129 Sermon Illustrations on Politics

Christians in politics. Often naive, no humility. It is possible to find common cause with non-believers. Four rings of morality are given: Codified common morality, Common civil morality, Common social morality, Common morality plus. Suggestions for Christian action are given.

Religious parties in Israel gained in 1988 election. Hasidic Rabbi Menachem Schneerson, 86, of Brooklyn, N.Y., is the revered leader of the populist Lubavitcher movement, which promotes old-fashioned dress and strict observance of Jewish law and ritual. He refuses to visit Israel until the Messiah comes. A rival is Rabbi Eliezer Schach, 92, who founded the Degel Torah party.

The Hasidic offered their rebbe's blessing to anyone who would promise to vote for Agudat (Schneerson's party). In their ardor, some campaigners offered miracle cures, and in Tiberias they even assured a widow that the blessing would resurrect her husband.

Such tactics were so effective another rabbi complained to a special religious tribunal, which solemnly freed voters from their oath of allegiance to Agudat and promised to protect defectors from any curse that Schneerson might lay upon them.

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How faith has, and can, influence politics. A sidebar discusses the religion (and corrupt politics) of Grant, and Harding (a Baptist). They were genuinely religious but it did not have enough effect on their public affairs.

Christians must form coalitions with others to make any real social change.

1. Private vs. public philosophies.

2. The theological base.

3. Pluralism.

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Minor Prophet series. Micah and godly leadership.

1. Failings of current political leadership.

2. Micah's condemnation of national leaders.

a. They eat the people up.

b. Self-serving attitude.

c. Whole system corrupted.

d. No sense of justice or God.

3. Messiah will be God's perfect leader.

4. The "shepherd" model of leadership.

a. Leadership in the areas of our lives.

b. How well are we imitating Jesus?

A very sarcastic article by columnist Mike Royko expresses his doubts about former-Klansman David Duke’s professed conversion. Many public figures have claimed spiritual rebirth and it’s usually a gimmick.

“This transformation often happens while they are awaiting sentence or seeking parole. Theologians might consider studying the relationship between loving God and fearing a judge.”

“When the going gets tough, the tough get religion.”

“There was a time when sinners who wanted to cast off their wicked ways really made a project of it. You just didn’t go on a TV show, wave your arms, leap about, shout 'Amen, brother' a few times and come away with a soul that had gone through the normal soak, rinse and spin-dry cycles. For example, when he decided that he didn’t want to be loathsome anymore, he might have entered a remote monastery or some such place. That’s really the way to do it. ... He might have done as some saints did, especially those who had been youthful playboys and scamps. They cast aside pleasures of the flesh, wore itchy clothes, whipped themselves, went to work in leper colonies, washed the feet of beggars and really tripped out on misery. Had he done that, then appeared one day and said, ‘I have paid for my sins and want to be governor of Louisiana,’ nobody could have questioned his sincerity.”

Religious values are being systematically stripped from our culture. Battlegrounds: schools, law, church, media. Paul Vitz has documented the dearth of religious references in school textbooks.

I. Areas of secularization.

A. The schools.

B. The law.

C. The church.

D. The media.

II. The church's response.

A. The political illusion.

1) Just elect Christians, take dominion over America,

set everything right.

2) Bad theology, and counter-productive.

B. The spiritual solution.

1) Two attitudes.

a) Secularist - change people by changing society.

b) Bible - change society by changing people.

C. Privatizing faith.

1) Cuomo and personal opposition to abortion.

III. How to fight back.

A. Restore an orthodox faith.

B. Learn to think Christianly.

C. Take responsibility for change.

D. Become instruments of righteousness.

IV. Reversing the tide.

The cultural values we accept, not the ones we fight against, are the ones that will destroy the church. Before we "clean up" America there are areas Christians have to consider in their own lives.

Three areas that need to be evaluated:

1. Materialism vs. concern for poor and oppressed.

2. Political power vs. speaking the truth in love.

3. People-pleasing ministries vs. prophetic witness.

We often bring our class values into the church and call them Biblical values. Christians have to get back to reading the Bible "straight" without dilution from society's values. It almost requires a mysticism, but it has to be grounded in the historical stands of the Church. It takes hard work to maintain the counter-cultural perspective that is essential for Christian living.

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[Followed by a sidebar with Bible verses and blanks for input, and then "But the world says..." and blanks for input.]

Evangelical author Tom Sine called for a radical "third-wave Christian citizenship" to correct flaws of both the right and left at a Baptist ethics conference. Sine, author of "Cease Fire: Searching for Sanity in America's Culture Wars," spoke at a "Leadership Through the Culture Wars" conference sponsored by the Baptist Center for Ethics.

Sine said churches in America are being torn apart by polarization between liberals and conservatives. "Many people, mainline Protestants, Catholics and Evangelicals, are looking for a new place to stand," Sine said. "They are not happy with the polarities of the right and left." Sine offered "not a middle position between right and left" but "a radical biblical alternative" to both positions.

"My contention is neither side takes Scripture seriously," Sine said. The Religious Right takes the Bible "literally," Sine said, but doesn't bring it to bear on public policy issues such as poverty and injustice. Churches on the left, meanwhile, have their identity tied up in being "social progressives," even if it means ignoring moral teachings of Scripture, he said. "Many of our understandings of discipleship, missions and social responsibility simply don't square with the Bible," he said.

Sine contended that the greatest threat to Christianity is not "secular humanism," as Francis Schaeffer argued, but an "enlightened secularism" that defines "a better future largely in economic terms." The "real secularism" threatening American Christians consists of "materialism, individualism and consumerism," Sine said.

"We really have not done the work we need to do to set our folks free," Sine said. He cited "the outrageous busy-ness" that results in people being preoccupied with activities at the expense of time for Bible study and devotion. "The enemy is not the liberal on one end or the Religious Right on the other," Sine said. "Pogo said it best, 'We have seen the enemy and he is us.'"

Sine called for a "third-wave Christian citizenship" to transcend debate between the left and right. "We're using a two-legged milk stool," Sine said, by emphasizing a faith that focuses on "getting our hearts right with God" and "getting our moral lives cleaned up. God wants to define our cultural values, too," he said.

Sine suggested that individuals and families write "mission statements" that "challenge people to whole-life discipleship and whole-life stewardship." He also challenged tithing as a standard for stewardship, citing a growing consensus among biblical scholars that "there's no basis in the New Testament

for 10 percent stewardship." He suggested "calling our people not out of guilt but out of opportunity." Sine called for a "reorganization of how we use our time and money" that includes spending less on one's self and more on others. "I'm convinced we could help a new generation create a way of life that is more festive and celebrative, where they put first things first, where Jesus' vocation is our vocation," he said.

Sine said Americans often compartmentalize religion by thinking about their faith only a few hours a week and not allowing it to make a difference in their daily lives. "I don't think the first call of the gospel is to proclamation," Sine said. "I believe in evangelism, ... (but) I think the first call of the gospel is incarnation." American Christians need "to flesh out something that has the character" of the Kingdom of God, Sine said. "We desperately need to rediscover the meaning of community. We are going to need some new metaphors," he said. "The church we need for the new millennium is not a building we go to once a week."

Sine suggested beginning "cooperative communities" as an alternative to

suburban living. A starter home in Seattle, he said, costs an average of

$150,000. Financed over 30 years, the accumulated cost is $500,000, he

observed. By contrast, homes can be built in a "six-plex" with common

activity areas for about $60,000, financed over five years. Eventually, a husband and wife living there could afford to cut back to 20 hours of work per week, freeing up more time to spend with children and for ministry. "We're going to have to think that radically," he said.

"The single-family detached lifestyle is the most expensive way to live," Sine said. "If we don't create a community where people start to care for one another, we don't have a future." "We need to be the part of the community that stands against the status quo," Sine said. "We need to be a subversive community."

Sine said Christians "need to be leaven in society," but should not equate patriotism with doing the will of God. "We need to realize we are called to work beyond making America great. The Bible makes clear that God's agenda is a transnational agenda. My first allegiance is not only to God, but to the international community of God. It's not the United States of America," he said. "The kind of 'America-first' thing doesn't work for me."

Christians need to avoid the polarities of right and left in public life and "work in a spirit of reconciliation," Sine said. He also said Christians "should not be afraid" of losing in the political sphere because "our trust isn't in a free market or left-wing politics; our trust is in God."

Sine urged Baptists to re-educate people in their churches who have been co-opted by the Religious Right. "Everybody assumes the Religious Right and Christian Coalition speak for all of us," he said, but polls say most born-again Christians disagree with those groups on many issues. "We have lost our voice," Sine said. "The Religious Right has educated our people."

