Alban Weekly from The Duke Divinity School in Durham, North Carolina, United States "PRACTICAL WISDOM FOR LEADING CONGREGATIONS: Os Guinness: Civility in the Public Square-LIVING WITH DEEP DIFFERENCES NECESSITATES CIVILITY" for Monday, 24 October 2016Faith & Leadership
- CHRISTIAN LEADERSHIP, LAITY
- Os Guinness: Civility in the Public Square
- LIVING WITH DEEP DIFFERENCES NECESSITATES CIVILITY
The co-founder of The Trinity Forum challenges Christians to follow Jesus by becoming champions of civility.
Christianity has lost three important guide wires: integrity, credibility and, most pressingly, civility, said Os Guinness, co-founder of The Trinity Forum. Guinness believes that Christians must abandon political bitterness and fulfill Jesus' command to love one another. His approach to the intractable differences among world religions is to create a "political framework of rights, responsibilities and respect to which all agree."A great-great-great grandson of Arthur Guinness, the Dublin brewer and founder of the Guinness brewery, Guinness was born in China where his parents were missionaries during World War II. In childhood he witnessed the Communist takeover of China.
Guinness earned an undergraduate degree at the University of London and a doctorate in social sciences from Oriel College, Oxford. He has been a guest scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Studies and a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution and he has published more than 20 books, including "The Case for Civility: And Why Our Future Depends on It." In 1991 he co-founded The Trinity Forum, an organization that hosts forums for leaders in business and politics.
He spoke with our colleagues at Faith & Leadership.
Q: What is important about civility?
How we live with our deep differences is at stake with civility. It's the American way as described by James Madison, with no state church and no religious monopoly. The framers [of the U.S. Constitution] got religious liberty right with the First Amendment in 1791, long before they got race or women right.
However, the way the founders set the country up has been breaking down since the 1960s, or really since the Everson case in 1947. We have incessant cultural warring with, as Richard Neuhaus put it, the sacred public square on one side and the naked public square on the other. Both of the sides are well funded, both employ batteries of lawyers, both are nationally led and it's a disaster for America. What Neuhaus and others call the "civil public square" is a key to the American future; Christians should be champions of that civil public square.
Q: Is there a tension between civility and the prophetic role of the minister in the pulpit?
Misunderstandings surround the idea of civility; it's frequently mistaken for squeamishness about cultural differences, false tolerance or dinner-party etiquette. Classically, civility is a republican virtue, with a small "r," and a democratic necessity, with a small "d." It's the only way you can have a diverse society, freely but civilly, peacefully.
A great-great-great grandson of Arthur Guinness, the Dublin brewer and founder of the Guinness brewery, Guinness was born in China where his parents were missionaries during World War II. In childhood he witnessed the Communist takeover of China.
Guinness earned an undergraduate degree at the University of London and a doctorate in social sciences from Oriel College, Oxford. He has been a guest scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Studies and a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution and he has published more than 20 books, including “The Case for Civility: And Why Our Future Depends on It.” In 1991 he co-founded The Trinity Forum(link is external), an organization that hosts forums for leaders in business and politics.
The edited transcript and related video clip are from a conversation with Guinness in October 2009 at Convocation & Pastors’ School at Duke Divinity.
Q: What is important about civility?
How we live with our deep differences is at stake with civility. It’s the American way as described by James Madison, with no state church and no religious monopoly. The framers [of the U.S. Constitution] got religious liberty right with the First Amendment in 1791, long before they got race or women right.
However, the way the founders set the country up has been breaking down since the 1960s, or really since the Everson case in 1947. We have incessant cultural warring with, as Richard Neuhaus put it, the sacred public square on one side and the naked public square on the other. Both of the sides are well funded, both employ batteries of lawyers, both are nationally led and it’s a disaster for America. What Neuhaus and others call the “civil public square” is a key to the American future; Christians should be champions of that civil public square.
Q: Is there a tension between civility and the prophetic role of the minister in the pulpit?
Misunderstandings surround the idea of civility; it’s frequently mistaken for squeamishness about cultural differences, false tolerance or dinner-party etiquette. Classically, civility is a republican virtue, with a small “r,” and a democratic necessity, with a small “d.” It’s the only way you can have a diverse society, freely but civilly, peacefully.
As Christians, we have deeper motivations still [for championing civility]. Followers of Jesus are called to be peacemakers, with truth and grace; Paul asks us to speak the truth with love. We’re called to love our enemies and do good to those who wrong us. This is our Christian motivation for championing the classical virtue of civility.
Freedom of conscience [upholds] the right to believe anything, but the right to believe anything does not mean that anything anyone believes is right. That is nonsense. We have a right and a responsibility to disagree, to debate, to persuade someone that they’re out to lunch. They may be muddle-headed. They may be socially disastrous. They might even be morally evil, but we have a responsibility to disagree civilly.
Q: Much of the incivility in recent cultural debates has come from Christians, has it not?
