Dividing Politics and Religion

Spirituality Column #261
November 8, 2011
Current in Carmel – Westfield – Noblesville – Fishers
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Dividing Politics and Religion
By Bob Walters

On this off-year Election Day, let’s take an off-beat tour of America’s mix of church and state. The Bible gets first “ups.”

Jesus separated church and state long before the eighteenth century secular humanists identified and attached the inalienable rights of man to modernity. Rights, by the way, are not in the Bible; responsibilities are.

One can consider the entirety of the New Testament and understand the unique moral and creative wholeness of Christian freedom in Jesus Christ.

Or, one can take the common Gospel verse “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s” (Matthew 22:21, Mark 12:12:17, Luke 20:25), and see that Caesar (specifically here “Caesar’s money” or euphemistically “Rome’s man-made government”) and God play on different teams.

The apostle Paul declares the primacy of our “citizenship in Heaven” (Philippians 3:17, 20), but also invokes his own Roman citizenship in order to be heard (Acts 21:39) and then not to be executed (Acts 22:22ff). In Romans 13 Paul says government is ordained by God and that if we “owe taxes, [then] pay taxes” (verse 7).

While Paul seems to indicate the scary proposition that “Government is God,” he doesn’t, and it’s not. Jesus Christ is God, and Jesus plainly says that while both He (Jesus) and we (Christians) are “in the world,” neither He nor we are “of the world” (John 15:19, 17:14, 16). Christ commands that God is first, and that we are to love God and our neighbors as ourselves (Matthew 19:19), and even to love our enemies (5:44).

What the United State Constitution and all it amendments describe is a political context within which the creative freedom of man and the God-ordained morality of “love others as we love ourselves” can prosper and thrive. Over 224 years they have mostly – though not always – thrived, but it is only in the Christian moral context that this kind of document is possible.

Democracy demands moral responsibility, which is different from the “fair” (read “blind”) application of “religious freedom” the secular modern world mistakenly equates and jingoistically describes as “all religions are the same.” They, um, aren’t.

Moral discernment is the first casualty of secularism, which replaces God’s moral truth – Jesus Christ – with man’s moral relativism.

To paraphrase Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, “Under God” we enjoy freedom and defend a “government of, by, and for the People.” It certainly can and will “perish from the earth” lest we understand, and understand soon, the indivisible equation of our citizenship both in Heaven and as Americans.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) recently read about and laments Europe’s cultural disestablishment of Christianity. He is sure we’ll either learn from Europe’s example, or die the same spiritual death.

Politics, and God's Funny Bone

Spirituality Column #98
September 23, 2008
Current! in Carmel (IN) Newspaper
Current! in Westfield (IN) Newspaper

Politics, and God’s Funny Bone
By Bob Walters

God shows up in funny places in American politics.

Republicans include God in politics, but that’s not always a good idea. Pray for wisdom, sure. But the way churches fight about religious practices, worship and doctrines, they could never achieve consensus in government.

Democrats include God in politics when it fits a momentary need, then go back to outlawing public prayer while defending gay marriage and abortion. Democrats can say outrageous things about religion and get away with it because hardly anybody thinks they understand what they are saying.

Libertarians are true to their roots … they never want to hear anything about God in politics or government, period. Call them the irreligious right.

(FYI, for a religion that includes its own government, look up “Islam.”)

Feminists lost Hillary for president and now, dealing with family-values pitch-perfect Sarah Palin, are losing their minds. Wanna-be philosopher celebrities spew daily invective against a caring mom and accomplished, corruption-busting governor.

Then there’s the media, the wretched Fourth Estate (lowest caste) of the cultural order. Since Mrs. Palin joined the Republican ticket the media has proven it is absolutely and possibly irretrievably out of touch with the depth and breadth of Christian belief, intellect and – yes – kindness residing in majority America.

Democratic “talking points” for a recent news cycle were about Jesus Christ being a “community organizer” (reference to Obama), and Pontius Pilate being a governor (reference to Sarah Palin).

The media thought it was clever. Republicans would never compare anyone to Jesus, and I remind the Democrats Bill Clinton was a governor.

Actor Matt Damon – in an Associated Press video interview – grimaced and stammered as he contemplated the “bad Disney movie” horror of a potential Palin presidency. Damon vapidly posed, “does she believe that dinosaurs were alive 4,000 years ago?” He really said that, smacking of what I perceive to be the unspoken epilogue, “like the rest of those nutty Christian Creationist right wing lunatics.”

I don’t remember Mrs. Palin ever mentioning dinosaurs. Damon’s implication was that, because of her faith, Mrs. Palin is stupid. I’m not sure when there were dinosaurs, but then I don’t “believe” in dinosaurs; dinosaurs as “belief” don’t matter.

I believe in Christ; Christ matters. Mrs. Palin thinks integrity matters. The media thinks Matt Damon matters.

Mrs. Palin’s pregnant teenage daughter? She is accepted and loved by her family, her church, most of America, and of course, by God.

Only the Democrats, feminists, celebrities and media seem to be mad at her.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com), a closet political junkie, thanks Mrs. Palin for her candor, her faith, and for finally making this year’s election interesting. You go girl.