Evangelicals need to "take back education" of their own constituencies, Sine said. "Our people have been educated to the politically correct views of the Religious Right. We have done a lousy job of educating our constituency. We have let others do it for us."

By adopting "a new biblical vision that simply transcends those of the right and the left and the American dream," Sine said, "I think the people of God could be the people who help birth a new dream not only for America's future but for the future of a world as we enter the new millennium."

The religious right claims to speak for God but it neglects important issues. Evangelicalism has a long heritage of applying the gospel to the downtrodden and poor while current believers are cutting the poor off.

Our times cry out for renewed political vision. And vision depends upon spirited values. Because the crisis we face is spiritual, it must be responded to by solutions that address the "spirit" of the times that often lies beneath our political and economic problems. Social responsibility is at the heart of our biblical traditions, racism and sexism are also sins, and the best test of a nation's righteousness is not its gross national product and military firepower but, according to the prophets, how it treats the poorest and most vulnerable. It is time to call our churches back to a biblical focus that transcends the left and the right.

#3185

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A new paradigm for family policy is needed to bridge the partisan gap.

The American family debate will continue to heat up and take new forms now that Republican majorities have taken over the Senate and House of Representatives. The postelection conservative majorities have two options in the family debate: They, too, could drive toward the center, push Democrats out of the way, and claim the middle for themselves. Or they could move to the extreme Right in hopes that the conservative momentum would pull the rest of the nation along. We urge the first strategy, not only for what it means politically, but for what it might contribute to the health of our religious life.

Before the heat of the recent elections, new lines of communication were developing between liberals and conservatives... These held some values in common. The neoliberals were willing to admit that there is a values dimension to the family crisis. They acknowledged, as conservatives had been arguing, that increased individualism, changes in sexual mores, and declining parental responsibility explained some of the mounting problems families face. These factors, they agreed, helped account for such trends as the growing out-of-wedlock birth rate, the growing poverty of divorced and never-married mothers, and the declining mental and physical health of the children of single parents and stepfamilies. On the other hand, neoconservatives were more willing to admit the partial truth of the standard liberal diagnosis: that the declining economy, fewer jobs, the ravages of market forces, and poorly functioning welfare programs also contribute to family woes. Neoconservatives were more willing than their old-style counterparts to acknowledge a role for government in helping poor families.

Neoconservatives were still conservative, placing their primary emphasis on changing cultural values. Neoliberals were still liberals, seeing a role for government programs that support poor families. The meeting ground between neoconservatives and neoliberals on the role of government was the increasing tendency of both groups to turn to tax inducements rather than direct welfare payments.

Is it possible for something similar to happen in the churches? Can new breeds of religious neoconservatives and neoliberals emerge and cooperate in addressing the family issues that divide the churches? What would such a new alliance look like? What would be its substance and strategy? What central themes would inform a more productive middle ground in the churches?

A program for cooperation for saving the family in America.

Here are some substantive and strategic approaches we think are important. If cooperation could develop on the following points, good things might happen for American churches, families, and public life.

1. Religious liberals and conservatives should reconsider, at least for the moment, the narrowly defined sexual issues that have preoccupied them for the last two decades: abortion and homosexuality. We do not mean that these issues should be dropped, but that they be set within a broad-scale analysis of what is happening to families and children and what the church can do to help. The family viewed as a major social issue -- some think the major issue of our time -- has had difficulty gaining the attention of churches because of their preoccupation with abortion and homosexuality.

Few church people are well informed about the plunge into poverty of large numbers of mothers and their children following divorce or out-of-wedlock births. Forty-seven percent of all families headed by single mothers live in poverty. Few church people take seriously how these conditions correlate with the declining well-being of children.

Princeton University sociologist Sarah McLanahan, who has done definitive research on single parenthood, wrote, “Half of all children born in the 1980s will live with a single mother before reaching the age of 18. Half of these children will be poor. As compared with children from the same social class who live with both parents, children of single mothers are twice as likely to drop out of high school and become single parents themselves, and half again as likely to have trouble finding and keeping a steady job.”

Why aren’t churches paying more attention to these trends? Mainline churches for over two decades have viewed family problems as privatistic issues and allowed their ministries to families and youth to languish, especially at the national level. Conservatives have been far more interested in families but have often failed to understand the complexity of family problems. Both have been so preoccupied with abortion and homosexuality that they have glossed over the less sensational stresses of people trying to raise children to healthy adulthood. It is now time to reconfigure these two divisive issues in a larger context. If this were to happen, new light might shine forth on both issues.

2. On family matters, both religious conservatives and liberals need to use the Bible with a greater sense of context.

Christian liberals get their family theory more from egalitarian contractual theory than they do from biblical texts. They neglect such texts as Matthew 5:32 on divorce, 1 Corinthians 7 on the burdens of marriage, or Ephesians 5:20-33 on the analogy between a husband’s love and Christ’s sacrificial love. Liberals are attuned to passages suggesting the equality of the sexes, such as the principle of neighbor love (Matt. 22:39), and Galatians 3:28, which says that in Christ there is “neither male nor female.” To liberals, these passages suggest equality in marital and family relations. This is as far as they are inclined to go with the Bible. They avoid Ephesians 5 for fear it can be used to justify “patriarchal” teachings.

Christian conservatives gravitate toward the Ephesians passage and others like it (e.g., Col. 3:18 and 1 Peter 3:1). Many conservatives, though not all, see in these passages a divinely sanctioned family plan - a benevolent-love paternalism - that husbands and fathers should exercise with faithful responsibility, and wives and children should accept in loving obedience. But this understanding of God’s plan for families often gets mixed with the separate-spheres doctrine of the nineteenth-century industrial family with its bread-winner father and domestic mother. When this happens, such passages are used to give divine justification to this form of family that existed in the United States from roughly 1830 to 1960. Whatever virtues this family form had, it cannot be called “the Christian form of the family” as such.

Both conservative and liberal church people miss the various contexts of these so-called headship passages. Many conservatives miss the egalitarianism of the early church. Some also miss the way male leadership passages are qualified by the obligations of sacrificial love -- a self-giving love that follows the love of Christ for the church. Although these passages -- as liberals and feminists charge -- reflect a modified patriarchy, all parties miss how these passages challenge the models of male authority typical of the Greco-Roman world, which was the social and cultural context of early Christianity. In that world, male agency, freedom, and domination were celebrated virtues. Wives were confined primarily to the home with servants and with family. Men enjoyed a range of sexual freedom that was denied to women. To call fathers and husbands to a life of sacrificial love in which wives are treated “as their own bodies” (Eph. 5:28) was revolutionary and seditious in this novel situation.

Religious conservatives should make less out of the male spiritual authority that these passages seem to grant and more out of their direction toward male servanthood and mutuality -- “submitting yourselves one to another” (Eph. 5:21). Many Christian conservatives have already taken this step. Religious liberals, on the other hand, need to acknowledge the revolutionary character of these Scriptures and how they set the stage for the subversion of patriarchy.

3. Christian liberals need to pay less attention to the social sciences on family matters; Christian conservatives need to pay more. Actually, both religious conservatives and liberals have been deeply influenced by psychology. How can we explain the colossal popularity of James Dobson without pointing to his particular way of synthesizing interpretations of modern psychology with interpretations of Christianity? But conservatives and liberals put their use of psychology into different value contexts. Conservatives place psychological insights into the framework of a community that has a place for biblical and ecclesial authority. Liberals use psychological insights in the framework of a community that supports individualism and personal liberation. Both groups use the language of community, but their concept of community is very different.

Liberals tend to use psychology and the social sciences to adapt to changing family trends. They are likely to believe that these changes cannot be stopped and that the right combination of governmental and therapeutic interventions can at least cut their losses. Religious liberals, under the influence of the social sciences, see family ministries as helping individuals adapt to family disruption rather than finding ways to prevent it. They emphasize a supportive and nonjudgmental ministry to the divorced, to single parents, to lonely children, and to tension-filled stepfamilies so that they can all do a little better. Their instincts are more than half right. They have little to say, however, to young people, premarital couples, and young married couples about how to prepare concretely for enduring marriage and parenthood in our challenging world.

Conservatives, on the other hand, tend to be heroic in their goals to reverse family decline. They seem to believe that if young Christians have the right values, the right commitments, and understand the true meaning of marriage and the family, they can successfully withstand the pressures of work, declining economy, divided spheres, seditious cultural values, mounting tax burdens, and the growing intrusions into families of both market values and bureaucratic control. Conservatives need to use the social sciences to be more realistic, but they need to do this in ways that will not undermine their faith that they can reverse the more damaging features of present family trends.

