March 19, 2002

Compartmental-izing religion and politics

Posted by Scott at 04:31 PM

I was reading a speech by Dr. James Dobson (who I don't wholeheartedly support but he is influencial in non-denominational Christian circles) when I came across this insight. It applies to those who take separation of church and state too personally in not voicing their traditional beliefs:

"Those of you who do feel that the church has no responsibility in the cultural area and you have tended to feel our job is to preach the Gospel and all the rest of these things will kind of fall into place, and you haven't felt it is something that you should devote yourself to because that's something somebody else is called to, let me argue with you for just a moment.

Suppose it were 1858 and you were a pastor and you lived in Raleigh, N.C., or Richmond, Va. -- somewhere in the South. Would it be satisfactory for you to say about slavery, "Well, I'm not called to deal with that issue. I'm called to minister to the people in my church. Slavery is not something I have to deal with," when you know that men and women are being subjected to involuntary servitude? They can be killed. Their families can be separated. Their children can be taken away and sold like cattle. And you don't say anything? Is your argument tenable under those circumstances?

The year is 1963, and Martin Luther King is sitting in a Birmingham jail and he is released. And he goes to a church--yes, a church. And from that church, he comes out into the streets of Birmingham and marches for civil rights. Do you oppose that? Is that a violation of the separation of church and state?

What if it were 1943 and you were in Nazi Germany and you knew what Hitler was doing to the Jews and the Poles and the Gypsies and the homosexuals and to many other 'undesirables'? You knew they were being gassed, you knew little children were lined up in the rain naked all day for their chance to go into the gas chambers. Would you say, "We're not political? That's somebody else's problem. I'm not called to address this?" "

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