Religion And Politics

October 21, 1984
Lakeland

October 28, 1984
Port Charlotte

Opening and Welcome

As you have probably noted, the theme today is religion and politics. I am not going to ring changes on the old joke about the Bishop assigning a young minister to a first parish and instructing him: “There are two subjects you must not touch in the pulpit – politics and religion.” I have heard so many varieties of that old chestnut that it must touch something in the subconscious.

The theme today is religion and politics. I am not going to endorse or disendorse any particular candidate from the pulpit. Not because I am shy, but rather from principle. However, if a certain political party was on the Florida ballot, I would be tempted to disendorse because there are limits even to political weirdness – the Reverend Bob Richards of Texas, a one-time Olympic athlete, is the candidate for President of the so-called “Populist Party.” Two of the planks in his platform make one wonder. He would remove the right to vote from anyone who had been on welfare for a year. Second, he would solve the Middle East problem by moving the entire population of Israel to West, Texas where the Israeli know-how in making the desert fruitful would transform the arid and parched lands of that part of Texas.

I had the most delightful fantasies about the whole population of Israel in West Texas – sabras in cowboy hats, Shimon Peres a political power in Austin, tacos and lox, tortillas and cream cheese. As an Olympic athlete, Richards should have been a good sport and consulted the nation of Israel. One does not have to do much research to unearth the strange, the comedy, and the fantasy in politics.

But politics is serious, determining our near and long-range future. My only exhortation is: VOTE.

Sermon

Although for the last 35 years at least there have been numerous arguments about the separation of church and state, and many Supreme Court decisions, the 1984 presidential campaign has seemed to generate enough heat about religion and politics to produce steaming controversy. There seems to be more editorials, journalists, commentaries, and inflamed claims about this subject than for many years heretofore.

My purpose today is to make what I believe to be a prime distinction between, on the one hand, the wall of separation of church and state, and on the other hand, religion and politics. Although Robert Frost was not touching these subjects in particular, with a great poet’s artistry, he grasps universals in the particulars of two farmers repairing the walls that divided the property of each:

“Before I built a wall
I’d ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out.”

The First Amendment to the Constitution: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof....” Thomas Jefferson wrote the Danbury Baptist Association, “Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between Church and State.”

Jefferson, in those succinct lines, walled out any form of state church or special favors for any particular church or churches and barred discrimination against any church.

I am one who believes that a strong wall is as necessary a bulwark between church and state as any other provisions in the bill of rights [ensure] other freedoms. I hope the Supreme Court in its decisions in the coming months and years will not dilute or adulterate that vital Constitutional basis and history.

Right now that Constitutional freedom is under attack by those (usually fundamentalist) gospel preachers, who are exhorting us to return to a “Christian America.”

The contention usually goes something like, “This is a Christian nation; religion is part of our American way of life; to take it out of public schools (e.g.) is to rob us of an essential part of our heritage; the effect of such decisions as rendered in the McCollum and Regents’ Prayer cases is to make our culture secular where it was always the intent of our Founding Fathers that this nation should be a religious nation.”

This contention seems to be very persuasive to many, but serious flaws are revealed when the case is examined more closely.

Any examination discloses that Christianity is not one religion, but many. There are religions of ecclesiastical authority and religions of individual intuition; there are religions of reason and religions of revelation; there are Christian religions pre-occupied with theology and Christian religions emphasizing liturgical traditions; there are Christian religions devoted to the sacraments and Christian religions where the preaching of “The Word of God” is central.

When one narrows down to Protestantism, then there are four main divisions, each with sub-groups: Lutheranism, Episcopalianism (or Anglicanism), Calvinism, and the free churches, of which there are at least 250 recognized denominations in our country today.

This “Christian Nation” contention also overlooks or ignores the historical fact that members of the Jewish religion have been citizens from the beginnings, and that there are now many thousands of Moslems, Buddhists, not to speak of native American Indian religions.