[see #3477 for part B]

Over the past decade, William Bennett has become an increasingly prominent figure on the national scene. As chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, secretary of education, and director of drug control policy, Bennett was a forthright and articulate spokesman for conservative values.

Now Bennett has published two books that extend and deepen his engagement with our cultural malaise. The first, “The De-Valuing of America: The Fight for Our Culture and Our Children,” diagnoses what has gone wrong and prescribes a reaffirmation of traditional values. It is largely autobiographical, as Bennett draws on his extensive firsthand experience of the culture wars. The second, “The Book of Virtues: A Treasury of Great Moral Stories,” is an anthology intended primarily to help parents instill traditional values in their children. Both books can be recommended to Christian readers.

In “The De-Valuing of America,” Bennett confronts the assault on moral absolutes. It seems so obvious, but apparently it is not, that without deep-rooted values to guide how we live our lives, how we make our laws, and how we teach our children, eventually everyone will do what is right in his or her own eyes, whatever the cost to others. And that, Bennett suggests, is the difference “between social order and social anarchy.”

America’s civic order, Bennett argues, cannot be understood apart from its religious roots. “No one demands doctrinal adherence to any religious beliefs as a condition of citizenship,” he writes, “or as proof of good citizenship, here. But at the same time, we should not deny what is true; that from the Judeo-Christian tradition come our values, our principles, the animating spirit of our institutions. That tradition and our tradition are entangled. They are wed together. When we have disdain for our religious tradition, we have disdain for ourselves.” While broadly affirming the “Judeo-Christian tradition,” Bennett’s emphasis is on nonsectarian American values (“our tradition,” as he refers to it in the passage just quoted); rarely is he addressing issues from an explicitly Christian perspective.

My wife and I have already begun reading “The Book of Virtues” to our eight-year-old and five-year-old. This massive compendium of stories, poems, speeches, letters, and excerpts from other works is a priceless gift to parents and children alike. Organized under the heading of various virtues - Responsibility, Courage, Compassion, Loyalty, Honesty, Friendship, Persistence, Hard Work, Self-Discipline, and Faith - the selections are refreshingly diverse. Folktales and fables rub elbows with passages from Plato, Aristotle, Thomas Jefferson, and Ralph Waldo Emerson. Biographical sketches of Harriet Tubman, Thomas Edison, and many others offer inspirational models of the qualities that all good parents want to see cultivated in their children. The simple stories found in this book give parents a concrete and systematic method to help their children internalize essential values. The book is a wonderful application of the proverb “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.”

While Christian readers should applaud Bennett’s affirmation of the virtues, they must also ask how these values are to be enacted. Will there be a commitment to the radical challenge of the gospel - a stance that is uncompromisingly prolife, but also, for example, committed to health care for the poor - or will Bennett’s manifestoes translate to support for a limited political agenda?

As a black Christian with a conservative view of Scripture, I have almost given up the hope of finding a politician I could support without compromising my Christian beliefs and abandoning my mostly poor, black, inner-city neighborhood - one who would consistently champion biblical values and not just a few pet righteous causes; one who would confront the Left for its antibiblical positions but also affirm it for the godly, unselfish stances that it does occasionally take, and who would confront the Right for its mean-spiritedness and narrow interpretation of what it means to follow Christ, but also honor its refusal to compromise on what the Bible clearly teaches on tough, unpopular issues; one who would embrace both the virtues of hard work and self-discipline and the virtue of compassionate concern for the poor.

It is very easy to align ourselves too closely with a political perspective and confuse that allegiance with doing our Christian duty. As Christians, our primary responsibility is to follow Christ’s example, which will not always fit neatly into a political camp. When faced with tough issues from abortion to national health care reform, we should always be asking ourselves the simple but demanding question, What would Jesus do? No politician can do that and win.

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Books reviewed:

“The De-Valuing of America: The Fight for Our Culture and Our Children,” by William J. Bennett (Focus on the Family, 267 pp.; $18, hardcover); “The Book of Virtues: A Treasury of Great Moral Stories,” edited by William J. Bennett (Simon & Schuster, 831 pp.; $27.50, hardcover). Reviewed by Spencer Perkins, editor-in-chief of Urban Family magazine and coauthor of “More Than Equals: Racial Healing for the Sake of the Gospel” (InterVarsity).

Copyright (c) 1994 Christianity Today, Inc./CHRISTIANITY TODAY Magazine

Politics and religion do mix, but the question is what is the best formula.

When even the textbooks refer to the Christian Right’s style of politics as “angry,” it is clear that the movement has an image problem. That revealing word choice, which occurs twice in Robert Booth Fowler and Allen D. Hertzke’s impressive survey text, “Religion and Politics in America,” speaks volumes about the popular perception of Christian Right politics as sub-Christian in spirit. It also reminds us that, while performing commendably on specific issues and in practical politics, the Christian Right is not positioned to address the problems of increasing polarization and civic disintegration in modern America.

Fowler and Hertzke’s solid text can be used as a measuring stick to examine how religion and politics get along in contemporary America. It has a few disappointing omissions: its content is almost strictly limited to national rather than state or local politics, and it concentrates solely on how religion affects politics, never (except for one brief reference to James Davison Hunter’s theory on the coming liberalization of evangelicalism) on how political involvement affects religious practice. But, on the whole, this book is a reliable benchmark of where the action is — and where it isn’t. Thus it is striking that Fowler and Hertzke need 40 pages to describe religious politics and the courts, while they have nothing to say about the role of religious believers as reconcilers in the political realm.

Some of the discussions in the book suggest the reasons why believers spend so much time in court and so little time in peacemaking. Fowler and Hertzke stress that many of the key religion-and-politics battles are not resolved in Congress or in state legislatures, but argued forcibly before the judicial branch. The authors’ superb summary of church-and-state cases in the Supreme Court over the last 60 years lays bare the Court’s judicial hairsplitting and strained logic, which inevitably leads to further legal and political haggling. Furthermore, they note that, despite the strength of the Christian Right and the continuing statistical preeminence of Christianity, the defining characteristic of American culture today is a “moral pluralism” in which no single religious group can exert dominant power.

The impact even of strongly committed Christians in politics is muted by the diversity of their views, with figures like Sen. Mark Hatfield, Rep. Tony Hall (both politically moderate evangelicals), and African-American congressman and clergyman Floyd Flake counterbalancing more conservative impulses.

Fowler and Hertzke keep the book consistently balanced and dispassionate (which is why the aforementioned references to fundamentalist “anger” stick out so sharply) and leave the moralizing to others. Yet their survey of the landscape induces a sense of pessimism. Amidst the current polarization of American public discourse, the most important political battle facing us today may not be between Left and Right, but over whether we will be able to maintain the terms of engagement without which we can no longer have a productive debate at all. Christians should be ideally suited to serve not just as combatants in the culture wars but as bridgebuilders; yet Fowler and Hertzke find no one positioned to play this role. Thus arises the unspoken yet pervasive pessimism, not just about the prospects for effective religious-based politics but also about the possibility of getting activists with such a wide range of views — most of them claiming to be acting as Christians — to talk with each other, let alone work together.

Such a pessimism would not be cured by Conor Cruise O’Brien’s “On the Eve of the Millennium,” an irreverent set of five essays by an Irish writer with considerable diplomatic experience. O’Brien is intentionally provocative, and so to appreciate him one must tolerate both factual carelessness and ideological hammering.

Population control is his pet issue, leading him to applaud any movement that promotes contraception and safe abortion and to blast the Catholic church for trying to turn back the Enlightenment and keep population-control methods from penetrating Africa. O’Brien even claims that, after George Bush’s loss in 1992, Republican candidates in 1994 backed off from the pro-life cause — a statement clearly refuted by the actions of the large class of GOP freshmen who won election that year.

But when one looks past these flaws, one finds plenty of useful provocation in O’Brien’s writing. Most insightfully, he questions whether democracy as we know it can survive the battering it is receiving from the ascendancy of sophisticated polling and sound bites. “Democracy is turning into a series of instant plebiscites, over which the spin doctor is king,” he says, and this dependence on government by popularity contest is guaranteed to give us leadership by mediocre career politicians. As his favorite example of the problem, O’Brien reserves his most biting wit for the Clinton administration’s Haiti initiative, calling it an exercise in hypocrisy aimed not at helping Haitians but at averting an influx of no-longer-wanted boat people and preventing a backlash against Democrats in Congress. “Operation Restore Democracy was really Operation Return the Democratic Candidates,” he charges.

