Article VI Blog

FIRST ITEM

The pastors in this story share pretty much the same philosophy I do when it comes to mixing religion and politics. (HT: RedBlueChristian) I would prefer that pretty much everyone involved in politics be religiously affiliated, but I’m don’t think the church proper should be “doing” politics - it robs from the church’s mission as Sheep’s Crib and iMonk seem to think.

And yet, the left seems terrified of some sort of Christocracy. (Example Two - Example Three, HT: RedBlueChristian) Which raises some interesting questions. Are articles like that linked in the first paragraph (there was another in the NYTimes earlier this week) efforts by the left to neutralize the “religious vote” or are they efforts by the right to combat the “Christianism” arguements of the left? This may answer the question as I ask it.

I must comment that in my experience the only people that completely intermingle their faith and their politics are those of the religious left, wherein their politics become their religion, and they assume the same must be true for people of faith. Except maybe for one of the candidates in this article, not sure bringing about religious conversion is good government policy, even in foreign relations.

Side note on the Sullivan/Hewitt thing linked above. The problem, Mr. Sullivan, is not that there are not extremist Christians, but that you define quite mainstream Christian as such. Call me when you have evidence of Christians trying to usher in the second coming with nuclear weapons.

Lowell adds: The idea that people of faith should pay close attention to politics and support the election of good men and women, but that the church itself ought to stay out of politics, is one that I pretty much was raised with and is the long-standing offiicial policy of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints:

We urge Church members to study the issues and candidates carefully and prayerfully and then vote for those they believe will most nearly carry out their ideas of good government. Latter-day Saints are under special obligation to seek out and then uphold leaders who will act with integrity and are “wise,” “good,” and “honest.”

That simply makes sense to me, and I think the pastors quoted in the story John links to would agree. In fact, they’d probably happily insert “All Christians” into the above statement where the term “Latter-day Saint” appears.

SECOND ITEM

We appear to have our first critic. Please - deal with our arguments, do not make suppositions about what we would and would not do in hypothetical situations, nor quote to us the very article of the constitution we named the blog after. If you had actually read anything we have written here, you would find the same quote in the upper left there, and you would find that we do not think a “Kennedy separation” will work for Romney.

THIRD ITEM

Back to “tarbaby” for a minute. This is why it worried me. Although, isn’t the accusation of “hate-mongering” often a form of hate-mongering in and of itself? Lowell: Yes; and moreover, I think that those who find this writer’s thoughts persuasive already have their minds made up about Romney anyway.Â Still, I suspect Romney learned something important from this incident.

FOURTH ITEM

All politics are local. So, can a candidate who is unpopular, even somewhat reviled at home, succeed nationally? Should they? In a media age where image often overtakes reality, I think it quite possible for an upopular politician to succeed away from home, but if they have problems governing at home, one must wonder about about their ability to do so elsewhere. Although in this case we are talking about a Republican governor in the bluest of states.

ONE SENTENCE ITEMS

The man has the organizational skills - unquestionably. Robert Novak seems to agree.

Using the Governors Conference for presidential bids.
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