With the election of President Obama, there was a distinct decline of the religious right. My hope was that good Christian leadership would swing us to a more responsible position, but there isn’t the leadership that there was in the past. The groundswell of populism has joined the bitter resentment we see bubbling up in the health care debates; it’s very dangerous.
It’s time for Christians to speak out, to follow our Lord clearly and differently. I boil [the difference] down to three words: integrity, credibility and civility. Integrity asks, “can we be 100 percent faithful to Jesus, following his teachings, growing like him and still engage with the modern world so that faith prevails?” That’s integrity. Much of the church lacks integrity.
The second difference is in credibility. Since the Enlightenment all Christians are what Richard Dawkins calls “faith heads,” anti-intellectuals, despite the fact that many of the greatest thinkers of Western history -- Augustine, Pascal and Newton among them -- loved Christ passionately. I knew Bertrand Russell when I was a student. He said Christians would sooner die than think. We need to be champions of truth, champions of thinking and love God with our minds in order to recover the great credibility of the gospel.
The third difference is with civility. That sounds very abstract, compared to addressing AIDS, or nuclear issues or terrorism. Actually, living with our deep differences underlies all the other issues. America once got it nearly right, but America is losing its way.
Q: Overall, what is your calling? What ties your work together?
I like to live between the church and the world, making sense of the church to the world and making sense of the world to the faithful. I love apologetics and I love analysis. I live between high-level knowledge and popular knowledge. Christian scholarship is magnificent today. The [communication] gap is with those in the middle, with intermediate knowledge. Much of the good scholarship in the church is unknown to ordinary folk. In my role, I read all that stuff to make it practicable to people. Otherwise the church is not united, it is paraplegic -- the head thinks one way and the body twitches another.
Q: How does your leadership academy, The Trinity Forum, help your intermediary role?
The Trinity Forum is Socratic [in form]. We have no lectures, no sermons, no teachings and no talks. Whatever the topic, we give people the readings on it two months ahead of the forum. Moderators lead the discussion. The leaders do the work for themselves and come to their own conclusions. As in the parables of our Lord, when you engage people, they participate and learn much more.
Our curricula cover many of the great issues of Western civilization, issues of philanthropy and character. Today’s leaders are the heirs to 3,000 years of Western civilization. We are the custodians of that in our time and we need to know what shaped us. Every issue is set in the context of the discussion that’s gone before…we stand here today in the light of those 3,000 years of heritage.
In The Trinity Forum we’re talking about growing real leadership, not just politicians but statesmen. Often people use the word “intractable” to describe a problem. Intractable problems [indicate] a lack of courageous leadership. Christians should not be complaining and criticizing, but looking at the problems of the world and saying, “We’ve got Christian solutions to these problems.”
I’m working on a global declaration on freedom of conscience. It will [demonstrate] how we can live with deep differences in order to create a cosmopolitan civil public square. Christians should be in the forefront of constructive solutions, bringing Christian principles to bear on the world’s big problems; that’s real leadership.
Dialogue and friendship with Muslims, Buddhists, etc., is perfectly fine, but it’s a total failure as a solution to world peace. You cannot reach interfaith unity and still remain true to your own faith. The differences between various ideologies are deep, ultimate and irreducible. Compromise, not dialogue, is the only way we can reach a common denominator. My approach is to create a political framework of rights, responsibilities and respect to which all agree. Within that framework each faith engages peacefully, free to be itself and therefore different.
I don’t support a sacred public square (the religious right square) or a naked public square (from which the ACLU removes religion), but a civil public square. This is a vision of public life in which people of every faith -- Christian, Jewish, atheist, Muslim, Mormon, Scientologist, etc. -- are free to engage in public life on the basis of their faith, with freedom of conscience. We must engage publicly within a framework of what’s agreed to be fair for all. What is a right for Christians will be automatically a right for an atheist, a Jew or a Muslim. A right for one is a responsibility for the other; it’s very important to guard each other’s rights.
I use the example of the Queensberry rules from boxing. [With roots in] Roman gladiatorial games, boxing was pretty brutal up until the 19th century. In 1867 the Marquis of Queensberry lent his name to regulations that put boxing in a ring, under a referee, within [a framework of] rules. For instance: Touch gloves to begin and don’t punch below the belt. But boxing is not a love-in. Boxers fight until one loses.
That’s democratic civility. It’s not a “Kumbaya” moment in which we happily agree. The difference is that you are debating with words [rather than fists.]
Q: Can you give an example of civil debate along the lines of Queensberry rules that changed a society?
With an understanding that humans are made in the image of God, Christians and Jews know that every human is precious and has dignity. William Wilberforce entered the ring in 1787 when he argued for the abolition of slavery in the English House of Parliament. He was defeated, defeated, defeated and defeated. Every year he entered the ring again. It took him 20 years to win. He was prepared to enter the ring [as often as it took] to persuade and prevail. That’s democratic civility.
