God and Politics
Eric Ames began a discussion recently asking the question, "Do Voters Care About God?" I'd wager that they do, and for many people they do in a non-superficial way. Of course, this intersection of religion and politics is an interesting, and often contentious one which has at times in recent political history dominated the political scene.
Russell Moore, a Southern Baptist preacher, discusses a similar question to Ames' (how should the Christian approach electoral politics?) although he approaches it as a religious figure looking into politics, rather than a political observer observing religion. I'd definitely read through the blog post, if you have time, but here are a few key points:
I would gladly vote for someone to be my president who disagrees with me on whether or not infants can be baptized. I wouldn’t want that same person to be my pastor, because we will have to decide together who and how to baptize. The Kuyperian principle of “sphere sovereignty” is helpful here.
and
Unfortunately, American evangelicals have too often longed for a secular authority to serve as a spiritual leader, and political professionals have been all too willing to exploit this by teaching candidates to parrot evangelical-sounding phrases and “testimonies.” In such cases, political leaders become totem-like for evangelicals. An attack on a candidate who identifies with “us” is an attack on “us” or, worse, on Jesus. That’s unhealthy, regardless of whether the politician is male or female.
What are y'all's thoughts?
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Comments:
Re: God and Politics
I think Moore is right about the politics of evangelicals; attacks on candidates can be perceived as attacks on everything associated with their backgrounds. As to whether voters care about God, I think it has a lot to do with background. I, for example, was brought up in a moderate to liberal United Methodist Church in Northern Virginia. Methodists have tended to take a Pietistic view of social justice, which led them to support prohibition back when it was still sort of cool, and today leads them to focus on left-wing advocacy issues, though I should stress this is not true of everyone in the UMC. The same has historically been true of some groups of Scandinavian Lutherans. I wouldn't be surprised if their were some relationship in voters' perceptions of candidates' religiosity, and the degree to which their churches promote welfare-statism.
Re: God and Politics
Voters care about God because everything we do as humans is a response to how we feel about the Bible. My pastor at school, the son of Reagan's Surgeon General C. Everette Coop, says how we are all created with a knowledge of God and Jesus, but many of us choose to suppress that truth. If one believes that statement is accurate, than they must also logically conclude that: If everyone is aware of Truth, than all the decisions we make reflect how we feel about that truth (embracing or suppressing it), including voting.
Re: God and Politics
In political discourse, especially surrounding elections, a key distinction in argumentation relates: that between 'discrediting' and 'disproving'. Too often candidates and voters seek to credit and discredit a politician's arguments based on their religious or otherwise backgrounds, rather than to attend to the arguments set forth. However, I don't think background can be completely neglected... is there a way to keep it in conversation without allowing it to be a dismissive way to squash the competition?
Also, Joshua, an interesting quote from Soren Kierkegaard says that (summary) we think that unbelief comes from doubt, but that it actually stems from rebelliousness. How we orient ourselves toward God/Jesus/religion says more about the state of our willingness to submit and serve and obey, than about our conscious beliefs. The tricky thing about voting seems to be that it is often enacted from passion and rhetoric rather than wisdom.
Oct '10
Re: God and Politics
The warning about politicians pandering to evangelicals is worth noting but is it not true that the media does go after religious candidates in part because of what they're representing? Do they not go after evangelicals and other religious conservatives themselves in hit pieces? I don't think that's a perception I think it's real.
Aug '10
Re: God and Politics
I decry all strains of identity politics whether they be race, gender or religious based. If you will only vote for someone who agrees with your religious views than you greatly limit yourself.
Reagan wasn't particularly religious in an evangelical sense but was a man of integrity and sound moral judgement, characteristics which matter far more than a person's particular theological beliefs.
Jun '10
Re: God and Politics
"Unfortunately, American evangelicals have too often longed for a secular authority to serve as a spiritual leader, and political professionals have been all too willing to exploit this by teaching candidates to parrot evangelical-sounding phrases and “testimonies.”
This is exactly the feeling I get about Perry. His speech at the prayer rally came across as a televangelist who was about to flash an 800 number and ask for the donations to build his ministry. Many on Ricochet were angry that I and other posters are uncomfortable with that style. Moore captures how I felt -- it seemed like a parroted "testomony." That's fine if you like that approach from your pastor, but not from your president.
Like Moore, I could not care less what a candidate's views on baptism might be. I'll take the Reagan integrity over most who pose for the camera's exiting the church with Bible in hand. Remember Bill Clinton? Ha ha !!!
Jun '10
Re: God and Politics
"My pastor at school, the son of Reagan's Surgeon General C. Everette Coop, says how we are all created with a knowledge of God and Jesus, but many of us choose to suppress that truth. "
I don't agree with Koop at all. How would you explain the burka clad woman living in conditions that can only be described as slavery in the middle east? I know she is not supressing any truth. How would she have knowledge of Jesus?
Dec '10
Re: God and Politics
I think values matter to voters, and profession of a particular religious affiliation allows voters to overlook specific values judgments a candidate has made in favor of a belief that there heart is in the right place. I think Obama benefited from this immensely, with the decidedly leftward slant many evangelical churches have taken in the last decade.
Liberal evangelicals need Obama as badly as he needs them, because one affirms the other. Christians who want to believe that income redistribution is just another form of Christian charity need a leader who parrots that sentiment back to them as he raises taxes on someone else. The same is true in the act of contorting "environmental activism" into "stewardship" of God's creation.
And as long as neither one of them spends too much time reading their Bible, they both sleep soundly at night wrapped in a false sense of self-righteousness.
