I believe that religious leaders should not join politics; they should stick to the spiritual and moral upbringing of society because that is their primary role. They should serve only one master and that is God.

I would not want to zero it down to Christianity since we have numerous religions in the world but I hope it will not hurt anyone to quote Mark 12:17Jesus which says, "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s. And they marveled at him.” This showed that religion and politics should be separated. Let God’s tithe be separated from government taxes.   So if religious leaders join politics, it will mean that they would serve two masters at a go. This involves having a conflict of interest and its related dangers. For example it would mean that one is serving one master more efficiently than the other. Like it’s commonly said that politics is a dirty game, I don’t see a religious leader who is supposed to uphold integrity getting involved in dirty dealings for a specific political gain. If a religious leader joined politics, it’s easy for him or her to sway and manipulate the people of that religion with a specific political ideology. It’s bad for religious leaders to join politics or openly show their political interest or ideologies because this will bring divisionism amongst their flock yet religion is supposed to be a uniting factor in society. According to an article "Should religion be banned from politics?”Published on debatingeurope official website, Christos Mouzeviris argues that religion has no place in politics. He said, "Religion to me is all about spirituality, not about dogmas and power mongering representatives of those dogmas or sects. Haven’t we learnt so far when we allow clerics (of any religion or sect) to try to get involved in our social and political life, what mess comes out of it? Usually it is a war, or butchering of the believers of the opposite sect.”He further said that with mind control, control of human sexuality, freedom of expression and human creativity, the Church must have only one role: help people with their spiritual path, and spiritual problems or doubts. Apart from that no religion, either Christian, Muslim, or whatever else should gain too much power over people ever again. It’s really not wise for religious leaders to join politics.