Wilberforce was gracious; he was humble and loving. Twice, opponents physically attacked him in the street. He remained gracious even when he was the most disparaged man in the world. He never vilified his opponents. A lot of reformers are fanatics, like William Lloyd Garrison in the United States. Wilberforce was never a fanatic. He was a follower of Jesus, humble, gracious and loving. That’s how we should be known, not as culture warriors.
-------
IDEAS THAT IMPACT: POLITICS & RELIGION
A rabbi and a pastor reflect on what it takes to create fruitful conversations and collaboration between faith communities and political parties.
Faith and Politics: Finding a Way to Have a Fruitful Conversation
IDEAS THAT IMPACT: POLITICS & RELIGION
A rabbi and a pastor reflect on what it takes to create fruitful conversations and collaboration between faith communities and political parties.
Faith and Politics: Finding a Way to Have a Fruitful Conversation
Considerable debate is happening in America today about the role of religion in politics. Of the two parties, the Republican Party seems the most comfortable with religious input, and many candidates go out of their way to court religious voters. Indeed, the so-called Religious Right has considerable institutional linkages to the party, so much so that many observers on the left have warned about theocratic tendencies within the Republican Party. For religious people who are politically progressive, the Democratic Party is a more natural fit, but there is discomfort both within the party structures and among politically active people of faith as to the most appropriate ways of engaging each other politically.
The authors of this paper are of the opinion that faith has a public dimension, that faith is not a private entity that should be kept out of the public realm. The question is, what should such a relationship look like, especially considering the model established by the Religious Right? On one hand there is the question of how elected officials and political parties should respond to faith communities who wish to be heard on matters of public concern. There are both constitutional and spiritual issues involved in how religious people become involved in political life. It is not only the political parties that are facing difficult questions but also the various religious traditions, whose theologies and practices differ from one group to the next.
As noted above, candidates and leaders from within the Republican Party have often framed political issues in moral and religious terms, while Democrats, for a variety of reasons, have shied away from making strong connection between religion and politics. This has led to the charge that the Democrats are unfriendly to religious voices, and has encouraged some within the party to open up a dialogue, such as the one held in Goleta, California on June 3, 2007. At this event, approximately 500 Democrats gathered to discuss the intersection of faith and political action in regard to issues such as war, the environment, immigration, poverty, and health care, as well as to strategize about how to better integrate this voice into the party’s work. More recently, in the 2008 presidential primary season, the three top-tier candidates, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama, and John Edwards, all spoke openly of their faith and how their faith has influenced their political lives.2 At the same time, politically progressive religious people have begun to articulate positions that would seem in harmony with the Democratic platform, even if not always identical to it.
Ways of Approaching the Conversation
The relationship of institutional religion and the political realm has been a matter of debate from the beginnings of the nation’s history. Although Christianity—especially Protestantism—has dominated America’s public life, history has shown an aversion to making the relationship official. There has always been a strong civil religion present, but usually this has taken on broad tones and not denominationally specific ones, and when attempts have been made to declare America a Christian nation, those attempts have been rebuffed.3 Still, the relationship between religion and public life, whether or not it has been made official, has been close.
Historian Mark Toulouse4 has developed a helpful taxonomy for understanding this relationship, with a focus on Christian involvement in the public square. These four approaches to engagement reflect the majority status of America’s Christians. But the four approaches do transcend the religious boundaries that are present in this country.
Two approaches to the engagement between religion and the public arena are expressions of a civil religion that either subsumes faith under national agendas or national agendas under faith professions.
Iconic Faith5
The recent flap over Keith Ellison’s decision to take his oath of office using the Koran illustrates the nature of iconic faith. With iconic faith, a religious symbol may take on nationalistic meaning; for instance, for many Americans the Bible is seen as a totem that serves to guarantee one’s trustworthiness. Likewise, a public symbol, such as the flag, might be venerated as a holy object, thus burning the flag is seen as desecrating a sacred image. In both situations, the majority faith is merged with national interests, and God is seen as being predisposed to favoring the nation. An iconic faith requires a homogeneous setting, and thus religious pluralism is discouraged (at best). In this form of engagement, the religious community is largely passive because the activism emanates from the state.
Priestly Faith
Claims that America is a Christian nation reflect a “priestly faith.” Here the nation is seen as the vehicle for God’s work in the world. In America, this would mean that the nation and the Christian faith are intermingled, with one supporting the other. The nation looks to the church for moral support, while the church looks to the state for financial and legal support. National interests take on the aura of divine missions, and national agendas are wrapped in God language. Priestly faith tends to be legalistic, and religious norms (Christian in this case) define what is acceptable behavior. With regard to the priestly faith, the religious community takes on an activist position and sees itself as the protector of cultural values. Thus the American vision is God’s vision. Indeed, this is the foundation of the 19th-century notion of Manifest Destiny, the belief that the United States was destined to expand westward, all the way to the Pacific Ocean. Again, in such a view of public engagement, pluralism is suspect if not discouraged, and faith can become exceedingly coercive.
