Theology <-> Politics

I need not discredit philosophy by laborious criticism of its arguments.  It will suffice if I show that as a matter of history it fails to prove its pretension to be "objectively" convincing.  In fact, philosophy does so fail.  It does not banish differences; it founds schools and sects just as feeling does.  I believe, in fact, that the logical reason of man operates in this field of divinity exactly as it has always operated in love, or in patriotism, or in politics, or in an other of the wider affairs of life, which our passions or our mystical intuitions fix our beliefs beforehand.  It finds arguments for our conviction, for indeed it has to find them.  It amplifies and defines our faith, and dignifies it and lends it words and plausibility.  It hardly ever engenders it; it cannot now secure it.

-William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience

I'd just as soon argue that theology, too often, does much of the same.  So back to my age old question: Does our theology inform our politics, or does it merely serve to, as James puts it, find arguments for our convictions?

-Tim