Render Unto Caesar…
The Associated Press reports on an effort to separate church and state: ‘An Evangelical Manifesto’ criticizes politics of faith
The statement, called “An Evangelical Manifesto,” condemns Christians on the right and left for using faith to express political views without regard to the truth of the Bible, according to a draft of the document obtained Friday by The Associated Press.
“That way faith loses its independence, Christians become ‘useful idiots’ for one political party or another, and the Christian faith becomes an ideology,” according to the draft.
The declaration, scheduled to be released Wednesday in Washington, encourages Christians to be politically engaged and uphold teachings such as traditional marriage. But the drafters say evangelicals have often expressed “truth without love,” helping create a backlash against religion during a “generation of culture warring.”
“All too often we have attacked the evils and injustices of others,” the statement says, “while we have condoned our own sins.” It argues, “we must reform our own behavior.”
Of course the “preachers” who profit from their political activities won’t sign, and will continue to sell their political action committees as churches because its easier and safer to hide behind the Bible than to be honest. At some point the majority of people will treat religion exactly like political affiliation, because that is always the result of not keeping the two separate.
7 comments
Though I don’t agree with the theology of the people pushing this, I do think they have the truth on their side in that the Republicans certainly, and the Democrats to a considerably lesser extent and fairly recently, have been using Christians and Christianity solely for partisan political purposes–which is both a perversion of both the faith and the Constitution, and also likely to be detrimental to the faith.
The church always suffers when it becomes involved with the state: you, more than most people, have seen that throughout history.
*cough*Investiture Controversy*cough*
*cough*Theophylact women*cough*
*cough*the Babylonian Exile*cough*
*cough*St. Thomas à Becket*cough*
…and far too many others to list in full.
Agree Michael. 🙂
Thanks Bryan. Interesting indeed! 🙂
“Watch this space?”(tm) 😉
It was pretty much the same for the Russian Orthodox Church with a millennium less to do it in.
The second Romanov, Tsar Aleksei was a nasty piece of work when it came to religious controversies. If he decided that a congregation had erred he had them herded into their church and burned it down to prevent the “contagion” from spreading. As the Romanovs were church rather than property boyars, he felt he had more understanding of matters ecclesiastical than the Patriarch.
It was his son, Peter the Great who decided the office of Patriarch was no longer necessary, and it was vacant until the October Revolution.
The results have never been good for religion.
I forget if it was Пётр Вели́кий or one of his successors who set up the Holy Synod, but the Synod’s Procurator functioned effectively as the patriarch (except that, instead of being elected by the bishops, he was appointed by the tsar). And many of them were nasty–К. П. Победоносцев springs immediately to mind…
It was Пётр, when the Patriarch died he decided not to replace him, and set up the Synod. The old Patriarch had been an ally of Пётр’s sister, София, and he didn’t want to repeat that experience. The Procurators were all nasty, it was in the job description and they had the power of church and state behind them.
Many were corrupt, but most were out and out sadists when they enforced the will of G-d and the Tsar.
It was a popular move when Lenin brought back the Patriarchate.