If iconic and priestly faiths are inherently problematic, both from governmental and religious perspectives, there are ways in which faith can engage with the public square. Toulouse speaks of these as the public Christian and the public church perspectives. Although Toulouse directs his particular study at the Christian community, the ideals he espouses are transferable to any religious tradition.
Public Person of Faith
St. Augustine and Martin Luther both conceived of the religious and the political realms as being radically separate from each other. Luther called these two realms as the two kingdoms of God and the world. In one sense these perspectives recognize a “wall of separation” between church and state,6 where the “public person of faith” can enter the public square, and faith will influence how he or she engages public life, but the religious community will remain focused on spiritual matters. The community can nurture a prophetic spirit, but it will remain outside the public debates. From this perspective, involvement ranges from noninvolvement to individual activism, but the congregation does not enter into the business of transforming the nation or the world. As for pluralism, there is a range of attitudes that run from a concern about pluralism, especially radical forms, to an embrace of pluralism.
Public Religious Community
To be a public religious community, a community will very consciously affirm God’s reign over both secular and sacred realms. From this perspective, God is concerned about the world itself and calls the community of faith to an advocacy and an activism for justice. Public activism is rooted in faith, and the communities themselves—not just religious individuals—enter into the process of transforming the world. Such an approach may be best illustrated by the work of Martin Luther King, Jr., who called not just individuals of faith but communities of faith to enter into the work of overturning racism in America and enacting civil rights legislation. The community becomes prophetic and activist. Whereas the more individualistic expression of public engagement tends to see sin in personal ways, in this form there is a greater awareness of the systemic nature of sin. Thus the community of faith works toward not just the redemption of the individual but the social redemption of the world. Political activity is an essential component of one’s faith and part of the community’s mission. The danger here is that the line separating such a view from a priestly faith is narrow. At what point does the faith community that seeks justice cross the line into coercion? The path away from priestly faith requires humility and a retreat from absolutism.
A Way Forward
There are inherent dangers in mixing religion and politics, and clergy must be careful about how involved they get with partisan efforts. There are legal and tax ramifications that must be kept in mind. There are many who believe that it is not in the church’s best interest for clergy to become heavily involved.7 If clergy and people of faith enter into the political realm, certain rules need to be considered. Besides the legal issues, there are ethical ones. As clergy with sympathies for the Democratic Party enter into conversation with the party of their choice, it would be important that neither party nor person of faith feel beholden to the other. Clergy must not take on the role of “kingmaker” or dictate policy. They can, however, offer words of advice and guidance from the perspective of faith. There can be no quid pro quo relationships. Indeed, the question that stands before both the political and religious communities as they enter into conversation is whether one or two issues trump all others.
If, as we believe, there is room for fruitful conversation and collaboration between people of faith and political parties (in our case, the Democratic Party), we have formulated two sets of questions, one set for religious leaders and the other for politicians.
Three Practical Questions for Religious Leaders
_______________
NOTES
1. This article began as a position paper written for the California Democratic Party Faith and Values Community Summit held in Goleta, California on June 3, 2007. Committee members who helped critique and steer this paper included the two authors, the Reverend Jarmo Tarkki, and local political activists Jon Williams and Alexis Donkin.
2. Note the participation of the three candidates in the Sojourner’s conversation in May of 2007, which was broadcast by CNN.
3. See Jon Meacham, American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation (New York: Random House, 2006).
4.Mark Toulouse, God in Public: Four Ways American Christianity and Public Life Relate (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2006).
5. For many constitutional scholars, this concept is also known as “civil religion.” Phrases like “in God we trust,” the biblical inscription on the Liberty Bell, and even the lighting of the Christmas tree on the White House lawn may be viewed as religious statements since they are agreed-upon concepts of foundational principles that helped to form our country.
6. The wall of separation between church and state is often credited to Thomas Jefferson. There are several scholars who suggest that Roger Williams was the first one to suggest this concept, as enshrined in his famous Bloody Tenants.
7. David Gushee, “Some Rules for Christians in Politics,” http://www.abpnews.com/2651.article. Gushee offers 17 extremely restrictive rules as to the role he believes clergy and churches should play. -------
Despite all our attempts to keep religion and politics apart, they do come together in the church, writes a pastor.
Faith & Leadership
The authors of this paper are of the opinion that faith has a public dimension, that faith is not a private entity that should be kept out of the public realm. The question is, what should such a relationship look like, especially considering the model established by the Religious Right? On one hand there is the question of how elected officials and political parties should respond to faith communities who wish to be heard on matters of public concern. There are both constitutional and spiritual issues involved in how religious people become involved in political life. It is not only the political parties that are facing difficult questions but also the various religious traditions, whose theologies and practices differ from one group to the next.
