The Church and Politics, Part Deux

So I went on a mini-rant, ah, two weeks ago now? About the rash of political messages coming from the pulpit recently. See here :)

This evening, I read from the United Methodist Social Principles in the Book of Discipline, 2008. Quickly:

The Social Principles, while not to be considered church law, are a prayerful and thoughtful effort on the part of the General Conference to speak to the human issues in the contemporary world from a sound biblical and theological foundation as historically demonstrated in United Methodist traditions. they are a call to faithfulness and are intended to be instructive and persuasive in the best of the prophetic spirit. The Social Principles are a call to all members of The United Methodist Church to a prayerful, studied dialogue of faith and practice.
~Part IV, Social Principles, Preface

That being said, most of those political messages I was ranting on are reiterations of statements made in the Social Principles. I'm still not sure how I feel about this. I agree that individuals should be encouraged to live biblically, and make decisions based on scripture. I'm not sure, however, that I agree that the Principles should be telling me which way to sway in socio-political issues. I do realize that most denominations take hard-line stances on things, and I'm probably not going to agree perfectly with any of them. Since these are not church rules as such, I'm not bound to them in the way I'm bound to the Constitution.

Food for thought, no?