Mixing Politics and Religion
by John Bryson Chane

July 21, 2002

On several occasions since coming to the Diocese of Washington I have encountered well-meaning people who have cautioned me that as bishop, I should be careful not to mix religion and politics. I’m not sure what that REALLY means but I have a sneaking suspicion that within the admonition is the intent for me not to engage too heavily in the process of "rocking the boat." I have, however, come to believe that by not taking stands on particular moral, social and ethical issues, one has already taken a stand and unknowingly engaged in mixing religion and politics. Not taking a stand is to take a stand!

Stephen L. Carter, Professor of Law at Yale University, wrote an interesting book entitled, The Culture of Disbelief: How American Law and Politics Trivialize Religious Devotion (New York: Yale University Press, 2001). Some points taken from Carter’s book need our attention. He recognizes that there is a threat to the religious ideal of America when religious power mixes too intimately with political power. That danger is seen currently in the role that the "Religious Right" plays in the political formation of national policies and legislation in the United States and beyond. Generally this is also the case in viewing the role of Judaism and Islam and their co-opting roles in the political processes that currently affect the violent instability of the Middle East and specifically the painfully unsettled relationship between the state of Palestine and the country of Israel. The same is applicable to the terrorist attacks against the United States by Islamic fundamentalists on September 11, 2001.

But what Professor Carter really warns us about is this:

…the greater threat comes when the church is no longer kept merely separate but is forced into a position of utter subservience, its voice disregarded in the great public discussions (or even disqualified from joining them). The real danger is that citizens in general will accept the culture’s assumption that religious faith has no real bearing on civic responsibility. Should that happen, prevailing cultural mores will have a higher claim on us than do privately held convictions of conscience, however arrived at.

Carter’s points are amplified by Huston Smith, who writes in his book Why Religion Matters: The Fate of the Human Spirit in an Age of Disbelief; "faith necessarily carries with it a spirit of opposition to the prevailing culture, and this makes the tension between church and state as proper as it is inevitable (San Francisco: Harper, 2001)." Smith cites as support for this position the role that the Berrigan brothers continue to play in the nuclear disarmament and peace movements, the role that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., played in the Civil Rights Movement, and that Mahatma Gandhi, the Amish, Quakers, Mennonites, and the Hutterites continue to play in their unwavering resistance to wars of any kind.

When we divorce religion from politics, we marginalize religion to the point that the values that ultimately guide and help society behave in a reasonable and compassionate fashion are lost to the current and prevailing values of the culture.

Several years ago I was asked to testify at a hearing in San Diego District Court as a character witness for a friend, and had the painful experience of watching the sentencing of a poor, homeless Spanish-speaking male who had been arrested for stealing two cans of corn and one of Dinty Moore Beef Stew. He received a five-year sentence with no parole because it was his third conviction for stealing food from a 7-11 Convenience Store. I wonder, if found guilty, what the executives at Enron and other failing companies and accounting firms will receive for having become rich at the expense of their own stock holders, employees and the American public?

On July 20^th of this year, the Episcopal Church recognized — through its liturgical calendar — four American women whom we now consider to be latter-day prophets and profoundly courageous seekers of justice and truth. They were motivated in their journey through their understanding of the role and place of Christianity in their lives and in the lives of the people of this country. Many of their contemporaries would accuse them of having possessed the unhealthy malady of mixing religion and politics.

Sojourner Truth was born a slave in 1798. Her slave name was Isabella. After Quaker Abolitionists helped her escape to freedom, she changed her name to Sojourner Truth. Sojourner was chosen because she saw herself as both a citizen of heaven and a wanderer on earth. Truth became her last name because she knew God to be her father and God was the essence of truth. She became a street corner evangelist and founded a shelter for abandoned women. Mixing religion and politics, she became a powerful lay preacher and spoke eloquently against the institution of slavery and the marginalized status of women. The Episcopal Church has claimed her courageous efforts to abolish the legal estate of slavery and seeking an end to the suppression of women’s rights by calling her the "Miriam of the later Exodus."

Harriet Ross Tubman was born a slave in Maryland in 1820 and eventually escaped to Canada. She later returned to the United States, motivated by the Biblical narrative in the Old Testament of God’s deliverance of the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt. Motivated by her faith, and mixing religion and politics, she led a minimum of nineteen illegal excursions into Maryland to free slaves through the Underground Railroad. She later joined the Union Army as cook, nurse, and spy and led a raid on her own that freed over 750 slaves. She became known to many as the Moses of her people.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton was born in 1815 as a Presbyterian and rebelled against the limited vision of her church on women’s rights issues. She was a powerful preacher and at one time attempted to write a Woman’s Bible. Her notes contained remarks that in Genesis it was written that Noah’s Ark had only one window. She said had a woman been consulted, the Ark would have been better designed. Elizabeth Cady Stanton saw that a woman’s right to own property and to have equal access to free speech was a justice issue. Had she not mixed religion and politics, I often wonder if the road to justice would not have taken a longer turn for women?

Amelia Jenks Bloomer was born in 1818 and was an outspoken critic and activist against slavery, and supported the Temperance Movement. She also was a giant in the field of opening up the door addressing women’s suffrage. The style of women’s clothing that was once known as women’s "bloomers" was in fact invented by Amelia and she was ridiculed for her scandalous design. She once wrote; "The same Power that brought the slave out of bondage will, in His own good time and way bring about the emancipation of women, and make her an equal in power and dominion that she was in the beginning." Amelia also could be found guilty of mixing religion and politics.

These four women, two black and two white, stood tall against injustice and oppression. And in order to do that they had to engage in the risky business of mixing religion and politics. Let it never be forgotten that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Gandhi, and so many others have been accused and found guilty of the same charge. Remember too that Jesus was seen by the religious and political establishments of his time as a revisionist who meddled deeply into the politics of Judaism and the Roman government. Let it never be forgotten, Jesus was crucified on a political charge of claiming to be a king, in direct conflict with the role of the Emperor; "Behold the King of the Jews."

You and I live in a tough and too often cynical world… there must be a mixing of religion and politics or we will have little if any impact on the institutions that must be changed and hold sway over our lives and the lives of our brothers and sisters.

The good old days were not all that good if we really think about them. We must be about the Lord’s business of sowing good seeds for the eventual harvest. Sowing good seed requires action on our part and not inaction. Sowing good seed means that we will always have to encounter those who would sow bad and others who would tell us that it might not be such a good time to sow any seeds at all. "Better we should wait until conditions are just right for the sowing, then we should go about our business."

If we had waited for the best time to go about our business of seeking justice and freedom in and for our nation, slavery would have taken another 50 years to end and the Civil Rights Act would have been purchased at a much later date and with more pain than has already been experienced. Ours, therefore, is to be a journey intentionally defined by actively engaging in the harvest of the good fruit, the righteous fruit, and the fruit that is fertilized by justice and the search for the dignity of every human being. Ours is not an action that can be described in any other way than that of being good stewards of the reality of God’s promises which never fail. And God has promised the gift of everlasting freedom, unconditional love, and new life to those who do good, to those who seek justice and to those who do the Lord's will. As the author of the Gospel of Mathew wrote; "The righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Let anyone with ears, listen."

The Right Rev. John Bryson Chane is the Episcopal Bishop of Washington (D.C.).