As noted above, candidates and leaders from within the Republican Party have often framed political issues in moral and religious terms, while Democrats, for a variety of reasons, have shied away from making strong connection between religion and politics. This has led to the charge that the Democrats are unfriendly to religious voices, and has encouraged some within the party to open up a dialogue, such as the one held in Goleta, California on June 3, 2007. At this event, approximately 500 Democrats gathered to discuss the intersection of faith and political action in regard to issues such as war, the environment, immigration, poverty, and health care, as well as to strategize about how to better integrate this voice into the party’s work. More recently, in the 2008 presidential primary season, the three top-tier candidates, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama, and John Edwards, all spoke openly of their faith and how their faith has influenced their political lives.2 At the same time, politically progressive religious people have begun to articulate positions that would seem in harmony with the Democratic platform, even if not always identical to it.
Ways of Approaching the Conversation
The relationship of institutional religion and the political realm has been a matter of debate from the beginnings of the nation’s history. Although Christianity—especially Protestantism—has dominated America’s public life, history has shown an aversion to making the relationship official. There has always been a strong civil religion present, but usually this has taken on broad tones and not denominationally specific ones, and when attempts have been made to declare America a Christian nation, those attempts have been rebuffed.3 Still, the relationship between religion and public life, whether or not it has been made official, has been close.
Historian Mark Toulouse4 has developed a helpful taxonomy for understanding this relationship, with a focus on Christian involvement in the public square. These four approaches to engagement reflect the majority status of America’s Christians. But the four approaches do transcend the religious boundaries that are present in this country.
Two approaches to the engagement between religion and the public arena are expressions of a civil religion that either subsumes faith under national agendas or national agendas under faith professions.
Iconic Faith5
The recent flap over Keith Ellison’s decision to take his oath of office using the Koran illustrates the nature of iconic faith. With iconic faith, a religious symbol may take on nationalistic meaning; for instance, for many Americans the Bible is seen as a totem that serves to guarantee one’s trustworthiness. Likewise, a public symbol, such as the flag, might be venerated as a holy object, thus burning the flag is seen as desecrating a sacred image. In both situations, the majority faith is merged with national interests, and God is seen as being predisposed to favoring the nation. An iconic faith requires a homogeneous setting, and thus religious pluralism is discouraged (at best). In this form of engagement, the religious community is largely passive because the activism emanates from the state.
Priestly Faith
Claims that America is a Christian nation reflect a “priestly faith.” Here the nation is seen as the vehicle for God’s work in the world. In America, this would mean that the nation and the Christian faith are intermingled, with one supporting the other. The nation looks to the church for moral support, while the church looks to the state for financial and legal support. National interests take on the aura of divine missions, and national agendas are wrapped in God language. Priestly faith tends to be legalistic, and religious norms (Christian in this case) define what is acceptable behavior. With regard to the priestly faith, the religious community takes on an activist position and sees itself as the protector of cultural values. Thus the American vision is God’s vision. Indeed, this is the foundation of the 19th-century notion of Manifest Destiny, the belief that the United States was destined to expand westward, all the way to the Pacific Ocean. Again, in such a view of public engagement, pluralism is suspect if not discouraged, and faith can become exceedingly coercive.
If iconic and priestly faiths are inherently problematic, both from governmental and religious perspectives, there are ways in which faith can engage with the public square. Toulouse speaks of these as the public Christian and the public church perspectives. Although Toulouse directs his particular study at the Christian community, the ideals he espouses are transferable to any religious tradition.
Public Person of Faith
St. Augustine and Martin Luther both conceived of the religious and the political realms as being radically separate from each other. Luther called these two realms as the two kingdoms of God and the world. In one sense these perspectives recognize a “wall of separation” between church and state,6 where the “public person of faith” can enter the public square, and faith will influence how he or she engages public life, but the religious community will remain focused on spiritual matters. The community can nurture a prophetic spirit, but it will remain outside the public debates. From this perspective, involvement ranges from noninvolvement to individual activism, but the congregation does not enter into the business of transforming the nation or the world. As for pluralism, there is a range of attitudes that run from a concern about pluralism, especially radical forms, to an embrace of pluralism.
Public Religious Community
To be a public religious community, a community will very consciously affirm God’s reign over both secular and sacred realms. From this perspective, God is concerned about the world itself and calls the community of faith to an advocacy and an activism for justice. Public activism is rooted in faith, and the communities themselves—not just religious individuals—enter into the process of transforming the world. Such an approach may be best illustrated by the work of Martin Luther King, Jr., who called not just individuals of faith but communities of faith to enter into the work of overturning racism in America and enacting civil rights legislation. The community becomes prophetic and activist. Whereas the more individualistic expression of public engagement tends to see sin in personal ways, in this form there is a greater awareness of the systemic nature of sin. Thus the community of faith works toward not just the redemption of the individual but the social redemption of the world. Political activity is an essential component of one’s faith and part of the community’s mission. The danger here is that the line separating such a view from a priestly faith is narrow. At what point does the faith community that seeks justice cross the line into coercion? The path away from priestly faith requires humility and a retreat from absolutism.
