Friday, May 30, 2008
How Do We Separate Church And State?
Since I have been writing very consistently about church and state issues for the last two years, this post at Eagle and Child caught my interest immediately. In it, my friend Russ looks at the recent book by Tim Keller on church/state issues and uses Keller's arguments to refute radical secularist attempts to ban religious thought from the public square. Russ concludes this way:
Russ is arguing for religious influence in political thought, and I have spent these two years trying to keep that influence within proper boundaries. In Russ' formulation the distinctions run much deeper than they might appear at first reading. The problems I fought against, bias against Mitt Romney because he is Mormon, ended up centering on pure identity. Few people argued about what Romney believes, everybody seemed to understand that such was not legitimate discussion in American politics. It got down to tribalism - "Romney is not one of us." That tribalism, whether defined by denomination, or simple conventionalism, is what the constitution prohibits.
"Faith" on the other hand is not a label or group, it is thought and spiritual force that shapes an individual. We are free to hold, defend, and vote based upon our stances on issues, based on how faith has shaped us.
Which to my mind raises some interesting questions about how effective we really are in the church today. We seem to have recruited a bunch of people claiming Christian identity, in polls they certainly self-identify. But how many people have discovered genuine faith?
Well, when they cling to identity in a fashion like we saw in the Republican primary, one must conclude not very well. When people cannot distinguish their religious identity from their stances on political issues the church is not about transformative faith.
I have said all along that my goals at Article VI blog were to help Evangelicals, not Mitt Romney. When I think about it, that is on more than a political level - it is on a missional one as well.
It looks increasingly like all we have built in the last few years is a voting bloc, not a community of faith.
Not a happy development in my book.
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Separation of church and state does not equal separation of faith and state.That is a brilliant formulation.
Russ is arguing for religious influence in political thought, and I have spent these two years trying to keep that influence within proper boundaries. In Russ' formulation the distinctions run much deeper than they might appear at first reading. The problems I fought against, bias against Mitt Romney because he is Mormon, ended up centering on pure identity. Few people argued about what Romney believes, everybody seemed to understand that such was not legitimate discussion in American politics. It got down to tribalism - "Romney is not one of us." That tribalism, whether defined by denomination, or simple conventionalism, is what the constitution prohibits.
"Faith" on the other hand is not a label or group, it is thought and spiritual force that shapes an individual. We are free to hold, defend, and vote based upon our stances on issues, based on how faith has shaped us.
Which to my mind raises some interesting questions about how effective we really are in the church today. We seem to have recruited a bunch of people claiming Christian identity, in polls they certainly self-identify. But how many people have discovered genuine faith?
Well, when they cling to identity in a fashion like we saw in the Republican primary, one must conclude not very well. When people cannot distinguish their religious identity from their stances on political issues the church is not about transformative faith.
I have said all along that my goals at Article VI blog were to help Evangelicals, not Mitt Romney. When I think about it, that is on more than a political level - it is on a missional one as well.
It looks increasingly like all we have built in the last few years is a voting bloc, not a community of faith.
Not a happy development in my book.
Technorati Tags:church. politics, separation, faith. transformation
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