O’Brien notes the irony that the Enlightenment he cherishes is threatened by the anti-elitism of impulses it has spawned, toward political correctness and multiculturalism (PCM for short). Although no friend of traditional religion, he suggests that if any nation is positioned to recover the dying spirit of effective democracy, it is the United States, the only nation where the Enlightenment tradition is supported by national pride and civil religion.

Where can we find the seeds of this recovery? Not within the religious Right or Left. The Christian Right, though far more effective and constructive than in its early years, remains driven by pragmatic rather than philosophical imperatives. It is too wholeheartedly committed to the task of electing ideologically friendly legislators to ruminate on the more foundational but far more complex problem of making a distinctly Christian contribution to the restoration of civil society. And if Charles Stith’s “Political Religion” is any indication, the Christian Left can do no better.

Stith, a Methodist minister and self-described liberal, agrees with the Christian Right that the issue is not whether religion and politics should mix — of course, they should — but how. Unfortunately, Stith exemplifies the cynical definition of a liberal as someone who is tolerant of everyone except conservatives. This stance is particularly ironic because he urges Christians to pursue “the politics of consensus” and says Christian politics should be marked by a spirit of reconciliation. Stith discusses consensus- building with Hispanics, Jews, and women, but he has no time for dialogue with the Christian Right, which he dismisses as a movement “predicated on outdated precepts” and “defined by conflict rather than reconciliation.”

The Christian Right needs to be challenged by thoughtful arguments from fellow believers of more liberal political leanings. However, not only does Stith close the door to reconciliation between the Christian Right and Left, but his arguments are shallow and often unfounded rather than thoughtful. He trots out, with no documentation, the tiresome claim that Pat Robertson’s style of politics “would result in the obfuscation of the line between church and state.” Faulting conservatives for opposing sex education, he makes the dubious claim that “studies” (he cites none) show that sex education reduces teen pregnancy and promiscuity. And he simply asserts, without any acknowledgment of or engagement with opposing views, that Christian principles of equality should lead to support for the era and gay rights.

Politically conservative Christians ought to read this book simply to understand better what liberals think of them and what misconceptions they must dispel. Admittedly, a conservative who reads Stith will feel as if he or she stumbled into the wrong sanctuary while Stith was preaching to the choir. But maybe that is an experience all of us need once in a while to keep us from being satisfied with preaching to our own political choirs.

Why is the Christian Right, as the dominant form of American evangelical political engagement, having such a hard time communicating an effective Christian message to the broader culture? In “Saints as Citizens,” Timothy Sherratt and Ronald Mahurin, both professors of political science at Gordon College, have pinpointed the primary answer: evangelicals “do their politics piecemeal, on an issue-by-issue basis.” As a result, they are reactive, playing by rules others have set and never grounding their action on identifiably Christian principles.

Having diagnosed the prevalent lack of adequate philosophical reflection, Sherratt and Mahurin proceed to overreact somewhat. They spend nearly half their 120-page book reflecting on the Christian as sojourner and citizen, the nature of the kingdom of God, and the concept of church, providing an excellent theological refresher that made me feel I was retaking my Ph.D. comprehensive exams. They then admit frankly, “This handbook on politics has taken up three chapters without getting close to the subject, or so it must seem.” Indeed. This weakness would be less glaring had Sherratt and Mahurin discussed more fully not just why the type of reflection they recommend is necessary, but how it might prove to be productive. They acknowledge that realists and pragmatists will object to the complexity of their project, and they point to Britain’s Movement for Christian Democracy as a real-life example of theologically grounded politics. But on the whole, in my judgment, their proposal is too demanding; it expects more theological preparation, with less clarity of destination, than the impatient, pragmatic, beleaguered American church will tolerate.

Perhaps we could find a compromise, combining pieces of Sherratt and Mahurin’s reflectiveness with the growing resources of Christian practical expertise to create a movement more Christian in both style and content than any of the current options. But perhaps, as Don Eberly boldly suggests, the problem is not that we are doing politics badly, but that we are doing it at all.

As a former White House aide, Eberly speaks from experience when he says “politics has been oversold.” In his probing introduction to “Building a Community of Citizens,” he continues his argument (previously presented in his book Restoring the Good Society) that America’s crying need is for civic and cultural renewal, a reshaping of the habits of our hearts that no politics, whether conservative or liberal, can reach. Polarization is the enemy of this civic renewal, Eberly suggests, and he even hints indirectly that political movements like the Christian Right may be part of the problem: “Attempts to restore declining cultural values and order through power often only provoke and exacerbate the conflict.”

Eberly’s paradigm has one major problem of its own: it is hardly apolitical. He stresses the breadth of consensus in support of the values of “civil society,” such as self-government, family stability, and mutual respect, but the contributors to his volume range generally from Right to center, not Right to Left. Many of them urge, as one contributor puts it bluntly, “the dramatic decentralization of power and accountability away from the centralized, bureaucratic ‘Nanny state’ in Washington.” But this is not a plank on which to build a new social consensus; rather, it is precisely the root of the intense debate that has produced a partial shutdown of the federal government.

The residual political component of Eberly’s paradigm limits its potential as a basis of society-wide consensus. But the paralyzing level of political polarization we experienced in 1995 and continue to face in 1996 makes Eberly’s core concern for rebuilding civil society timelier than ever.

A Christian role in restoring civil society would mean not just energetic participation in the voluntary organizations (families, churches, nonprofits) that communicate the essential values of citizenship; we already do plenty of that. It would also mean taking the leadership in restoring a civil form of public discourse, encouraging the sort of reasoned, respectful discussion that divisive political campaigns, governed by the lure of negative advertising, seldom produce. This is no pie-in-the-sky goal; on the contrary, it is achievable wherever we perceive the need for a thoughtful forum for dialogue and step forward to assemble the pieces that can make one happen. As founder of the National Fatherhood Initiative, Eberly has given us a practical example to follow along with a philosophy.

Compare the core value statements promulgated by conservative evangelicals and the liberal Children’s Defense Fund, and you will find that their widely noted divergence in political proposals masks a significant convergence in shared concerns. Maybe, as we capitalize on the areas of convergence and seek to bring people of all political persuasions to the same table, we will find that they too are crying out with needs that can be solved not by politics, but only by religion. And maybe we Christians will become known more as the reconcilers rather than as the angry ones.

=============================

“Religion and Politics in America: Faith, Culture, and Strategic Choices,” by Robert Booth Fowler and Allen D. Hertzke (Westview Press, 287 pp.; $55, hardcover; $18.95, paper).

“On the Eve of the Millennium: The Future of Democracy Through an Age of Unreason,” by Conor Cruise O’Brien (Free Press, 167 pp.; $12, paper).

“Political Religion: A Liberal Answers the Question, ‘Should Politics and Religion Mix?’” by Charles R. Stith (Abingdon, 160 pp.; $14.95, paper).

“Saints as Citizens: A Guide to Public Responsibilities for Christians,” by Timothy R. Sherratt and Ronald P. Mahurin (Baker/ Center for Public Justice, 123 pp.; $7.99, paper).

“Building a Community of Citizens: Civil Society in the Twenty-first Century,” ed. by Don E. Eberly (University Press of America/Commonwealth Foundation, 376 pp.; $75, hardcover; $29.50, paper).

******************

Bruce Barron was for four years an aide to Congressman (now Senator) Rick Santorum, R-Pa. His book “Politics for the People,” a guide to politics for the average reader, has just been released by InterVarsity.

Copyright (c) 1996 Christianity Today, Inc./CHRISTIANITY TODAY Magazine April 29, 1996, Vol. 40, No. 5, Page 35 ctap2996mrj6T50356417

Anyone, even a half-breed with five husbands or a thief nailed to a cross, was welcome to join Jesus' kingdom.

Because cartoons reveal a lot about the general drift of culture, I have been collecting a few around a common theme:

* The New Yorker magazine pictured a waiter in an expensive restaurant

explaining the menu to a patron: "The ones with asterisks are those

recommended by the religious right."

* A nationally syndicated political cartoonist drew a church building

displaying a "Christian Coalition" sign. A voice inside says, "Reverend

Falwell, Reverend Robertson, there's a gentleman waiting outside to see

you. He says he's not a Republican." Their reply: "Tell him to get lost!"

Outside the church stands Jesus.

* Yet another cartoon pictures a classic American church building with a sign

out front, "First Church of Anti-Clinton."