A Way Forward
There are inherent dangers in mixing religion and politics, and clergy must be careful about how involved they get with partisan efforts. There are legal and tax ramifications that must be kept in mind. There are many who believe that it is not in the church’s best interest for clergy to become heavily involved.7 If clergy and people of faith enter into the political realm, certain rules need to be considered. Besides the legal issues, there are ethical ones. As clergy with sympathies for the Democratic Party enter into conversation with the party of their choice, it would be important that neither party nor person of faith feel beholden to the other. Clergy must not take on the role of “kingmaker” or dictate policy. They can, however, offer words of advice and guidance from the perspective of faith. There can be no quid pro quo relationships. Indeed, the question that stands before both the political and religious communities as they enter into conversation is whether one or two issues trump all others.
If, as we believe, there is room for fruitful conversation and collaboration between people of faith and political parties (in our case, the Democratic Party), we have formulated two sets of questions, one set for religious leaders and the other for politicians.
Three Practical Questions for Religious Leaders
- When I, as a person of faith, take a position with political implications, how is faith related to this decision? Is this position authentically rooted in my faith tradition, so that my faith compels me to take this position, or have I taken a political position and sought support for it in my religious tradition?
- As a clergyperson, what considerations are involved if I choose to give my pulpit to a politician or candidate? In other words, by allowing this person to speak, am I making either an explicit or an implicit endorsement of this person?
- In what ways is it permissible for clergy to endorse a candidate? And is taking a position on an issue the same as endorsing a candidate? Regarding the latter, if I take a position on a politically sensitive issue, when must I seek the permission of my board or other governing body?
- Should I use my personal religious doctrines in making political decisions? As a doctor may refuse to perform an abortion, citing his or her personal religious beliefs, should politicians be able to refer to their personal faith when taking a vote or a position? Or should politicians be asked to separate their personal beliefs from their duty to represent their constituency, or even, like a judge in a trial, be expected to set aside their personal views when acting as representatives of the people and follow the general values of pluralism enshrined in the Constitution?
- Should I use faith doctrines publicly when pushing a particular policy? When attempting to make an argument in the public square, may I use actual quotes and doctrines from faith traditions to support my position? Or should I refrain from framing political issues in religious terms?
- If one strongly believes in separation of church and state, what is the best way of dealing with religious leaders and faith communities that want to become involved in a particular issue or campaign? Perhaps you are concerned or even dismayed as you see religious groups and faith leaders attempt to control political agendas and suggest litmus tests for candidates. Perhaps you are even distrustful of offers of support from religious organizations. And yet there are religious leaders who do want to get involved. How should this relationship between religious groups and political organizations be appropriately developed and fostered?
_______________
NOTES
1. This article began as a position paper written for the California Democratic Party Faith and Values Community Summit held in Goleta, California on June 3, 2007. Committee members who helped critique and steer this paper included the two authors, the Reverend Jarmo Tarkki, and local political activists Jon Williams and Alexis Donkin.
2. Note the participation of the three candidates in the Sojourner’s conversation in May of 2007, which was broadcast by CNN.
3. See Jon Meacham, American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation (New York: Random House, 2006).
4.Mark Toulouse, God in Public: Four Ways American Christianity and Public Life Relate (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2006).
5. For many constitutional scholars, this concept is also known as “civil religion.” Phrases like “in God we trust,” the biblical inscription on the Liberty Bell, and even the lighting of the Christmas tree on the White House lawn may be viewed as religious statements since they are agreed-upon concepts of foundational principles that helped to form our country.
6. The wall of separation between church and state is often credited to Thomas Jefferson. There are several scholars who suggest that Roger Williams was the first one to suggest this concept, as enshrined in his famous Bloody Tenants.
7. David Gushee, “Some Rules for Christians in Politics,” http://www.abpnews.com/2651.article. Gushee offers 17 extremely restrictive rules as to the role he believes clergy and churches should play. -------
Despite all our attempts to keep religion and politics apart, they do come together in the church, writes a pastor.
Faith & Leadership
ARTS & CULTURE, SOCIETY
Laura Stern: Must we keep the church out of politics and politics out of the church?
Composite Illustration by Jessamyn Rubio / BigStock: Rashomon, Karpenko Ilia
Despite all our attempts to keep religion and politics apart, they do come together in the church, writes a pastor.
For several hours on Election Day, there will be no separation of church and state at our church. Ballots will be handed out like bulletins, poll workers will serve as ushers, and “I voted” stickers will pronounce benedictions upon all who go out into the world.In elections when high voter turnout is expected, our church sanctuary flips from a place of worship to one of civic responsibility. Polling stations replace the handbell tables. Lines of people stand where rows of worshippers sat the Sunday before.
Some might find this jarring; others, downright offensive. A violation of the sanctuary. A conflation of the sacred with the secular.
