All churches are political parties. They are groups of people with shared beliefs and values. Their goals are to support believers and spread their shared beliefs. Members of any group are much more powerful collectively than as scattered individuals.
This is not to trample any church's truth-claims or value in society. Say God somehow revealed to all humanity that God only endorses one religion, and told us exactly which one that is. That church would still be a political party, even if it had God's stamp of approval. Even without hard proof of that approval, there are lots of religious groups and religious people that live their values really consistently. I really admire that and I see a kind of truth in it, even when I don't share the values.
Looking at the Old Testament and modern Mormon history, we can see some really cool examples of churches clearly acting as political parties.
I like the stories in Daniel. In one story, the king commands that any time anyone hears music, they must go and worship an image that the king had commissioned (I think of it as some kind of huge idol, the text says about 90 feet tall). Failing to bow down at the sound of music now carries a penalty of death by burning in a crematorium... so, basically being tortured to death. This is clearly a move to consolidate power--they're saying that the king represents god, not just the government, and has authority to dictate worship practices. Instead of obeying, Daniel's friends keep praying to their God, and they refuse to worship the image. The king knows these conscientious objectors personally from past run-ins, so he calls them in and tells them they have one more chance. Instead, they say something like "Go ahead and try to burn us. Our God can save us from your fire. Even if he doesn't, we would rather die on good terms with our God than live worshiping your gods." The king orders them to the furnace, and he orders it heated to seven times the normal heat.
Side note: I think the extra heat is an act of mercy for three people he respects--that much hotter probably means a quicker death. It even kills the soldiers who are waiting outside!
Then the king gets confused upon seeing four people walking around unburned instead of three dying. And the fourth, he says, looks like a god. The fire dies, and three men walk out without even smelling of smoke. So the king decides their god is stronger than his, and he changes his law: anyone who blasphemes the god of these three men will be dismembered alive. (King Nebuchadnezzar--history's first psychopath? I'm just saying.)
A little later, a different empire takes over. The new king appoints Daniel as one of three top administrators. Daniel is so good at his job that the king plans to promote him above the other two. Jealous, the other two turn to the church. They convince the king to make a new law: anyone who prays to something other than the king in the next 30 days will be thrown in the lions' den. They know that the king trusts and protects Daniel so much, the only way to get power over Daniel is by criminalizing his spiritual practice. When Daniel survives the lions' den, the king concludes that daniel's god is stronger than his own. So he kills Daniel's accusers and orders that his whole empire "fear and reverence" Daniel's powerful god.
In both of these stories, we see the church consolidating power and taking political/legal actions. When it becomes clear that the church's power is at risk, the policy changes to mitigate the threat. It just happens that the threat in both stories is a powerful foreign god.
In the late 1970s, the LDS church lifted its long-standing ban keeping black people from participating in certain practices, including being ordained to the priesthood. Remember, Mormons ordain all baptized males who live up to certain standards, and black men were the only ones excluded before the 70s. Church leaders claimed the change was the result of divine revelation. I don't mean to call that part into question--divine revelation could well have been one of the deciding factors. I also think it's worth looking at some other factors.
For example, by the late 1970s, the civil rights movement was well under way. Now it was more politically popular to reach out to racial minorities. The federal government also threatened to revoke the church's tax exemption if they didn't move towards racial equity. So the church did the thing that would help consolidate power and increase popularity. Like I said, even if God inspired the change, the political consequences were favorable.
Fast forward to the early 2000s, when state and federal governments were considering laws that dealt with marriage equality. At that time, conservative Christians had a lot of political power. Think of how many times George W Bush talked about praying for guidance, or about how much power they still have even today. Conservative Christians have long opposed gay marriage, and in the early 2000s, they were very vocal about it. Mormons jumped on the bandwagon. After all, much of Mormon rhetoric lately had focused on The Family (TM), preserving traditional marriage and gender roles against the so-called evils of pornography and divorce ("so-called" because "evil" is a matter of opinion. This post isn't the venue for my opinions on those issues). As public opinion has changed, Mormons' official rhetoric has softened and become more inclusive, at least on the surface. After the policy change in November 2015, church leaders realized they had done something very unpopular, so they immediately softened the official language of the publication with a "clarification." I think these cases are interesting side by side. One shows a slow, barely perceptible slide towards public opinion, and the other is a fast, almost reactive jump.
Again, this does not mean it was necessarily all man-made--it's possible that God directed LDS leaders to oppose marriage equality and to make an unpopular policy. But even then, it's also important to recognize these as political moves.
Why does all of this matter? Churches are still going to preach. They're still going to do things like throw people in lion dens (hopefully less) or say that Muslims don't deserve religious freedom.
And that's the point. These groups exist to get and keep power. If they think someone or something is a threat, they'll try to protect themselves. I'm glad most religious groups in my part of the world don't use fire or lions to get what they want. I'm sad that so many use hate speech and dehumanizations as their weapons still. And recognizing that religions are political parties helps me to roll with their tactics and keep doing what works for me.
And isn't that what we need? To do what works for us?
