Where Do Faith and Politics Meet?
I’m writing this post from Washington D.C. where I’m spending a couple of days visiting the icons of American democracy, enjoying time with my oldest daughter, a political science major in college who has never been to D.C., and attending a conference for seminary board chairs and presidents (I am the chair of the board at Saint Paul School of Theology in Kansas City). I came early for the conference so that I could write this weekend’s sermon, Where Faith and Politics Meet, here in our nation’s capital. I’m so grateful that I did. Today we toured the halls of Congress, visited the Supreme Court, the United Methodist Building (the only non-governmental building on the square next to the Supreme Court and across from the Capitol - more on that in a future post), the Smithsonian, and, after dark, stood in the Lincoln Memorial. Some believe that faith and politics are entirely separate endeavors. While I strongly believe in the separation of church and state (meaning that the state is not to interfere with the work of religion, that it should not give preference to a particular church nor require a religious test for office), I do not believe that people of faith are to lay aside their faith when considering the area of politics. Most of America’s finest and defining moments reflect the influence of faith in the realm of politics. In the Rotunda of the Capitol hangs Robert Weir’s The Embarkation of the Pilgrims showing the pilgrims reading their Bibles (see below - and note, Resurrection members, that the Pilgrims were reading the same Geneva Bible we gave our members pages of several years ago!) as they set out searching for religious liberty. In the Smithsonian I saw an exhibit that included personal belongings of Susan B. Anthony, whose father, a Quaker, it was noted, instilled in her a strong sense of justice that came from his faith, which in turn led her to seek the right for women to vote. I noted on the doors of the Supreme Court Chambers and elsewhere in the building, the Ten Commandments, which stand as a foundational symbol of law and justice (though there is a great deal of debate about erecting certain kinds of displays of the commandments - I’ll leave for another blog post why I think this is a bit more complicated than some believe). There, in the House chambers, looking down upon the House of Representatives on one wall, the image of Moses, and on another the words, In God We Trust. Throughout the capital bronze and marble statues of great Americans including a number of missionaries, priests and preachers. There are those words of Lincoln’s on the wall of his memorial that continue to stir my soul 143 years after they were uttered (Lincoln’s
Gettysburg Address and
Second Inaugural Address). And then, walking out from the Lincoln Memorial, I stood on the spot where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his famous “I Have a Dream speech.” No, I don’t believe faith is meant to be divorced from politics. And yet there is a danger in interjecting faith into politics. Faith has been used to justify evil, injustice, and bigotry. It has the potential to stir people to great acts of sacrifice and selflessness, but also to stir them to corporate evil and terrible acts of inhumanity. This weekend I’ll be offering reflections on this theme in my sermon (excerpts of which will be posted on youtube and the entire sermon will be posted here next week). I’d like to invite you to join the conversation, sharing with me and one another your thoughts. In one paragraph, tell us where you think faith and politics meet and the potential pitfalls anyone must be aware of when interjecting faith into politics.
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codeemax | Jan 3, 2008 | Reply
Adam,
You’ve looked at a lot of walls in DC. Sounds like you’ve been inspired and for good reason.
May I suggest you look at one more wall before you leave? That would be the one not far from where MLK gave his most inspiring speech—the Vietnam Memorial. Almost sixty thousand ‘dead Americans’ are honored there, some of them my close friends and comrades.
There is a lesson there—directly connected to ‘religion and politics’. It’s most important, as important as anything else you’ve mentioned in your blog.
I’m not sure how you view the casualties of war, especially unjust wars, but they most certainly represent one of the failures of our government—the absence of a national morality—perhaps a failure of ‘the church’ to influence, represented by the people we Christians help elect to office.
What can we do?
Andrew Conard | Jan 4, 2008 | Reply
Adam - I think that faith and politics meet in the way that public policy is shaped both within the nation and worldwide. I hope that political leaders of any faith tradition allow their practice of faith to shape the way that they make decisions about law or policy. However, I do not believe that the government should be primarily influenced by faith or any particular denomination tied closely to the nation-state.
I also think that faith plays a great role in international politics and relationships among countries. When the political leaders of any given country are tied too closely with a particular faith tradition there is the potential of confusion between conflict with the nation or with the faith. I think that this will continue to be a critical issue in international affairs.
Euripides | Jan 5, 2008 | Reply
No matter what one says their faith is reflected in their politics. The depth or shallowness is revealed daily as they make decisions and express themselves in their actions. The real problem is not one’s lack of faith ( or immature faith) or deep faith, but pretending to use faith as a litmus test for your political preferences. A seeker or disciple who is growing in his faith will be influenced by Christ and his teachings. The more he is influenced the better the balance in his (or her) decision making. Hence more gray, less black or white. Let justice roll down!
Euripides | Jan 5, 2008 | Reply
Codeemax speaks of a national morality. Politicians use religion and faith to whip up this type of morality in a frenzy of good against evil. America always being good and most of the rest of the world as evil. e.g. When France did not agree with America’s policies in Iraq, french fries were labeled freedom fries in federal lunch rooms. Ha! Such haughtiness belies morality, which I think refers to things like mercy and justice. The “church” has been used to influence and help formulate this type of morality. Note the constant stream of religious leaders at the White House using and being used by the political process. Not very many people want the kind of faith and politics that Jesus taught.
Tom | Jan 6, 2008 | Reply
Last night’s sermon on the subject was excellent. I liked how he showed how people can’t separate their faith from their actions. If they can separate their faith into a box then their faith isn’t worth anything. It has been believers motivated by faith that has changed the world for the better.
Overall I think there is one issue underneath this bigger issue of faith and politics that people forget. The key question is what is the best mechanism to right society’s wrongs as Adam might put it. I would argue Government is not the best mechanism. The church is the best mechanism.