The setup is a practical matter, because the sanctuary is the largest room in the building. But I also find this sanctuary-turned-polling place an appropriate metaphor.
Despite all our attempts to keep religion and politics apart, they do come together in the church. What we say in church on Sundays impacts what we do at the polls on Tuesdays.
For a church leader, this is dangerous talk. Christians are, after all, followers of the Lamb, not the donkey or the elephant.
But the issue here is less about partisan thinking and more about ideological consistency. Commonly held ideals like humility, mercy, compassion, justice, hope, peace, faith, forgiveness and love define us in worship as well as at the polls.
We gather around one communion table, wash ourselves anew in one baptismal font and confess belief in one Triune God. We are called to form one body of Christ: “One Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all” (Ephesians 4:5-6 NIV).
Our belief system is one -- not separate, compartmentalized areas.
For me, this comes as a relief.
I can lessen my concern about keeping the church out of politics and politics out of the church. I can stop my paranoia over pastoral remarks, fearful that they might belie a partisan agenda. I can let the Sunday school discussions go on, even when they grow uncomfortably heated or uncomfortably quiet.
I can have a sense of humor.
Most important, I can spend my time and energy putting meaning behind our beliefs. I can ask questions like, “How do we talk about politics in a way that is humble?” Or, “What does God’s justice really look like?”
Our church staff has designed worship services around core concepts like peace, hope and faith. Special music, children’s sermons, prayers and artistic banners invite the congregation to imagine the possibilities.
Our corporate worship also offers an opportunity for the church to embrace a deeper, more nuanced understanding of sanctuary. “Sanctuary” is the ancient assertion that while God is accessible in every time and every place, there are certain sacred spaces where we can experience the profound presence of God.
A true sanctuary offers not just an absence from the human-made world but a presence of the God-made kingdom. It’s a place holder for the divine, a holy ground within an ever-changing political landscape. Cross looming, candles lit, Bible opened, table and font front and center, here God’s presence is made certain within an uncertain world.
This space is not simply set apart but layered, with complexity and dimension. Our political world, human lives and messed-up society are not simply checked at the doors to the narthex; they accompany us inside. Our stories and our scars are laid bare at the altar of God.
Our church’s Election Day anomaly speaks to a larger, timeless truth: God’s sanctuary is dynamic, not stationary. It is a dance floor of sin and forgiveness, where lives are transformed through the give-and-take of human pride and divine grace.
Rather than monitoring the church for potential breaches in the church/state divide, perhaps our time would be better spent opening wide the sanctuary doors.
-------
Despite our desire to find a comfortable middle ground, the incarnation means there may not be a clear, easy way through the midst of cultural conflict, writes a retired United Methodist elder.
Faith & Leadership
ARTS & CULTURE, SOCIETY
Edgar Moore: Election Day, in the shadow of the cross
On primary day, the author was confronted with a "Vote here" sign in the shadow of a cross draped in purple for Lent. Photo courtesy of Ed Moore
Despite our desire to find a comfortable middle ground, the incarnation means there may not be a clear, easy way through the midst of cultural conflict, writes a retired United Methodist elder.
Arriving at Massanutten Presbyterian Church, my polling place, on primary day here in Virginia, I once again encountered the Holy Spirit in her ministry of annoyance. There in the churchyard stood a large wooden cross, draped in purple, appropriate for Lent. And just behind it, a small sign, next to a walkway, announcing, “Vote here.”I was being invited to vote in the shadow of the cross.
It gets better: walking toward the fellowship hall where I was to fill out my ballot, I glanced into the sanctuary and saw the baptismal font. And all I’d been thinking about was going to Starbucks after voting. Holy annoyance, again.
Faithful folk live their lives at a nettlesome intersection of competing narratives, as the Spirit reminded me on primary day. There is the narrative of the gospel, learned through teaching, worship, fellowship, study and the day-to-day ministry of living in human community. Then there is the narrative of citizenship, which invites us to live responsibly in the ephemeral, fragile construct we call a nation.
There is a popular, facile technique for sanding off the rough edges between these narratives, making them appear to fit together almost seamlessly.
The theological term for it is syncretism, and the Old Testament offers up a template example in the account of the golden calf in Exodus 32(link is external). While Moses is up on Sinai receiving the Ten Commandments (and much more -- check the text) from God, the folk down below grow restless, petition for a recall to elect a new prophet-in-chief and draft Aaron, Moses’ brother, to write a creative liturgy of liberation from the God on the mountain.
Aaron -- with internal polling indicating near-nil confidence in Moses -- puts stylus to clay, comes up with a hymn to a local fertility deity and calls for gold with which to give the critter form and substance: the famous golden calf. Aaron’s hymn quickly shoots to No. 1, naming the golden calf as the agent of Israel’s liberation from slavery in Egypt.
Rough edges gone, narratives reconciled, manna every morning, credit to the golden bauble.