As recent elections show, the culture wars are heating up on both sides. Even as Christians feel like an embattled minority with their values under constant attack, the surrounding secular culture sees Christians as a growing threat.

I fully support the right and, indeed, the responsibility of Christians to get involved in politics. In moral crusades such as abolition, civil rights, and anti-abortion efforts, Christians have led the way. I do worry, though, about an increasing tendency to see the labels "evangelical Christian" and "Religious Right" as interchangeable. The gospel of Jesus was not primarily a political platform.

People in Jesus' time who looked to him as their political savior were constantly befuddled by his choice of companions. He became known as a friend of tax collectors, a group clearly identified with the foreign exploiters. Though he denounced the religious system of his day, he treated a leader like Nicodemus with respect, and though he spoke against the dangers of money and violence, he showed love and compassion toward a rich young ruler and a Roman centurion.

In short, Jesus honored the dignity of men and women whether he agreed with them or not. Anyone, even a half-breed with five husbands or a thief nailed to a cross, was welcome to join his kingdom. The person was more important than any category or label.

I feel convicted by this quality of Jesus every time I get involved in a cause I strongly believe in. How easy it is to join the politics of polarization, to find myself shouting across the picket lines at the "enemy" on the other side. How hard it is to remember that the kingdom of God calls me to love the woman who has just emerged from the abortion clinic (and, yes, even her doctor), the promiscuous person who is dying of aids, the wealthy landowner who is exploiting God's creation. If I have trouble loving such people, I need to ask if I have understood Jesus' gospel.

A political movement by nature draws lines, makes distinctions, pronounces judgment; in contrast, Jesus' love cuts across lines, transcends distinctions, and dispenses grace. If my activism drives out such love, I betray his kingdom.

I recently attended a play based on stories from a support group comprising people with aids. The theater director decided to stage the play after hearing a local minister state that he celebrated each time he read an obituary of a young, single man, believing each death to be yet another sign of God's disapproval. Increasingly, I fear, the church is viewed as an enemy of sinners.

How does one hold to high standards of moral purity while, at the same time, showing grace to those who fail to meet those standards? Christian history offers few facsimiles of the pattern Jesus laid down. We give lip service to "hate the sin while loving the sinner," but how well do we practice this principle?

The early church began well, placing a high premium on moral purity. Baptismal candidates had to undergo long periods of instruction, and church discipline was rigorously enforced. Yet even pagan observers were attracted to the way Christians cared for each other and devoted themselves to the sick and the poor.

A major change took place with the emperor Constantine, who first legalized Christianity and made it a state-subsidized religion. At the time, his reign appeared to be the faith's greatest triumph: the emperor was now using state funds to build churches and sponsor theological conferences, rather than persecuting Christians for not worshiping him. Sadly, the triumph did not come without cost. The state began appointing bishops and other church officers, and a hierarchy grew up that neatly replicated the hierarchy of the empire itself.

Ever since Constantine, the church has faced the temptation of becoming the "morals police" of society. The Catholic church in the Middle Ages, Calvin's Geneva, Cromwell's England, Winthrop's New England, the Russian Orthodox Church -- each of these has attempted to legislate a form of Christian morality, and each has in its own way found it hard to communicate grace.

I realize, as I reflect on the life of Jesus, how far we have come from the divine balance he set out for us. In the sermons and writings of contemporary evangelicals, I sometimes detect more of Constantine than of Jesus. The man from Nazareth was a sinless friend of sinners, a pattern that should convict us on both counts.

Copyright (c) 1995 Christianity Today, Inc./CHRISTIANITY TODAY Magazine

#3981

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Duties of a Christian citizen, according to Jonathan Edwards:

1) We have a responsibility to society beyond the walls of the church.

2) We should not hesitate to join forces with non-Christians in the public square to work toward common moral goals.

3) We should support our government but be ready to criticize it when conscience demands.

4) Christians should remember that politics is comparatively unimportant in the long run.

5) Christians should be aware of national pride.

6) Christians should care for the poor.

[see #4139 for expanded, original version.]

The rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Holocaust that killed 6 million Jews happened because Christians failed "to make a difference" in Germany in the years preceding World War II, Baptist ethicist David Gushee said at a national seminar March 5.

The Christian response to Hitler "is a story so tragic, with Christian failure so glaring and with consequences so horrendous that it needs to be burned into the consciousness of every Christian person who walks on the face of the earth," said Gushee, author of the recent book "The Righteous Gentiles of the Holocaust."

Gushee, assistant professor of Christian ethics at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., spoke at the Southern Baptist Christian Life Commission's 29th annual national seminar, titled "Christians in the Public Square: Faith in Practice?", held March 4-6 in Washington.

"German Christians failed because they carried into the crisis years a badly truncated political vision," Gushee said.

Learning from Germany's example, "we must not understand the political life of our own or any nation merely as a struggle between a purer-than-the-driven-snow Christianity on the one hand" and godless secularism on the other, Gushee said.

"Sometimes it is a struggle between competing versions of Christianity," he said. "It is perversions of Christian faith that pose the greatest danger," he said.

Many Christians in Nazi Germany not only failed to oppose Hitler, but even welcomed his appeals to rebuilding national pride and his promoting of "positive Christianity." Many German Protestants either ignored or were not bothered by the Nazi Party platform's caveat that Christianity should be consistent "with the moral feelings of the German race" and Hitler's scapegoating of Jews for all of Germany's ills, Gushee said.

German Protestants were susceptible to Hitler's propaganda for four reasons, Gushee said, noting parallels for Christians involved in American politics today:

A "LONGSTANDING IDENTIFICATION OF TRADITIONAL GERMAN CULTURAL VALUES WITH CHRISTIANITY."

The Nazis called for patriotism, hard work, thriftiness, loyalty, obedience, moral decency and honor, Gushee said. "They were 'family-values' candidates of the first order," he said, borrowing a term from current debate.

Christians in Nazi Germany made the mistake of "collapsing their understanding of the Christian faith in morality into total identification with these values" while ignoring other biblical norms such as the call for peacemaking and justice for all people, Gushee said.

"Far too frequently we Christians do the same thing today," Gushee commented. "We pick a cluster of values and baptize these as Christian. We vote for politicians who articulate those cultural values and are especially enthusiastic about those who skillfully baptize these values in a Christian vocabulary."

"When we do this, we fall prey to a cultural captivity that robs the church of its independence and of any ability to separate the wheat from the chaff," he said.

A "SELF-INTEREST DESIRE" TO MAINTAIN FAVORED POLITICAL AND LEGAL STATUS IN THE NATION.

Though Hitler was secretly anti-Christian, he came to power by assuring churches they were "the most important factor safeguarding our national heritage" and promising churches the influence due them as the institutions providing "the unshakable foundations of our people's ethical and moral life," Gushee said.

Gushee urged Christians today to avoid being manipulated by politicians who promise them political gain. "A church that is consumed by self-interest is no different than any other player in the political arena," he said.

A "LONG HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ANTI-SEMITISM" THAT "LEFT THE CHURCH OPEN TO NAZI RACISM AND POLITICAL ANTI-SEMITISM."

"Because all human beings are made in the image of God and are equally and immeasurably valuable in his sight, anti-Semitism or any form of racial hatred is sufficient to disqualify a political party or political leader from Christian consideration," Gushee said.

"Do Christians know this today?" Gushee queried, noting that anti-Semitism was "such a part and parcel of average Protestant life in 1920s Germany" that few Christians were troubled by Hitler's announced plans to deport Jews.

AN "EROSION OF THOUGHTFUL THEOLOGICAL ORTHODOXY" WHICH "LEFT THE CHURCHES OPEN TO THEOLOGICAL AND MORAL CONFUSION ABOUT WHAT ADOLF HITLER WAS."

Gushee blamed classical theological liberalism, which had its headquarters in Germany, with undermining confidence in the Bible's authority and truthfulness, opening Germans to all kinds of theological experimentation and weakening the resistance of German churches to Nazism.

Because of that, German churches "were bamboozled" by a Hitler who presented himself as a kind of political messiah.

"This accusation is not original to me but emerged from within Germany itself from such people as Karl Barth and others," Gushee said.

Gushee warned that "flabby" theology prevalent in many American churches could also allow modern Christians to be led astray. "In normal times such a problem is bad enough," he said. "In times of social stress, it can be devastating. Behold Adolf Hitler -- defender of the church, upholder of morality, savior of a nation. Behold the consequences of Christian theological negligence."

