Article VI Blog

That is the question I had to ask myself when I was reading the news yesterday. We noted yesterday that there was a debate within evangelical circles as to the how politics and religion are supposed to intersect. That fact notwithstanding, Henry Brinton notes in a USAToday Op-Ed that the religious right is far from dead.

These reports are at the very least premature, and in all likelihood dead wrong. High-profile leaders will come and go, but the strength and commitment of conservative Christians on the front lines of parish life are as strong as ever.

I think he is right and he raises an interesting point, it’s not about Falwell, or Dobson, or Huckabee, it is about us. Although, it appears that some of that leadership is on the verge of political, and perhaps ecclesiastical suicide.

“The pastors need to speak more clearly about it,” Cureton said. “I’ll tell you that we are working with the Alliance Defense Fund on a series of sermons this fall for pastors to preach, so that they educate their people on the issues. We’re going to be talking about the value of life, the value of family and the value of freedom–basically talking about abortion and stem-cell research and then also about the gay agenda and then finally about our Christian heritage and how it’s being stripped from every corner of our society. And finally we’re going to be doing a candidate-comparison message that is going to ask pastors to cross the line.”

“Really?” a surprised-sounding Folger replied. “What do you mean cross the line? Are you going to be suggesting who they vote for?”

“Well we’re going to go to pastors and say to them that we really believe that they need to challenge some of the thinking that we have going on in our society, which is that separation of church and state doctrine, that we really need to preach the Bible on these issues and apply them to the things that are going on in the culture today,” Cureton said.

Rob Boston of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State said the line being crossed might be a legal one. The Internal Revenue Service forbids certain non-profit organizations from involvement in political campaigns. While churches may speak out on political issues, they must refrain from participating or intervening in political campaigns on behalf of or in opposition to political candidates. The IRS recently sent out a reminder that crossing that line could jeopardize a non-profit’s tax-exempt status.

Folger indicated she hopes the ban, which has been in effect for 50 years, will eventually be overturned, but in the meantime she speculated about what might happen if large numbers of pastors would ignore it as a matter of civil disobedience.

Now, I am no lawyer, but I wonder in general about IRS regulation as effective regulation of speech in churches so the civil disobedience aspect of this is not all bad on a legal theory basis. But having said that, I think it would be suicide for the churches that picked up this mantle. They would risk both members who disagreed politically, and they would risk the real spiritual work that is their calling.

In other words, I think pastors should be free to engage in political speech from the pulpit, but I think they would be less-than-intelligent to exercise that freedom.

This all raises and interesting question - Jeremiah Wright has not been able to successfully hide behind religious speech in recent weeks because there seems to be universal agreement that he was engaged in purely political speech. So why has the IRS not been all over him and Trinity Church? That inconsistent enforcement, more than almost anything else speaks to the need to have the freedom ensured . . .

Meanwhile, On The Left . . .

They keep reaching for religious voters. The NYTimes reports on some of Clinton’s efforts. And The Christian Post looks at “Progressive Christians.” The second story says:

In October, the progressive ecumenical group Faith in Public Life helped bring together Christian and secular leaders to try to end the cultural war on issues such as abortion, gay rights, and the role of religion in public life. [Emphasis added.]

Ecumenism is something of a bad word in conservative Christians circles because too often it means compromising theology. In the ’70’s there were huge efforts to try and join many Christian churches under a single umbrella and that would have made most of them devoid of meaning (my dad played a key role in keeping the PC(USA) out of those efforts, but that is a story for another time). However, this is about purely political issues, not church polity or theology.

That said, the idea of working across religious lines for political action may, in the end allow the left to co-op the religious voter because on the right we seem to be pretty bad at it.

But Then . . .

The left is far more willing to be reduced to a voting bloc than the right is. This Orlando Sentinel piece points out that the latest hot religious bloc is Hispanic Evangelicals. My only comment is, it is scary to read about a group being manipulated this way. It reduces us somehow. This is why we should be politically smart - then we control politics instead of it controlling us.
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