Plato's utopian society in The Republic in which lawgivers foster the moral virtues of courage, justice, moderation, and wisdom for its citizens to Aristotle's view in Politics that the good life or happiness of its citizens is the purpose of the polis or city-state, politics exists to provide for the governed. According to John Locke, the role of the government is to protect life, liberty, and property of the people. The role of government, then, is to protect people from evil, to provide social and economic justice, and to defend its people from oppression.

What is religion? Generally, it is considered the coherence of beliefs concerning the divine, truth, and moral codes. However, religion is a very sensitive word to describe. Some Christians would argue that there is no religion, but only a relationship with Christ. Muslims would claim that religion purifies the person's conscious to have a blameless connection between human beings and their God. Writing in Metaphysics of Morals in 1797, Immanuel Kant conceived a philosophy of religion that establishes the categorical imperatives or highest good. We are obligated to act according to moral imperatives, not to bring virtue just for the ourselves as individuals but to all moral agents. In other words, willing our actions to be moral should make us sacrifice our own happiness and life for the highest good for others. By contrast, Karl Marx denounced religion as the opiate of the masses. He argued that opium and religion are the most effective ways to disconnect the mind from reality v or irrationalizing the human mind. In other words, for Marx, religion oppresses the people without their knowing it. This article seeks to explain how some religion leaders, such as pastors, mulas, and rabbis, as well as many politicians use religion as opium of the masses to disconnect their followers from reality, particularly the reality of poverty. They ignore the human condition that nearly half of the world's six billion people are poor.

In his book The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time, Jeffrey D. Sachs picks up John Maynard Keynes' 1928 essay "Ending Poverty for Our Grandchildren" with its argument that in two decades the world would have the means to end poverty. Using 2025 as his target date for eradicating poverty, Sachs defines poverty on three levels: extreme or absolute, moderate, and relative. According to The World Bank, extreme poverty refers to living on less than one dollar a day and thus without the basic subsistence; moderate refers to living on one to two dollars a day with bare minimums; and relative refers to having a household income below a proportion of the national average and thus lacking what the middle class accepts as normal. Most evident in Sub-Saharan Africa and Southern Asia, extreme poverty means having none of the means of survival such as food, sanitation, and clean water and lacking rudimentary shelter such as a roof, articles of clothing such as shoes, and health care such as immunizations or medicine. Sachs defines extreme poverty as "the poverty that kills." In 2000 leaders from one hundred and eighty nations under the auspices of the United Nations wrote "The Millennium Development Goals" with the first goal of eradicating poverty and hunger by 2015 through a sustained and concerted worldwide effort. Scholars, international institutions, and private agencies debate whether the rate of extreme poverty has declined or has been overstated, for example by the World Bank, discuss the methodology of measurement, and question the meaning of the outcomes. Whatever the findings of these assessments on world poverty, one point emerges: poverty deserves the attention of those who have the authority, means, and expertise to assist even in a small way. The religious community should be a primary actor in this endeavor.

Today instead, religion has often become a business for corrupt politicians and spiritual leaders to retain their power and popularity and to make them rich while divorcing themselves from the world's poor.

Politicians are starving for the people's vote, because without votes politicians are nothing. In a similar way, imams in mosques take consolation in their gathering alms for the poor, but they do not have to live among the impoverished to see how they really suffer. In many churches, pastors are eager to get more members, so that they could be able to pay the bills. Many pastors focus on the quantity of the people not the quality of the messages or the congregation's spiritual health, because increased numbers make pastors more powerful, popular, and rich. A popular televangelist and pastor of a large church, Benny Hinn preaches "prosperity gospel" in which health and wealth come to those who believe their faith gives them a force to achieve financial success in this world.

Those who give to his ministry will be healed, according to this rich pastor's message. Why did Jesus have only twelve disciples rather than twelve thousand? Perhaps he focused on the few ordinary men who could do the extraordinary by relying on God, not on human power. Recently, as a notable exception, Rick Warren, author of Purpose-Driven Life and the pastor of a large church in California, said, "I deeply believe that if we as evangelicals remain silent and do not speak up in defense of the poor, we lose our credibility and our right to witness about God's love for the world." His campaign represents a shift among religious leaders who speak of principles for life, but usually omit a discussion of what God has required in terms of responsibility to the poor.

Niccolo Machiavelli wrote in the late 1400s that politics means having, increasing, and retaining power or authority because without power leaders cannot act. He placed moral judgment secondary to politics, emphasizing the leader's strong will and strategic calculation of power. A few decades later Thomas Hobbes proposed an ideal state of nature in which all men had equal access to the resources of nature, thereby necessitating a government. More recently, Max Weber noted that power refers to imposing of one's will on another with leaders' ability to do so based on their alliance with traditional values and thus status quo, their charismatic personality, or their office with its authority. Today our world is facing the four greatest enemies: poverty, ignorance, illnesses, and ethnic or religious wars. Poverty, however, is the mother of all these human problems. The question is how many leaders will use their power or authority to address the question of poverty? Do most leaders know the exact meaning of poverty? Have they ever witnessed poverty? Have they ever lived in a poor community, so they understand what being poor means?