RNabpmrjA63076312

#4136

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Sermon on political influence and involvement. Jeremiah 18:1-10

=======================

HAVING FAITH IN AMERICA

=======================

I. Is America a Christian nation?

II. Going against the tide. #3453

A. A flood of sub-Christian behavior.

B. Condescension and hostility.

C. Extremism.

III. How do you bring about real change?

A. The political illusion.

B. The spiritual solution.

C. Where do you stand?

IV. Public opinion and morality can be changed.

A. Christian social movements.

B. What is happening today.

V. Stand up and be counted.

A. Christians cannot "take back America."

B. Be a Christian where you are.

C. Think like a Christian.

D. Speak out on the hard issues.

E. Do it in love.

VI. One can make a difference.

#4212

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Does the public have the right to snoop on its political leaders? Character and morality remain important.

1. Sin stains not only politicians, but media and church leaders as well.

2. Not even civil government requires inner purity.

3. Some matters of private conduct have no bearing on qualification for

the presidency or any other public office.

4. Resentment of the media for exposure of inconsistencies is misdirected.

5. The religious facets of public policy issues are often deliberately

highlighted by those who champion Judeo-Christian values vis-a-vis

secular humanism. Americans expect fidelity and truth from leaders.

6. The saddest aspect of the immorality controversy among politicians is

the choice of some to see the concentration on personal character as

a sign of national unbalance and weakness.

7. Although the Constitution prohibits a religious test for office, the

question of one's religious views is relevant insofar as they bear

upon political commitments. Almost all legislation has moral

implications.

8. What the political arena desperately needs is not merely better parties,

platforms, and policies, but better persons.

9. In the last analysis, sound political judgment requires a verdict on

policy no less than on character.

CHRISTIAN ENGAGEMENT IN AN ERA OF POLITICAL RANCOR.

When I was growing up in the evangelical world, we did not think that it was appropriate to be involved in public life. One of our favorite songs was: "This world is not my home, I'm just a-passing through..... And I can't feel at home in this world anymore." We were a faithful band of believers in a world that was headed for destruction. Our main task was to warn others of the wrath that is to come and invite them to join the spiritual minority whose wealth is stored up in a place where moth and rust do not corrupt.

As a graduate student in the 1960s, I became convinced that evangelical Christians should be actively involved in the political process, and I engaged in such activities, often with a sense of deep alienation from the evangelical community. Later, I used my position in academia to call for an aggressive evangelical involvement in movements of social, political, and economic reform.

Currently, I am much more ambivalent about that whole project, given the ways in which evangelicals have become aggressively "public" in their social witness during the past few decades. There are times when I wish I could call off the whole thing, urging the evangelical community to return to its earlier posture of politically passive other-worldliness.

Yet, I am not ready to retract what I said 20 years ago by silencing the evangelical voice in the public arena. The better strategy is to understand the reasons for the current grassroots, evangelical political involvement and to encourage evangelical reflection about an appropriate Christian witness to society.

THE WAY WE ARE

Like our pietist forebears, we North American evangelicals stress the need for a religion of "the heart." To be a Christian is to experience inner regeneration in a very personal way. "Only changed hearts can change society," we like to say. This is why our activism is often expressed in a passion for "personal evangelism" rather than a concern for politics and the welfare of society.

Strictly speaking, though, there is no contradiction between an emphasis on personal experience and a commitment to social change. In fact, within our own heritage, there are prominent examples of evangelicals combining a strong experientialism with social activism: John Wesley's bettering the lot of the poor is one; William Wilberforce's crusade against slavery is another.

Despite these heroes of the faith, the truth is, we vacillate when it comes to political engagement. Evangelicals have tended to shy away from social reform movements whenever we slip into an apocalyptic mood; but when there seems good reason to expect a modest degree of success at social reform, we are capable of cultivating a passion for political activism.

In colonial America the political impulse was strong. The Puritans saw themselves as the new Israel, an elect people -- a theocratic society viewed as the fulfillment of the prophecy that the Lord would raise up a people who would serve as a "light to the nations," a "city set upon a hill." These motifs are glimpsed in the hymn "America the Beautiful," where Holy City symbols are applied directly to the American nation.

This Puritan notion of America's divine appointment among the nations, however, was suppressed for at least a century, starting in the last half of the nineteenth century. The Darwinian crisis and the rise of a secularist spirit in American public life brought about a deep cultural disillusionment among our evangelical forebears. We had moved from the New Israel to the New Babylon. "America the Beautiful" was replaced by "This World Is Not My Home."

This was the mood of evangelicalism 20 years ago. But today things have again tipped the other way. One need only observe this year's presidential campaign to see the prominence of evangelicals on the political scene. How did the change of mood occur?

First, in recent decades we evangelicals began to feel an intensified cultural desperation as secularism and the "sexual revolution" began to dominate the public arena. As pornography, homosexual rights, abortion-on-demand, rising divorce rates, and sex education in the schools became increasingly prominent on the cultural agenda, it became difficult to think of ourselves as a remnant group capable of protecting ourselves from cultural forces. The very fabric of family life, even within our sheltered communities, was now threatened by these new trends.

Second, we evangelicals have been undergoing a significant shift in social location involving a high rate of upward mobility. We have had a special knack for mastering new technologies as evidenced in the use of church-growth techniques, mass media in televangelism, and the flourishing of megachurches. Martin Marty has observed that the old distinction between evangelicals and "mainline" Protestants is no longer operative, since evangelicals have become the mainline.

This sense of a cultural crisis and the attainment of social leverage resulted in a new activism. We felt we had the power, status, and agenda to fix America's problems.

In the process of this renewed political fervor, though, some long-standing theological formulations were altered. Seeing ourselves as a remnant does not sit comfortably with today's prospering, upwardly mobile evangelicals. Hence, we have switched from a remnant, apocalyptic mentality to the other political theology deep within our collective unconscious: a "chosen nation" triumphalism.

Much of this shift has happened instinctively, however. As a church, we allow cultural withdrawal or theocratic triumphalism to dominate our collective patterns for a while, as befits our cultural mood. We tend to shift from one stance to the other without nuanced reflection on the basic issues of public life and how Christians should make a witness to it.

THINKING BEFORE WE ACT

As an evangelical who cares about theologically appropriate patterns of Christian political engagement, I am convinced we need to engage in careful thinking about how our basic perspectives on life can contribute to political dialogue in the United States. Neither a theocratic triumphalism nor a withdrawing separatism is adequate for addressing the political challenges for the church today.

Our challenge today is to determine how religious convictions can engage public life in a pluralistic context. There is much confusion on this issue of how faith can and does influence public life, but the confusion is not perpetuated by conservative Christians alone. Many cultured despisers of religion dismiss faith as irrelevant to issues facing the public sector, or they typically depict religious conviction as a dangerous presence in the public square. Echoing Rousseau, they argue that people who have strong religious convictions cannot be good citizens, because they will inevitably exhibit intolerance in the civil realm.

This assumption that strong convictions and toleration don't mix relates to evangelicalism in both its activist and its inactivist phases. When we have stayed aloof from public life, it was often because of a sense that people with strong moral and religious beliefs do not fit well into the public square where tolerance is a key virtue. In recent decades, evangelical activists have seemed to be convinced that toleration should be avoided, but they have become more hopeful about the successful promotion of a politics imbued with strong convictions. We have to ask: Is it possible to provide a framework for an evangelical activism that preserves strong convictions but places a high value on toleration?

Recently I was on a panel of three persons who had published books about religion and public life. One panelist based his case for Christian toleration of pluralism on the presumption of an underlying human unity: Christians should be tolerant of a plurality of viewpoints in the public square because the differences do not really go that deep. The other panelist also called for a Christian endorsement of pluralism, but she did so because she believed that the radical diversity that marks the human condition is a very good thing.

I agreed with the first copanelist that human unity is a good thing, but unlike him, I do not think we have very much of it; and like the second panelist, I am convinced there are deep and seemingly ineradicable differences, but unlike her, I think this situation is regrettable. They each exhibited a different contemporary tendency: the one discounts the depth of human differences; the other treats the existence of deep differences as a cause for rejoicing.

Christian toleration can never rightly align itself with an anything-goes relativism. In our culture we often hear someone ask rhetorically: "Who is in a position to tell other people what is right and wrong for them?" suggesting that each person is his or her own reliable guide to the basic issues of life. From a Christian perspective, the question has a definite answer: God is in a position to tell us how we ought to think and act. The divine Creator has fashioned us in accordance with his wise purposes, and God has given us instructions for living that "fit life's designs" (Lewis Smedes).

