When I was in college at Biola University in the late 1980s, a common debate was whether one could be both a Christian and a Democrat. I always got a chuckle out of that, since it ultimately seemed to me that it’s just as philosophically difficult to be both a Christian and a Republican.
Years later, I had to chuckle at an interview in the university alumni magazine that posed the can-you-reconcile-Christianity-and-being-a-Democrat to my old political science professor, a longsuffering local member of the City Council and devoted Democrat, but failed to ask the same of famous alumnus John Thune, now a senator representing South Dakota.
Some things never change.
The primary reason Biola students struggled with the Democratic Party is the issue of abortion; Democrats are undoubtedly a pro-choice party, and Christianity preaches against abortion. For many people, the debate never goes beyond that single issue. And that’s too bad, because the Bible has plenty more to say about social justice than it does about abortion, and that’s too often ignored.
I was reminded of all that when I saw a story about Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid telling some fellow members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that it’s OK to be both a Mormon and a Democrat. From the story in the Salt Lake Tribune:
What [Dawn] Miller heard from Reid, D-Nev., is that he’s a Mormon because of his faith and not in spite of it and that people like Miller should “be proud of who they are” and not “be afraid of what your neighbors think.”
He spoke in a crowded hotel room before a bank of television cameras, reporters and Mormons from the North Carolina area and those who are delegates to the convention. He told them Romney isn’t the first Mormon to run for president, though he might be the most conservative and he said LDS beliefs about caring of the poor and protecting the environment fall in line with his votes in the Senate.
“As far as I’m concerned,” Reid said, “every member of the church should be an environmentalist.”
After his speech reporters asked him about Utah. “The only message I have for Utah,” he said, “is to get a little more moderate. It is a little too right wing.”
That’s Reid: a gift for understatement.
The bottom line is, Christianity cannot be shoehorned into either of America’s two major political parties. Consider the Roman Catholic church: It opposes abortion and war, supports organized labor and immigration, opposes gay marriage but supports programs that care for the poor. There are plenty of Catholic Republicans and plenty of Catholic Democrats, each with support in biblical texts.
The problem comes when one party or another seeks to lay sole claim to religion: Republicans who cite passages in the Bible that condemn gays or abortion tend to gloss over other passages, such as prophets inveighing against Old Testament kings who neglect the poor or Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount.
Republicans this week are condemning Democrats for failing to mention “God” in their party’s platform, as if the omission proves Democrats are godless heathens (who nonetheless open their convention with an invocation, as Republicans did). The reference was being written back in as I write this, apparently after the intervention of President Barack Obama himself. The Republican platform, of course, invokes God repeatedly, including as the source of human rights, a common error.
My own view is that religion and politics should be kept as far apart as possible, on the oft-proven theory that religion never sanctifies the state, but that the state often corrupts religion. Of course, individual believers may be motivated by their beliefs — Republicans to try to outlaw abortion, for example, or Democrats to save Medicare and Social Security for poor people — but the Bible was simply not meant to establish state policy. Both Republicans and Democrats have been guilty in that regard, and both are wrong when they do.
Besides, the question really shouldn’t be “can you be a Christian and an (fill in the blank)?” The real question should be what have you done to show a commitment to your beliefs, and to fulfill the great commandments: Love God, and love your neighbor as yourself.
Catholic Church banned abortion in 1870…so for 1700 years they did not care. Bunch of crap. Isn’t the catholic Church against the death penalty.
Yes, it is. Also anti-war. They have the most consistent “pro-life” position of any religious group.
My brother calls me agnostic. I don’t care. I will find out when I get there. What I do care about is morals and making sure mine are strong and clear. This is what I see as religions place in our lives. This is why I believe the state should be completely removed from religion but I do not support religion being removed from state.
Interestingly I get the basis of this opinion from Bob Drinan. My congressman during the time my Gravatar photo was taken. He visited our home several times. One time to help me write a letter for the Boston Globe.
It was NOT the government that pushed Father Bob out, it was his church. You see there was only one Jesuit Priest any place in public office at that time, Congressman Drinan. The church made a rule and Bob Drinan had to make a choice, he chose his church and endorsed Barney Frank. Today there are no Jesuit Priests in public office.
I wholeheartedly wish his church had left things alone, Father Bob made a much better Congressman than Barney Frank. And Barney was a great example of what happens without some support for a moral government from the churches its citizens support freely.
This government is prevented from entering and controlling church by its founding documents. But this government has figured out how to make church irrelevant by creating total separation of church and state.
