What is Christianity’s proper role in American presidential politics? This question has gripped the 2008 campaign. From the dispute over the acceptability of Mitt Romney’s Mormonism, to Mike Huckabee’s musings about conforming the US Constitution more to the Bible and the controversy over Sen. Barack Obama’s former pastor, the spiritual and secular realms have collided fiercely. Just this week, Senator Obama and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton fielded questions from US religious leaders at a special forum broadcast on CNN.
More broadly, arguments over public policies ”“ from war to illegal immigration ”“ are increasingly being infused with scriptural justifications.
The media, of course, relish such controversy. So do many religious leaders, who use the occasion to offer the “real” interpretation of what Scripture says about a particular issue. As a result, religion and politics aren’t just mingling ”“ they’re being wedded to the same goal: redeeming America’s body politic.
A largely Protestant nation that can trace its theological taproot to Martin Luther ought to know better. As the original Reformer, Luther understood how critical it was to separate church and state and, in a more important sense, the spiritual kingdom of Christ and the secular realm where God reigns in a hidden way through humans using reason as a guide.
That is not to say that Christians today shouldn’t let their Christianity inform their political values and action. They should. But the Bible is not a political playbook….
This is a very excellent article which should receive more attention. It points out, implicitly although not by name, the errors of both religious liberals and some evangelical conservatives in the political arena.
You are absolutely right, Katherine, this is why I wrote this piece and the much longer article on the same subject in Christianity Today: http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2008/aprilweb-only/114-32.0.html
Best,
Uwe Siemon-Netto
Thank you, Uwe! For many years I have read and appreciated your columns and articles.
Uwe, from your cited piece, I especially like this quote from Dietrich Bonheoffer: “This means that the essence of the Gospel does not lie in the solution of human problems, and that the solution of human problems cannot be the essential task of the Church.”
Thanks, Katherine, the Bonhoeffer quote confirms what true liberation theology should be like: The Gospel frees us to engage this wobbly world. That’s what the folks on the left and the right can’t grasp. Have a blessed Sunday. Uwe
But Uwe, when the “laws of Nature and Nature’s God” and “logic and universal principles” are different for different people, what is man to do? For instance, logic and universal principals as well as Nature would seem to indicate that homosexual activity is not “right.” Likewise, a President of the U.S. having oral sex in the White House with a 22 year old intern not his wife would seem to be illogical and violate universal principals. Yet, society seems to approve of these things and declines to say they are violations of the laws of Nature or universal truths. Aren’t attempts to rule ourselves by “laws of Nature” and “univeral principals,” only setting ourselves up for governance by relativistic ideas, where basically no standards exist for anything, i.e., many reappraisers ideas of theology?