Politics or religion?

Wisdom of the week

[Reprinted from Issues & Views December 24, 2001]

The resignation of religious broadcaster Pat Robertson as president and board member of the Christian Coalition pulls the plug on a comatose religious-political body that effectively died more than a decade ago. The meltdown marks the second time in a century (the first being Prohibition) when an attempted marriage between church and state failed both institutions.

Religious politics failed the church because believers were told they could improve the morals of a nation through legislation and politics. It failed the state because time that might have been spent preaching a gospel of redemption--that would have had the collateral benefit of elevating culture--was wasted in a futile attempt to reform the unconverted.

In re-directing their energies, conservative Christians would do well to re-read the Bible and stop relying on the "spin" others put on it for their own temporal purposes. There is no biblical mandate, or expectation, for reforming the world through government. Government can, and usually does, reflect the moral attitudes of its people. However, government cannot heal broken marriages (the primary cause of most social ills), nor can it force parents to invest the time necessary to properly rear a child. These things are personal, not political.

-- Cal Thomas, syndicated columnist; excerpted from "The Second Death of Religious Politics" (Tribune Media Services).

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