We Christians should not simply impose our beliefs and convictions on others, however. In God's wise design, human beings are created with the capacity for free choice. God does not want grudging service from us; God wants our freely offered obedience. Christians witness best to God's revelation when we invite others to consider the convictions associated with the way of discipleship: "O taste and see that the Lord is good; happy are those who take refuge in him" (Ps. 34:8). Inviting others to consider discipleship is a highly appropriate means of Christian witness in a pluralistic culture.

The Scriptures regularly portray God as "long-suffering" in dealing with rebellious humans. We are living, to use a Mennonite phrase, "in the time of God's patience." In accordance with a wise and mysterious plan for creation, God has chosen not to rush to judgment. In the human realm, people are relatively free to follow through on their basic life choices, for good or for ill.

This state of affairs will not continue forever, however. Divine judgment is coming. Two lessons here are important for nurturing Christian toleration. First, it is for God to decide when the final accounting will take place. Until then, Christians must share in the divine patience, tolerating the beliefs and values that people have chosen for living. The primary Christian obligations are to demonstrate what it means to live in obedience to God, and to invite others to join in that way of life through faith in Jesus Christ.

The second lesson is that God alone will do the final judging. The decisive verdict as to who is "in" and who is "out" is for the Lord alone to make. On that day, no one will be saved except by sovereign mercy. To absorb these supremely important lessons is to learn humility, which is foundational to Christian toleration. This humility does not exclude Christians advocating social and political policies that conflict with the views and practices of others. It does mean we should do so in a way that encourages reasonable dialogue and mutual respect.

I agree with John Calvin that involvement in public life provides the opportunity "to shape our manners in accordance with civil justice." This holds for our present-day public arena as much as for Calvin's Geneva. Such an obligation is quite compatible with strong Christian convictions. If God and God alone is the judge of heaven and earth, and if we are presently living in the time of God's patience, then it is quite proper for Christians to cultivate such traits as toleration, civility, and humility for our participation in public conversations. Indeed, the Christian faith provides best the resources for cultivating these traits.

AN ETHIC FOR THE MEANTIME

Christians can best avoid a triumphalism in public activities by developing an "ethic for the interim" that recognizes the need for patience as we await the future judgment. Christian discipleship, suggests John Murray Cuddihy, "puts a ban on all ostentation and triumphalism for the time being, before the [Lord's] return, at which time alone triumphalism becomes appropriate and fitting." For Christians, trying to claim our glory here and now "is precisely vain glory -- it is vulgar, empty, and in bad theological taste. 'Whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased; and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted' (Matt. 23:12)" ("No Offense: Civil Religion and Protestant Taste;" Seabury Press, 1978).

The posture of public modesty that I am advocating does not presuppose an ultimate synthesis of what are, in fact, only apparent differences. Nazism, Marxism, monarchism, Jeffersonian democracy, and the politics of ethnic cleansing will all eventually face the Day of Judgment. The conflict is real: truth and righteousness must someday win out over all falsehood and oppression. The triumph, however, will belong to God. Our appropriate creaturely response to that victory will be one of humble gratitude and not smug vindication.

The contest between diverse visions of life cannot finally be decided by political means; politics does not provide us with the resources necessary for adjudicating the conflicting claims that give rise to our differences in the public arena. The outcome of such contests can only be awaited. In the meantime, opportunities for political cooperation should be employed as much as possible, keeping ourselves in suspense as we anticipate the future, facing the present with a tolerant openness that is not grounded in indifference but is animated by the hope that, in the end, all that is important to our patterns of public life will be touched by the divine shalom.

To tolerate something, of course, is not to accept it as justified. The tolerance I am prescribing for evangelicals does not rule out a genuine apprehension of harmful and even destructive consequences that accompany the promotion of certain visions of life. What will the ideology of secular liberalism do to the public square? What will result from the inroads of Islam into the free societies of the West? Such questions are important ones.

Tolerance does not mean acquiescence. A Christian vision anticipates a public arena where righteousness and justice prevail; this vision, however, will never be fully realized until the eschaton arrives. The public square as we presently experience it has to be seen against the background of the eternal horizon of the Heavenly City. Nevertheless, for those of us who embrace a partially realized eschatology, it is not unrealistic to expect signs of that city here and now.

This yearning makes us bold to join others in the human quest for a healthy public arena. On that journey, we hope to experience mysterious and surprising inklings of a larger kind of love that can take concrete shape -- even in the midst of our highly pluralistic context-in new forms of citizenship and community.

Again, none of this comes easily. We must work hard and think hard about what it takes to promote the necessary spiritual formation for our faithful participation in public life. What Luther said about the difficulty of being a Christian prince applies equally well in our own day to any Christian who seeks to take part in public life: such a person, if she is spiritually vigilant, will soon feel the cross lying on her neck.

Perhaps, as the philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre has suggested, we are already in the new dark ages. A major cosmic conflict may soon come. But the case for toleration holds even if the apocalyptic scenario turns out to be the correct one.

We should seize the present opportunities for humble participation in the conversation about the social good we can seek together. This brand of tolerant openness does not flow from indifference but from the firm conviction that, in the end, our record of public discipleship will be judged not by the number of our victories but by the quality of our faithfulness. It is important for the sake of that faithfulness that some of us will want to think carefully about how our theology and spirituality can give healthy shape to our patterns of public witness.

______________________

Richard J. Mouw is president of Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, California.

Copyright (c) 1996 Christianity Today, Inc./CHRISTIANITY TODAY Magazine

July 15, 1996, Vol. 40, No. 8, Page 33

ctjul96mrj6T8033679o

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We are in a cultural war, and at the center of it is a major offensive against Christianity. Anyone who does not believe this is in denial. It is in-your-face obvious to those who read the paper, listen to the radio, watch television, or go to the movies -- and think about what messages are being delivered.

The latest evidence of Christian bashing is the wise-off comment by Minnesota Gov. Jesse "The Mouth" Ventura in the current issue of Playboy. Flexing his monstrous ego, Ventura blurted out this bit of bigotry: "Organized religion is a sham and a crutch for weak-minded people. ... It tells them to go out and stick their nose in other people's business."

He expressed an intolerant, divisive view that has become the prevailing view of America's self-professed intellectual elite and the left-wing radicals who control the Democrat Party -- as well as a strong majority of the mainstream liberal media.

Ventura attempts to conceal his anti-religious bigotry by declaring himself "neutral" on moral issues. But there is no such thing as being "neutral" on moral issues. There is an old saying that the only thing required for evil to prevail is for good men and women to do nothing. To paraphrase another verity, if you do not stand against evil, you stand for it; you are either with Him, or you are against Him.

This is not an academic argument. It has to do with the survival of any government "of the people." It has to do with the relationship between religion-based morality and self-government.

Thomas Jefferson asked the question, "Can the liberties of a nation be sure when we remove their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God?"

John Adams put it this way: "We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."

In Volume 1 of Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville observed that "... liberty cannot be established without morality, nor morality without faith."

Will and Ariel Durant, in their classic book, "The Lessons of History," asked themselves this question: "Does history warrant the conclusion that religion is necessary to morality -- that a natural ethic is too weak to withstand the savagery that lurks under civilization and emerges in our dreams, crimes and wars?"

This was their answer: "There is no significant example in history, before our time, of a society successfully maintaining moral life without the aid of religion."

If religious principles are so fundamentally a part of our heritage, why are they under such violent attack?

Two basic reasons underlie the attempt to separate America from its spiritual roots. First, the liberal goal of state socialism is incompatible with a citizenry who look to themselves and to God, rather than the state, for the satisfaction of their needs. Socialism requires that citizens do obeisance to the state as the Source from which all blessings flow. The supreme State can have no other God before it.

The second reason for outlawing religion derives from the lobbying of those who wish their sins declared virtues. They seek the validation of the law, in the futile belief that the legal right to be wrong makes wrong right.

The rationale of the anti-religious bigots in our society is that moral values such as are practiced by most mainstream religions, for example, Southern Baptists and Catholics, are, if you can believe it, un-Christian. This ill-begotten idea that Jesus wants us to forego distinctions between good and evil and right and wrong is so ludicrous as to be laughable.

While heathens are selling the idea that Christian love means stupidity, legal charlatans are using the First Amendment to protect public obscenity, pornography and flag-burning. They have no problem with anti-Christian hate speech framed as art and hung in the taxpayer-funded Brooklyn Museum, but are appalled at the idea of religious speech and expression, particularly in government schools, where children might be listening.

They are advocates of a separation of state and religion and a marriage of state and anti-religious smut.