A good book to read on the subject is “What if Jesus was never born” by the late Dr. James Kennedy. He showed in the book that the Christian faith has done so much for the development of Western Society. The book and Adam both showed how the first hospitals in the world was started by the church, not GOVERNMENT. The first Universities and public schools in general were first started by the church, not the GOVERNMENT. If you look at the institutions with the best records of helping people it is the churches, not GOVERNMENT programs.
I would argue that the Jesus teachings were aimed at individuals, not government policy. He even says in Mark 12:16 to give to Caesar what is Caesar’s. Yes, our individual actions should be motivated by the bible, not government policy.
The founding fathers feared big government. That is one of the reasons they set up a system of checks and balances on power. Several feared big government out to help that they put in the bill of rights to limit government. Thomas Jefferson said “That government is best which governs least” Power in government comes may ways, through laws and through money. Large programs to “FIX” problems in the past has only created more problems. Look at the Johnson war on poverty in the 60s. All we did was spend billions and the problem got worse. Look at the public school system in general and that proves the point by itself.
I want to urge people to look carefully at their decisions in the election. Be careful of voting for candidates which promise large government programs out of compassion and sympathy. Don’t let the sad pictures in campaign ads or TV shows motivate you in the ballot box. Yes, something should be done for those things. I just say the government shouldn’t be the device. Feeding government out of this guilt feeling from prosperity will only create problems. It will only drain public money, raise taxes, and generally make the problem worse than it was before. The accompanying implementation regulations on the “help” programs will only squash individual freedom and cost us a ton of money.
Use that guilt feeling you have from success to start something within the confines of the church to “fix” the problem. For if we don’t and vote for the bigger government we will wake up in 8 years and realize what President Reagan said “Government is the problem and not the solution”.
codeemax | Jan 6, 2008 | Reply
You are correct Euripides, to question the term, ‘national morality’. Everyone and every organization or country has a ‘morality’. It is reflected in their leadership and their intentions and actions. It’s a term like ‘manners’ that implies someone’s manners are good. But ‘manners’, as Flannery O’Conner wrote, are either good or bad (the same with morals). By saying ‘absence of a national morality’, used in context with ‘unjust war’ or ‘wars’, I meant of course, that our behavior (starting unjust wars) has been immoral.
I don’t want to pick only the subject of ‘war’ out of all the other important parts of this ‘gray’ puzzle, but I have a theory that no government official or representative should be allowed to start a war unless they have actually been in one and huddled in a hole or a vehicle with a dead comrade or two—experiencing all the bloody stuff that goes along with that.
In that context, sending folks off to kill other folks is not just a chess game.
Phillip D | Jan 6, 2008 | Reply
Until modern history, faith has always had an important role in American Politics.
The Quakers and Puritans came to America to escape persecution in England to set up their own colony. This is the fundamental start of the United States of America.
Declaration of Independence signers such as Samuel Adams and Charles Carroll cited religious freedom as the reason they became involved in the American Revolution. Almost half of the signers of the Declaration (24 of 56) held what today would be considered seminary or Bible school degrees. In fact, the Declaration of Independence acknowledges God (Creator) in the statement, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
The problem is that revisionism is what is being taught in schools today. The “separation of church and state” has been revised to mean that there shall be no religion in government instead of it’s original intent which was to prevent the use of a state run religion from subverting freedom of religion like what was being done with the Church of England against the Puritans and Quakers.
I would encourage anyone reading this to visit: http://www.wallbuilders.com/
They have an incredible amount of historical documentation on the role of religion in the American government.
Phillip
ty7777 | Jan 7, 2008 | Reply
The Comparison of Faith and Politics Is the same of that of Science and Religion both can be argued either way by wether or not the passage is litteral or analogical just like many of the candidates have said. So… if you are comparing Faith to Politics I would say they are intertwined in ways that only God can see. Politics influenced the ways the Bible was written did’nt it so why shouldn’t the Bible also be a political guideline. Hipocracy and other things warned about or encouraged by the Bible are applicable to everything including politics. To me it seems they are connected in more ways that we can see.
dlg | Jan 9, 2008 | Reply
Where does faith and politics meet? At the core of our being. Too many people put God in a box. They don’t take Him to work, or to a game or to a casino or to a bar. They leave Him home where they feel He belongs, but not true. Our faith should be taken to every corner of our lives. Good and bad. We need to seek direction in all that we do so the Holy Spirit can convict us where needed. At work are we good stewards of our employers money or time? The behavior sometimes found at games, cursing, betting, drinking in excess, etc. Why do we feel God doesn’t want to be at the game? We need to take our faith wherever we go and that is to the polls, to the elections. If we could believe every politician that says they are a Christian, that they take their faith EVERYWHERE with them, wouldn’t we be able to rest knowing God is in control? Giving control to Him is the real issue of our day. Allowing Him to work in and around our lives. We damage non Christians when we profess to be a Christian but respond in ways that are not Christ like because we have wrong ideas that He doesn’t belong with us everywhere we go. Faith is about living it 24/7 and that is the same no matter what you do, where you go or who you are. When power steps in to our lives we take over and won’t let God in. What’s the old saying? EGO means Edge God Out?
Also, codeemax, I too lived through the VietNam era. It was horrible watching friends go off to war like it was a death sentence. No one was supporting them. When they returned there was no fanfare. Where I was living, religion wasn’t prevalent and looking back if God was helping us make decisions, it would have been a better time. It was a very dark time for teens where I lived. Everything was crumbling around us.
Our faith needs to drive our decisions our actions, our mouths, our pocketbooks, and to help us understand how we are to handle all aspects of our lives we must study His Word and pray, then serve!