Jun '10
Re: God and Politics
From: "God and Ronald Reagan" by Paul Kengor http://www.beliefnet.com/News/Politics/2004/02/Reagans-Penchant-For-Prayer.aspx
// Reagan believed that biblical wisdom was indispensable in devising intelligent law. One thing that "must never change" in America, he contended, is that men and women must "seek Divine guidance in the policies of their government and the promulgation of their laws." They must, he urged, "make our laws and government not only a model to mankind, but a testament to the wisdom and mercy of God. "' [...] On one occasion, Secretary Margaret Heckler of Health and Human Services suggested that Reagan's cabinet meetings should open with a prayer. It was an unorthodox proposal; only Dwight Eisenhower is on record as opening such meetings with prayer on a regular basis. To Heckler's suggestion, Reagan simply replied "I do." That is, he was already in the habit of praying, alone and to himself, before each meeting. Don Hodel, then secretary of energy and now president of Focus on the Family ministries, witnessed the exchange. "He both responded to the suggestion and closed the subject," said Hodel. "There was no debate. No controversy. That was it. He prayed himself." //
Dec '10
Re: God and Politics
StickerShock: "My pastor at school, the son of Reagan's Surgeon General C. Everette Coop, says how we are all created with a knowledge of God and Jesus, but many of us choose to suppress that truth. "
I don't agree with Koop at all. How would you explain the burka clad woman living in conditions that can only be described as slavery in the middle east? I know she is not supressing any truth. How would she have knowledge of Jesus? · Sep 12 at 3:21pm
For one, Jesus is in the Koran. I know she may not be allowed to read, but it's not out of the question she's heard of the virgin birth of someone who was relegated to the place of mere prophet.
Beyond that, she is the victim of those who choose to suppress truth. She is the victim of their sin. I may be accused of blaming the victim, but I think God informs our conscience of truth. If she chooses to accept what she is told in the midst of having deep misgivings about her conditions, she becomes cooperative in the sin of her captors.
Jan '11
Re: God and Politics
How sad to watch this happen in the country of Coleridge and Shakespeare, in the name of permissiveness; a country no longer able to distinguish unambiguous hate from well intended criticism. This in the country that gave the world an international language, a model legal system, and a sense of civic justice.
Yes, Hitler destabilized the British Empire, but Britain's citizens destabilized it's national character. And, for what?; rudeness, obsequiousness, and ignorance. How sad that Britain's glory is now spoken of in the past tense: There was a time when Britain ruled the waves, and never, never, never would be slaves.
Sep '11
Re: God and Politics
Jun '10
Re: God and Politics
Beasley
For one, Jesus is in the Koran. I know she may not be allowed to read, but it's not out of the question she's heard of the virgin birth of someone who was relegated to the place of mere prophet.
Beyond that, she is the victim of those who choose to suppress truth. She is the victim of their sin. I may be accused of blaming the victim, but I think God informs our conscience of truth. If she chooses to accept what she is told in the midst of having deep misgivings about her conditions, she becomes cooperative in the sin of her captors. · Sep 12 at 3:33pm
Yes, Jesus is considered a prophet in Islam, but these women can't read & are not given instruction about Islam.....They are deemed not worthy. And most of the imams are illiterate to boot. You are absolutely blaming the victim here. How can a woman in that situation do anything but accept her condition? She will be killed if she is not 100% obedient.
Jul '11
Re: God and Politics
It's very important to me (and I hope to others) to be led by moral and God-fearing individuals. I want a president that goes to the Lord with the nation's problems and seeks His guidance, which is sorely needed in these times. The examples of political/military leaders in scripture and the effect that they had on their people show how important that is. That doesn't mean he/she needs to wear his religion on his sleeve, be a spiritual leader, or share everyone's beliefs; but, when it comes right down to it, a devotion to God and a willingness to seek His will is probably the most important quality in a national leader.
-E
Apr '11
Re: God and Politics
I haven't read Moore's piece (yet), and may not get to it at all, but I've read him before, and he's a thoughtful commentator on things religious. (Get his book on adoption, if you're considering it, btw). The principle Moore's comments touch on is a very astute one. It is one that's been considered pretty thoroughly in the past by some of the greatest theological minds of the ages, particularly in light of the Protestant Reformation and the Roman Catholic counter-reformation, and more recently, in light of the American Revolution and then acutely in North America, in response to the events of the American Civil War about the roles of church and state.
In the 1980s, there seemed to be a collapse of thinking on these subjects, as Evangelicals and Catholics, previously suspicious of one anothers' motives for political engagement, became, in the words of Francis Schaeffer, "co-belligerents." And 'belligerents' isn't too far off the mark in terms of the perception by the greater American body politic.
Tony, in your quotation from Moore, he cites Kuyper's "sphere sovereignty." *(to continue in the next post).
Apr '11
Re: God and Politics
While Kuyper's theories of church-state relations were a unique practicum of sorts (He was Prime Minister of the Netherlands and founded the Free University of Amsterdam, for the independent training of ministers for the state churches, in addition to founding several newspapers, etc.), there are other perspectives available to consider. I'd like to list several for Ricocheters' perusal. Since I'm Protestant, I welcome anyone with Roman Catholic resources beyond what I'll refer to, but here are a few good resources:
James Davison Hunters' "To Change the World"
D.G. Hart's "A Secular Faith: Why Christianity Favors the Separation of Church and State"
David Van Drunen's "Natural Law & the Two Kingdoms"
First Things (which is probably familiar to many Ricocheters) - magazine/website founded by the late Lutheran-turned-Roman Catholic Fr. Richard John Neuhaus
Mars Hill Audio Journal - an audio journal by subscription that treats cultural engagement extensively from a Christian perspective.
And, last but certainly not least, Augustine's "City of God," which is really at the back of many, if not most thoughtful Christian engagement with the subject of the relationship of Church and State.