A recent poll found most Americans think Christianity gets too involved in politics. This has been the position of atheists since way back.
Certainly there are denominations which hold as a central view religion and politics should be kept apart. It seems to me most non church people and occasional church goers have the impression Christianity in general has a goal of pushing itself into politics. Pictures of the President surrounded by preachers praying for him makes this association rather inevitable.
The impression Christianity is all about politics is not helped by the two largest denominations, the Catholics and Southern Baptists. Both relentlessly push for their views be put into law. Both endorse or are seen an endorsing politicians. While the faith often is portrayed as about "being humble" it is largely about just the opposite, being powerful.
Those wealthy people who wrote the Bible and today's leaders of the Catholic and Southern Baptist denomination shared a couple of traits. They saw themselves as very important, very worthy and as the ones destined to run society. When the Bible's authors wrote "Thou shalt have no other gods before thee" they were using code language which really meant "Thou shalt listen and obey me, the writer, and no one else."
Today Catholics can read the Catholic Encyclopedia and learn they are to let Catholic clergy tell they how they should live and what to believe. Southern Baptists have their own set of leaders who want to pass beliefs from on high down to those in the pews. I say "want to" because the legal relationships between the denomination and its churches is different.
Fortunately, these two large and powerful denominations never had the control they wanted over those in the pews and control is slipping even more. The majority has had enough of churches pushing political views.
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