This is wrong.
Keep state out of church to protect church from state. Not the other way round and certainly not completely separate because what we get with total separation is unfettered amoral government.
Like the one we have now.
Excuse me if I take exception to your statement that Christianity preaches against abortion. Or, better yet, the death of a fetus. Exodus 21:22 explicitly prescribes a financial settlement for causing a miscarriage. That verse is immediately followed by the injunction, “thou shalt give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot” in Exodus 21:23-24. Since a mere financial settlement is sufficient to make amends for causing a miscarriage, it is clear that in this context causing a miscarriage is not considered taking a life.
In Genesis 38:24 Judah orders that pregnant Tamar be burned alive. In Numbers 5: 17-31 women who are suspected of committing adultery must drink a magic potion that, if they were guilty and pregnant at the time, would certainly induce miscarriages.
Exodus 13:1-2 indicates that the ancestors of the Israelites probably at one time actually sacrificed their first born children as is further implied by Genesis 22:1-14. Other references of human sacrifices in the Hebrew Scriptures are found at: Judges 11:29-40, I Kings 16:34, II Kings 16:3, II Kings 17:17, II Kings 21:6, Isaiah 57:5, Jeremiah 7:31, Exodus 22:29. Numerous other references show the low regard for newborn human life during that era.
In Matthew 15:3-4 Jesus even approved of his Father’s command that children who curse their parents are to be put to death. Jesus in Mark 7:9-13 chastised Pharisees for failing to kill those children who defied their parents’ commands.
All religions have problems, it’s not just the Catholics. I was born & raised Catholic, but I am agnostic & have been since my teens. I started to think, that’s all there was to it. Religions are a form of brain washing. You are brought up with it, with no understanding of it & then you can’t fathom not believing in it because it is now ingrained. Religion had it’s place, but the penal law is where the state takes over when those people can’t be controlled by their religion. You speak of being a Catholic Democrat. How about a conservative agnostic? The Ten Commandments & the Golden Rule are all you need to live by. The polls show that people are leery of agnostics more than other religions. It goes to show that the majority actually think that if you don’t believe in a higher God that you are evil. Small minded thinking from ALL religions in that regard.
I write this blog not as an apologist for or a critic of any particular political party. I don’t believe that who a person votes for or against should be dictated to them by someone else. A person should vote for the candidate that they believe shares their values and beliefs. We are rapidly approaching the presidential election in November and the political rhetoric has reached a fever pitch. As with past political campaigns, the closer we get to Election Day the meaner the campaign rhetoric becomes as the candidates try to persuade, cajole, matriculate, and just outright lie to get your vote. But this as, after all, the presidential election and anything goes as the two major party candidates vie for this most coveted political office in our nation.
The current president and his administration has been highly criticized for failing to make good on the president’s campaign promises to bring about real change to the government, to revitalize the economy, to create jobs , to strengthen the middle class and create greater opportunity for a better life for all Americans. Of course, whether he failed or succeeded in fulfilling his promises depends upon who you ask. Many Americans are convinced that this election is America’s “last chance” to save itself from complete collapse politically, economically and socially. They accuse the current administration of having brought the nation to the break of destruction on every level. I disagree. No one American president can be blamed for America’s moral, social, political and economic decline. Since his election as president, president Obama has been blamed for every problem in America since its birth as a nation. I cannot think of a president who has been more unjustly disrespected than President Obama. Presidents expect criticism, especially from those in the opposing political party, but there is meanness more vicious tone to the attacks on president Obama. With president Obama it is more than just a disagreement over his politics, the president himself has become the issue.
I am convinced that white evangelicals are obsessed with getting president Obama out of office, they claim that they believe that people should vote their values and conscious, but in reality and in not so subtle ways, it is obvious that they are promoting the conservative republican political agenda. (Vote for the candidate of your choice, as long as it’s with Romney). Recently I heard a prominent T.V. preacher say, and I paraphrase, that America has been in decline since 2008. How smart do you have to be to figure that one out?
As a Christian, what I find disturbing is that so called bible believing, born again Christians are convinced that the solution to America’s problem is a new political savior. They can’t have two saviors, it’s either the Lord Jesus Christ or the next president of the United States, which is it? They should know the Savior has already come and gone and is coming again for all those who love Him and His appearing. When He comes He will make all things new. The kind of change or transformation America and the world needs cannot be bought about by any political leader. We must not forget Psalms 118 8-9 “It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man.” “It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in princes.”
Sincerely united with those in Christ Jesus.