How many religious leaders or politicians live in poor areas or with the poor, ever visit the poor, or even once go spend time with them? I wonder if Jesus came to the earth today, where would he spend time. Where would Jesus go? How would he live? Would he require his followers to be like him? Would he frequent the White House having wine and a nice feast, would he surround himself with the CEOs of corporations, or would Jesus go to the heart of poverty, where there is suffering? Would he heal the disadvantaged people? He would not just talk about the impoverished, but would be involved in their lives, always fighting the forces of the devil and the powers of darkness. Would Jesus interact with the poor? Today politicians and religious leaders do not align their policies with truth and justice. Jesus himself rejected pride, fame, power, status, and power and instead chose justice, peace, and love. The true followers of Jesus would live like him having not only compassion for the poor but also sadness for the rich if they harden their hearts to the hungry and instead "build bigger barns" for themselves. A well known example of one who left all to show love was Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu. Originally from Macedonia, Mother Teresa moved to Calcutta to spread the love of Christ, but when she saw the suffering and poverty, she left the walls of the nunnery to live among the poorest of the poor whom no one else wanted to help and began the order of Society of Missionaries. She shared hunger, disease, and the degradation of poverty with her fellow slum-dwellers, showing true love.

Sometimes poverty causes sin, and sin causes poverty. The broken social, political, and economical structures of injustice create an environment which exercises social control over sin. When I was doing field research in the Philippines, I learned that many young Filipino girls go to Japan to work. I happened to meet some of those girls, so I asked them what they would do when they got to Japan and how they would get to Japan. It is considered a legitimate business in the Philippines. They told me that a company chooses poor, young, good looking girls who cannot afford to pay.

They pay for them, and later the girls reimburse the company. Also, sex tourism is very common. Many rich First World countries take advantage of poverty, going to poor countries like the Philippines. It is true that many religious groups are there, often focusing on the impoverished people's spiritual needs but forgetting the physical needs of the poor. Also many religions' missionaries do not live among the poor.

The political leaders turn a blind eye to the poor as well. I met some Muslim leaders in the south and asked them why there is such a high illiteracy rate among the Muslims compared to the Catholic Philippines, even though the Philippines has the highest literacy rate among the Asians states. Because Muslims do not agree that their children should study at a secular Christian school, I asked the Muslim leaders a second question, "Where did your kids go to school?" The answer was that they go to a secular Catholic school. They permitted their own children to go to the better schools while denying the poor equal access. Also, immorality is high among these leaders in terms of the private lives and their corruption. They too ignore the poor, fail to provide good schools, allow diseases to affect most of the population, and perpetrate the religious and tribal wars.

Even though Turkey is petitioning to join the European Union as a secular state, it too stratifies its poor. If today someone takes a trip from the west to the east of Turkey, the spectator will notice the differences.

Whereas the west is highly industrialized and is where the most jobs and good schools are located, in the east people are still living as if in Abraham's age, Thus, in the underdeveloped east even a casual observer sees a huge social, moral, economic, and political disparity between the two regions. It is estimated that about 80% of the Kurdish people are unemployed, crime is high, and prostitution has become a source of income for some, despite southeastern Turkey being a very conservative region.

For example, religious leaders like Fetullah G?len are supposedly dedicated to reduce the inequality and injustice and to advocate peace and morality. G?len believes that poverty can be solved only through education, a valid solution, but if most of the Kurds live in poverty and have no money to send their kids to school, he ignores their plight because most of his schools are private and expensive. Many Kurds do not send their children to his schools, because only the rich and privileged tribal leaders or elites can afford the cost of attending his schools. As the foremost Turkish religious leader today, G?len and his community surround themselves with elites. G?len himself is guarded by a bodyguard.

Who does G?len receive for visitations? Most of his guests are rich elites like himself, not those who are in dire need.

There is no true companion or friend to the poor. The rich are rich because of the poor; the poor are poor because of the rich. For example, banks give credit cards with interest rates that increase if one is unable to pay, so the poor, not the rich, will get the high interest rate, because the rich have money to pay monthly and do not get as penalized by their inability to make the payments and thus do accrue high interest rates. Often transnational institutions such as the United Nations and humanitarian relief such as grants from USAID give millions of dollars to alleviate poverty and hunger; yet corrupt officials and greedy leaders siphon off the money for their own interests. The recent Nobel Peace laureate, Mohammad Yunus and his Grameen Bank, however, received the prestigious award for providing economic and social opportunities for the poor, especially women, by offering microcredit projects in Bangladesh.

Since 1982 his bank has offered 5.72 million dollars of financing to 6 million Bangladeshis. His concept allowed beggars to have interest free loans and others with some income to use a sliding scale, enabling them to have dignity as they provide for themselves.

Generally, however, the poor are looked down upon; they are easily crushed and abandoned without the means of recovery from the loss. Also, poverty is caused by the rich and supposed leaders of the people; for example, many Muslims in the south of the Philippines would say that there is unfair land reform, so that the Catholics receive the better land.