More accurately, we are [more] a nation of many religions than we are a religious nation. Furthermore, the atheist or agnostic has no limitations on his citizenship, but has the right not to have a particular church or synagogue or mosque associated with citizenship.

Jefferson and Madison were primary in the securing of religious freedom in the United States. Jefferson’s proposal to the Virginia [legislature] passed after seven years of opposition and consideration.

Madison was effective in two basic ways. In the Virginia Assembly of 1784-85, he presented his famous “Memorial and Remonstrance to the Religious Rights of Man.” This was an attack on a bill which would “establish a provision for teachers of the Christian religion.” Later on in the career of this great American, he was responsible for including the right of freedom of religion in the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights.

It is important to observe that these founders of our nation and religious freedom would not have pleased those persons who today exhort us to adhere to our heritage as “Christian” or even monotheistic.

When Jefferson said “free,” he meant FREE, as attested by his “Notes on Virginia”: “The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbors to say there are twenty gods or no God.” Jefferson asserted that to compel outward conformity to any religion would force neighbors to be hypocrites. (See CORNERSTONES OF RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN AMERICA, Joseph L. Blau, Beacon Press, p. 72 ff.)

Furthermore, appeals to churchly authority can be both confusing and mistaken. A cartoon in the Tampa Tribune (9/28) compresses this: a balding, overweight clergyman (looks like I do – beard, vest) is standing at the door of the church, saying to a parishioner leaving the church, “No, no, Madam, I said Jesus sat down and ate with publicans, not Republicans.”

Many (if not most) of our Founding Fathers were immediately inspired by the Rationalists of the Enlightenment, and by the humanitarian goals of the American and French revolutions. “My mind is my church,” said Thomas Paine. I see more influence from the Deists ... Franklin, Washington, the Adamses, Jefferson, Madison, Paine, than [from] the organized churches of the time.

One thing more about the wall of separation of church and state: not only does the First Amendment prevent a state church or favoritism toward one church, but also the tax exemption privilege protects religious institutions from government. The power to tax is the power to destroy. The government could effectively render any religious institution powerless through the use of the tax. One of the noted cases of the 1950s was that of the Unitarian Church, Los Angeles, which was threatened with the loss of tax exemption because it refused to sign a loyalty oath.

Because churches and their spokesmen (and spokeswomen) must in the nature of convictions take stands, sometimes severely critical of the government, ... the government must not have the power to squelch or retaliate through the tax system.

In the Zorach case of some years ago, Mr. Justice Jackson, in a dissent, said this (and the advice is wise):

“My evangelistic brethren confuse an objection to compulsion with an objection to religion. It is possible to hold a faith with enough confidence that what should be rendered to God does not need to be collected and decided by Caesar.”

Yes, I believe in the wall of separation of church and state – but there is no way to separate religion and politics, nor should there be.

“Political” in the unabridged dictionary is defined as “of or pertaining to the exercise of rights and privileges or the influence by which the individuals of a state seek to determine or control its public policy; having to do with the organization or action of individuals, parties, or interests that seek to control the appointment or action of those who manage the affairs of a state.”

We exercise our rights and privileges by applying our values – that which we hold dear. There are [a] great many variations on the idea of God that numerous religious and their advocates have advanced. The authority for religious belief can be holy book, dogmatic church, intuition, authoritative mythology, imagination, reason. But every worthwhile religion that I know of stands for ethical behavior. The Golden Rule, in various forms, is basic to all the world’s great religions. You value your neighbor – what he/she is. In the Christian tradition, Jesus put it, “How can a man love God whom he has not seen, if he does not love his brother whom he has seen?” An old Jewish saying is, “one man is no man.” Martin Buber, the Israeli philosopher and teacher, said, “the most direct line to God is a circle around everyone.” Those who are reluctant to identify Deity in any of the proposed forms may take as a basic premise that human life is the highest value, and that the worth and dignity of all persons is a goal for which to labor in the social order.