The people are told by arrogant judges that moral discernment is equivalent to bigotry. They are advised that the Constitution does not grant people the right to establish the rules of civility and set the standards of decency by which they wish to live.

The Constitution no longer protects us. It has become, in the hands of unaccountable, power-corrupted judges, an instrument of our oppression.

It is time for all good men and women to come to the aid of their country.

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© 1999 Creators Syndicate, Inc.

WorldNetDaily contributor Linda Bowles is a nationally syndicated columnist. She and her husband, Warren, have one daughter, Michelle, and live on a ranch situated on the western slope of the California Sierras.

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According to conservative pundits, the culture war is over -- and conservatives lost.

Well, someone forgot to tell the American Civil Liberties Union.

The other day I received a letter from Ira Glasser, the ACLU's executive director. Now, why the ACLU had targeted me as a potential supporter and donor is a mystery. But I'm glad they sent me the letter, because I learned a lot from it. It suggests that the culture war is far from over, and that conservatives just might be winning, after all.

The tone of the ACLU letter was urgent, almost hysterical. Recipients were warned about "a very loud and dangerous bunch" who have managed to get themselves "entrenched in the corridors of power." Really?

If you guessed that this "bunch" is conservative Christians, go to the head of the class.

It appears the ACLU has figured out what Christian activists are really up to. You may have thought that we push certain political views because we believe they are the right ones, and that implementing them will be good for our society.

But you would be wrong. According to Glasser, what we're really after is to "remake our country ... in the image" of a "deceitful brand of morality" that we've "fabricated."

In the eyes of the ACLU, Christians are so powerful that we can bend the laws of physics to suit our purposes. Really! We're attempting to reverse the flow of time and return our country to the 1950s, notwithstanding Einstein's Theory of Special Relativity.

And contrary to the defeatist rhetoric you may have heard from discouraged conservatives, the ACLU says that we religious conservatives are terrifyingly close to achieving our objectives. The letter urges recipients to join the ACLU "while there is still time" because Christians may radically change America "over the next few years."

From Glasser's mouth to God's ears.

Like most fundraising appeals, the ACLU's letter is heavy on the drama and overstates the case more than a little. And, of course, it misrepresents the motives of Christians at every possible turn.

But when you cut through the histrionics, it's clear the ACLU and its secularist allies are running scared. They see evidence of a cultural backlash against the secularist liberalism that they and their allies in the courts have tried to impose on Americans.

But you don't need the ACLU to tell you that the culture wars are far from over. Over the past few months, I've told you about how Christians in Alabama and South Carolina defeated the gambling lobby. I've told you about how Breakpoint listeners got Amazon.com to stop selling a book promoting pedophilia.

No wonder the ACLU is nervous. They read the signs Of the times as well as we do.

Well, the ACLU letter, despite its outrageous tone, serves a very good purpose -- it reminds us that any talk of surrender in the culture wars is premature. Our neighbors are beginning to see the damage wrought on our culture by the very brand of secular liberalism peddled by the ACLU. And they don't like it.

It has fortified my resolve.

That's why I'm glad I got that fundraising letter from the ACLU. No, I didn't send them a contribution. But I just might drop them a "thank you" note.

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Copyright (c) 2000 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

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The word religion is eight letters long, but for some in the media these days you'd think it was the latest four-letter word.

Consider: A few weeks ago, George W. Bush said that the thinker who most influenced his life was Jesus. From the reactions of pundits and talking- heads, you'd have thought the governor had said Adolf Hitler.

Add to that the sniping at candidates Gary Bauer and Alan Keyes -- both accused of fronting for the Religious Right.

And then there's the latest brouhaha over Rudolph Giuliani's fundraising letter. The Mayor dared to say that Hillary Clinton opposes government funding for faith-based ministries. And he reminded voters that she had criticized his efforts to shut down that outrageous exhibit -- so offensive to Christians -- at the Brooklyn Museum of Art.

Once again, the press attacked Giuliani for "injecting religion into this race." And Mrs. Clinton herself expressed "outrage."

Well, this is just one more sign of the growing animus against religion in America. Government funding of the arts and religious groups is a legitimate public-policy concern, and a natural topic for political campaigns. Besides, if you open a history book, you'll find that politicians have always carried on debates over religion.

We see this clearly in the British system of government, the roots of our own. In 1906, Hilaire Belloc ran for election to the British Parliament. A Catholic in a Protestant country, Belloc knew his religion would be a campaign issue. In his first speech, he said straight out: "I am a Catholic. As far as possible, I go to Mass every day. As far as possible I [pray] every day."

Then he told the audience: "If you reject me on account of my religion, I shall thank God that He has spared me the indignity of being your representative."

Well, Belloc won.

We saw the same bold approach in 1960 when candidate John Kennedy's Catholicism was a raging issue. Kennedy answered the question put to him in his famous speech before the Houston Ministerial Association, saying, "I will make my decision[s] in accordance with what my conscience tells me to be in the national interest. No threat of punishment could cause me to decide otherwise."

And religion was a big part of the 1864 campaign, too. As Julia Vitullo-Martin notes in the Wall Street Journal, it "was probably the most religiously driven national election in American history." In the midst of multiple Union defeats, Lincoln announced, "It is my earnest desire to know the will of Providence and [to] do it." Anti-slavery clergy campaigned vigorously for Lincoln, whom they believed was on God's side.

Yet today, the press feigns shock to find religion in political campaigns. In reality, this public gnashing of teeth is merely the latest weapon-of- choice for those who think they can denigrate their opponents by accusing them of addressing the most important question of all: how a candidate's faith will affect his decisions.

We need to teach our neighbors that religion has rightfully been a part of politics for centuries. It's essential that we understand each candidate's views, and how he intends to act on them in office. Those who challenge the legitimate expression of religious views are the one who are exploiting the religion issue. So ignore them, and listen to what each candidate says about his core values -- and then cast your votes accordingly.

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Copyright (c) 2000 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

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“What causes the greatest crimes in history? The greatest bloodshed? The most murders? I would say two things: sincere love and a sincere devotion to liberty. . . . If you kill out of love or for a perfect utopia, you never stop killing because human nature is always imperfect. Robespierre, rightly called ‘the incorruptible,’ was more sincere than Danton and always found somebody deviating just a little bit from true liberty.”

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Peter Viereck, conservative theorist and history professor, in his 1997 lecture at Mount Holyoke College, his final one before retiring; his lecture was titled “The Messiness of History.” He is warning his students of the dangers of trying to democratize the world.

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[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #29958]

ORIGINAL VERSION

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he's a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The grasshopper has no food or shelter so he dies out in the cold.

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MODERN AMERICAN VERSION

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he's a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others are cold and starving.

CBS, NBC and ABC show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food.

America is stunned by the sharp contrast. How can it be that, in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?

Then a representative of the NAGB (The National Association of Green Bugs) shows up on nightline and charges the ant with green bias, and makes the case that the grasshopper is the victim of 30 million years of greenism.

Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper, and everybody cries when he sings “It's not easy being green.”

Bill and Hillary Clinton make a special guest appearance on the CBS Evening News to tell a concerned Dan Rather that they will do everything they can for the grasshopper who has been denied the prosperity he deserves by those who benefited unfairly during the Reagan summers.

Richard Gephardt exclaims in an interview with Peter Jennings that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and calls for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his “fair share.”

Finally, the EEOC drafts the “Economic Equity and Anti-Greenism Act” retroactive to the beginning of the summer. The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the government.

Hillary gets her old law firm to represent the grasshopper in a defamation suit against the ant, and the case is tried before a panel of federal hearing officers that Bill appointed from a list of single-parent welfare moms who can only hear cases on Thursday's between 1:30 and 3 PM.

THE ANT LOSES THE CASE

The story ends as we see the grasshopper finishing up the last bits of the ant's food while the government house he's in, which just happens to be the ant's old house, crumbles around him since he doesn't know how to maintain it. The ant has disappeared in the snow. And on the TV, which the grasshopper bought by selling most of the ant's food, they are showing Bill Clinton standing before a wildly applauding group of Democrats and Republicans announcing that a new era of “fairness” has dawned in America.

Could it be that the New Testament envisions something that transcends political action? In a book by Tom Robbins, "Even Cowgirls Get the Blues," there is a conversation between two of the characters:

"You really don't believe in political solutions, do you?" one asks.

The other responded: "I believe in political solutions to political problems. But man's primary problems aren't political; they're philosophical. Until humans can solve their philosophical problems, they're condemned to solve their political problems over and over and over again. It's a cruel, repetitious bore."