Therefore, many people migrate to Manila because their livelihood has been forced away through an unjust system. The poor have been disinherited first in their provinces and then in the city. The same is true for Kurdish people. Many Kurdish villages have been burned, and millions of Kurdish people have been displaced from their homes as well as forced to go to live in big cities like Istanbul. Many Kurdish people have lived under the fear of the Turkish military for decades. Even more horrible, many Kurdish women face rape by the military. The Kurdish women who go outside the code of arranged or consummated marriage, sometimes become victims to their relatives' revenge, called honor killing. Only recently Turkey tried to pass a law denouncing honor killing, but this has been going on for a long time especially among the conservative, uneducated poor.

So God's love looks for an intercessor who will seek justice for these underprivileged people because those people have been robbed and plundered; they have become hopeless; and it seems no one wants to rescue them. Those who claim to be advocates of the poor often take advantage of them because of their weakness. For example, white slavery is common especially in the Philippines. Some girls that I talked to told me that recruiters go to provinces and tempt girls with offers of good jobs in Manila, but when they get to Manila, they find themselves as slaves locked in brothel houses with no way to escape. They are sold by the employment agencies to Japan, the Middle East, the United Kingdom, and elsewhere under the platform of being waitresses, house girls, or nannies.

Consequently, God looks for leaders to commit to give their lives to rescue these girls. Not everyone can become a leader, because it requires a heavy responsibility. It requires justice, not a thirst for power, fame, or position. Leadership is based on trust and focused on integrity, commitment, and compassion; it is an unwritten contract between a leader and his or her followers to ensure the best guidance, protection, and just and equal treatment of these followers. Also, a true leader must make sure he or she behaves in such a way to deserve trust, following the righteous path, keeping promises, and bringing hope to the people. The real servant leader is one who is modest, humble, and aware of the needs of those he leads. Today those two characteristics of modesty and humility are often absent from current leaders. Human beings have a social window through which they can see others, and others can see them. If leaders have a high social window, then they will think of themselves as superior and attempt to make themselves taller through their pride and vanity.

However, if this social window is set down low, then they may exhibit humility and reach out to help others and to let them see their outstretched hand. Leaders are people¦s masters, but ironically are the ones who serve the people, not becoming leaders to be served. People can be led only by serving those in need of guidance. That principle emerges from almost all religions including Christianity, Islam, and Judaism.

Robert K. Greenleaf describes the role of the servant leader as one who makes a conscious choice first to be a servant, thus one who wants to serve. That choice then causes the individual to aspire to lead and to become a leader. If we do not have servant leaders today, how can we solve the common problems like poverty, illiteracy, illnesses, and religious and ethnic conflict? Awareness of personal responsibility is important for the leader because it helps this person with authority to understand the issues involving justice and ethics, power and corruption, as well as needs and values. Awareness is a disturber and an awakener. It should shake our conscience and touch our hearts. How many leaders today have been disturbed by poverty? It is so sad that most leaders are seduced by the world of charm and a life of pleasures and attractions.

Viv Grigg, in his book Companion to the Poor advocates believing in God's love being poured out through one life into another until the second life catches that love. It is faith imparted by one to another. It is an absolute commitment to the word of God. Also, he argues that true believers in Christ will follow the exact discipline of Christ. Who today really follows the exact discipline of Christ? What happens most of the time is that people try to make the Bible follow them rather than their following the Bible. Grigg argues that many want to leave out the gospel of justice and grace; instead they must see that living a life of luxury is collaborating with injustice. Piety and luxury cannot co-exist. Living in the luxury of life in the midst of poverty is denial of justice. I have never met a poor politician or a poor religion leader. Fethullah G?len talks about peace and justice; is it justice when millions of the Kurdish people are facing poverty? Is it justice when there are not enough standard schools, so Kurds can send their children? Is it justice when their birthright has been taken away? Is it justice when Kurds say, "I am a Kurd" and are labeled a terrorist? Is it justice when many women give birth in an old-fashioned way without modern clinics or good hospitals while G?len himself is getting treatment in one of the best hospitals in the world? Is it justice when many young beautiful Kurdish girls commit suicide because of a lack of education and thus hope? Marx sees the causes of trouble in a capitalist society in the exploitation of workers suffering at the hand of industrialized society. In his view, exploitation reaches its maximum in a transformation to industrialization, so the employees and those who cannot find the jobs become alienated from the society Marx argues that two dangers face society; one is that workers will lose their class consciousness, and second they will be alienated. That is why many honor killings are believed to be on the rise in the rural area of the southeastern Turkey. Because many of the young girls are uneducated and poor, when they watch television and see the differences, they realize they are living in hell and do not see any hope in the future. For them life is a place of suffering and pain. How can we end the greatest enemies such as poverty, ignorance, illness, and ethnic and religious conflict? The solution requires genuine dedication.

Ignorance can be eliminated through education, and a good education will help lead to a job which in turn will move the victim out of poverty and make him a better citizen. In the nexus between religion and politics, in most cases no one stands for the poor and becomes a companion for them.

Those who have resources hoard them wanting more while the disadvantaged ask only for life.