Thus in the political segment of our lives, we are informed and directed by the values we hold. The values we hold direct the manner and decisions of the way we exercise our rights and privileges. The opening paragraph of a declaration by the Claggett Conference on Biblical Faith and Public Policy eloquently states the case: “our nation is on the threshold of an historic dialogue concerning the role of religious faith in our political life. We agree with those who assert that religious faith should not be separated from the moral and political life of our society. However, the wall of separation between church and state prevents any one church from imposing upon the whole society its views on matters of individual conscience. But this guarantee is not intended to insulate our political life from the direct influence of moral values and religious vision which promotes the general welfare.” (see Christian Century, 9/14/84)

But values differ. Interpretations of the correct direction of the nation obviously are in collision. Most persons have a priority of values, but the rank order will differ. The run for the roses of national office is dotted with areas of self interest, special interest, hunger for power.

One would be hopelessly naïve to believe that everyone, in or out of organized religion, will always measure his/her vote or political allegiance by the best ideals or values that person cherishes. Our faculty for choosing our best is inhibited by our fears. Political wisdom is that enough Americans vote their pocketbooks to win an election for a candidate. Short-run and immediate fears of having less money or financial security are more over-riding than long-run fears of total destruction by war or apprehension that continued pollution or water shortages will slowly stifle or parch human living. That makes much more difficult but also more necessary the continuing task beyond elections to inform, sensitize, and increase awareness of the threats to our living and how these threats may be ameliorated.

Furthermore, authentic political dialogue is too frequently painted over with with innocuous generalizations, profitless name-calling, pretty pictures and photo opportunities. That has been so, and will be. But that is no excuse for giving up the search for what will make for peace, feed the hungry, extend freedom, encourage responsibility. In our world of social transactions, there is inevitably intermingled the world of politics in all important decisions.

Political advocacy and dialogue must be open. Not for a moment would I want Jerry Falwell stopped from arguing his political views, much as I detest many things he says (or Jimmy Swaggart or Jesse Helms). But not to allow them and others to impose their religious doctrines on me or any other citizen. Let their views be heard. If the values which inform them differ from mine, then my response must be in terms of the values I hold and the unlike perceptions of the history and faith which are mine.

“Something there that doesn’t love a wall” - no walls to shut out political give and take.

I like the way George Marsden, a professor at Calvin College, addresses this whole subject. He makes the same distinction between church and state, religion and politics, that I have tried to make. He criticizes the fundamentalist thrust for a “Christian America.” He notes that it invariably invokes an historical argument for a return to some presumed “Christian America.” Marsden asks, to what shall we return – Reformation theology, or the principles of the Declaration and Constitution? He goes on:

“In the Reformation, Protestant leaders expected nations to be explicitly Christian, to support the true church and to penalize all others. Today’s theocrats may not go so far; yet they want civil laws based on Reformation interpretations of divine laws. But the Declaration does not root laws there. The ‘laws of nature and nature’s God’ are very different in concept from the Biblical notion, which is wholly unalluded to in American documents. The symbolism of the new government was secular. Even the Reverend John Witherspoon (a Presbyterian minister), one of the founders and a signer of the Declaration, did not appeal to Reformation theology that the theocrats of today appeal.

“The practice of the early republic points to a middle way between stark extremes. Compromise is the genius of the American political system. America is not built on the idea that American should be Christian in the sense that today Iran is Moslem or Russia is Marxist. Christians have to play by the rules of the civic game. One of those rules might be that no matter how strongly the Bible or other revelation informs our political views, for the purpose of civic debate and legislation, we will not appeal simply to religious authority.” (CONTEXT, 7/1/83)

One last point (which could be elaborated for days) – there never has been a time in history when a religion was official, to the exclusion of other religions, when that sole dominance has not left a record of bigotry, persecution, bloodshed, and the stifling of the questing human spirit.