The contemporary counterpart to Aaron’s hymn is the myth of America as Christian nation, daily chanted in this volatile political season. The myth takes many forms and appears in various editions but has at its core the conviction that, somehow, the gospel lay at the foundation of the republic back in the day, became sidelined across the years and now must be reinstalled as the center of civic life.
(For an excellent, brief summation of the complexity of religion’s involvement in the founding, see Ben Witherington’s blog post “A Myth of Origins: America’s Christian Founding Fathers?”(link is external))
From this foundational conviction issue all sorts of position papers, pieces of legislation and heated polemics. This project of sanding off the rough edges between the gospel and the Constitution has produced any number of latter-day golden calves, among them the Mississippi Senate’s recently passed bill authorizing churches to organize ecclesial militias(link is external), each congregation naming its own sergeant-at-arms.
The Second Amendment and Sermon on the Mount made compatible. Aaron’s hymn all over again. Let’s save the Ten Commandments on the courthouse lawn for another day.
The attraction of syncretism lies in its seductive suggestion that competing narratives may always be reconciled -- synthesized -- such that little thought, prayer or spiritual engagement need be expended at life’s troublesome intersections. Surely, we think, there is some pleasant route through the middle.
But on Election Day, the Spirit annoyed me with that glimpse of the font, which -- for faithful folk -- always stands prior to the ballot box. The grace poured out abundantly in the water of the sacrament is both promise and invitation: promise that the God whom Moses met on the mountain and who became incarnate in Jesus of Nazareth has self-invested in our lives in ways sometimes apprehensible, often mysterious, blessedly irrevocable; invitation to live out the implications of the incarnation in honest, rough-edged witness in the midst of life’s most vexing and contentious dilemmas. Incarnation means there just may not be a clear, easy way through the midst of the cultural conflict.
John and Charles Wesley had a phrase that still captures the blessed, difficult work of living the life of the baptized in the crucible of a contentious culture. The Christian life, they said, ought to be a symbiosis of “knowledge and vital piety,” a balance of head and heart, of the intellect and the emotions.
Grounded in the faith as articulated in the midst of faithful Christian community, they thought, baptized folk would be equipped to live gracefully and responsibly as citizens, always in the shadow of the cross.
-------
FROM THE ALBAN LIBRARY
How do clergy preach to meet the legitimate needs of their congregation and live up to standards of professionalism and personal integrity? Preaching Ethically offers guidelines for preaching in light of a range of factors that might tempt a preacher to misuse the pulpit. How do you preach about controversial issues? What do you say from the pulpit when your marriage is in trouble? What are the ethics of preaching in times of local or national crisis? How do you draw from resources found on the Internet and elsewhere without plagiarizing or misleading listeners about the source of the materials? How do you write a sermon when you know very little about a subject? Why and how do you feed a congregation a balanced sermonic diet?
To be true to ourselves and our calling, says Sisk, we must examine how the many factors that can influence our preaching come into play. The calling to preach the gospel compels us to preach in ways that keep the gospel foremost, treat the congregation fairly, and are true to our own convictions and our personal integrity.
-------
UPCOMING ALBAN COURSE: PREACHING ADVENT
An Alban Online Short Course
October 31 - November 18, 2016
Advent, the four-Sunday season preceding Christmas, is approaching rapidly. Because you may be looking for a little help in preparing to preach Advent this year, Alban is offering a three-week online short course that will provide you with new insights into Scripture and with specific ways to engage your congregation's imagination during this sacred season.
FROM THE ALBAN LIBRARY
How do clergy preach to meet the legitimate needs of their congregation and live up to standards of professionalism and personal integrity? Preaching Ethically offers guidelines for preaching in light of a range of factors that might tempt a preacher to misuse the pulpit. How do you preach about controversial issues? What do you say from the pulpit when your marriage is in trouble? What are the ethics of preaching in times of local or national crisis? How do you draw from resources found on the Internet and elsewhere without plagiarizing or misleading listeners about the source of the materials? How do you write a sermon when you know very little about a subject? Why and how do you feed a congregation a balanced sermonic diet? To be true to ourselves and our calling, says Sisk, we must examine how the many factors that can influence our preaching come into play. The calling to preach the gospel compels us to preach in ways that keep the gospel foremost, treat the congregation fairly, and are true to our own convictions and our personal integrity.
-------
UPCOMING ALBAN COURSE: PREACHING ADVENT
An Alban Online Short Course
October 31 - November 18, 2016
Advent, the four-Sunday season preceding Christmas, is approaching rapidly. Because you may be looking for a little help in preparing to preach Advent this year, Alban is offering a three-week online short course that will provide you with new insights into Scripture and with specific ways to engage your congregation's imagination during this sacred season.
-------
Follow us on social media:
VISIT OUR WEBSITE
Alban at Duke Divinity School
VISIT OUR WEBSITE
Alban at Duke Divinity School
1121 West Chapel Hill Street, Suite 101
Durham, North Carolina 27701, United States
-------
-------
No comments:
Post a Comment