Critiques/Aberrations of Religion

[Primula Baggins]

Hmmm. . . . To my Lutheran eyes, infant baptism is meaningful because it underscores the fact that becoming a part of the family of God is God's gift to us, not a choice we make.

Being baptized as an infant doesn't take away anyone's ability to make a different religious choice later in life. This is why we have confirmation in the early teens, specifically intended to ground the kids in the church's beliefs. At the end of that (two years of weekly Wednesday-night classes at my church), you have to consent to be confirmed. And even after confirmation, you can (and many do) leave.

Mr. Prim was baptized in the Brethren in Christ at the age of 12, and joined the Lutheran church after we were married. He had to get some instruction, but he didn't need another baptism.

[Pearly Di]

Prim said it a lot better than me, and with less verbiage.



*points to Prim*

Thank you for pointing out what I didn't, Prim, and should have done ... it's all about grace, God's gift to us.

*slinks away*

[Primula Baggins]

It was all that confirmation class, you know—having the grace of God pounded into us. . . .

(At my church a parent goes to confirmation wiith the child, so I have now been through it three and a half times. . . .)

[Cerin]

If I say that being placed into water three times in a row as an infant was just that, with absolutely no deeper ramifications for my life or potential afterlife than that, does that become reality, I wonder. Or is there some benefit that inheres regardless of my beliefs or actions?

You mean, will you be dragged kicking and screaming into heaven because you were baptized Catholic as an infant.

I'm not sure what Catholic doctrine would have to say about that. As Jn pointed out, the concept of baptism for Catholics seems to be a bit different from Protestant infant baptism, and is certainly different than for Protestant adult baptism, where the baptism is an expression of a conscious decision.


Windy! Imagine my surprise and delight when I scrolled down and saw a Windfola post!

In what ways might today's Christians be off the track

I think Christians are off track today in combining religion with politics in the way the Christian right is doing. I think Jesus' illustration of the Roman coin (render unto Caesar what is Caesar's and unto God what is God's) is a pretty nifty articulation of the doctrine of separation of church and state.

I also think there is manifesting in the U.S. today a feeling of enmity against non-Christians (speaking again of the Christian right), as was evidenced in the news reports surrounding the last election. I think this is contributed to by the mistaken combining of religion and politics mentioned above and is very much the wrong kind of attitude.

And of course, whenever 'Christianity' manifests hatefully and violently -- as in hateful rhetoric or abortion killings or bombings, then I think it is off track. Jesus was challenging but accepting in his interactions with sinners (challenging the sin but embracing the person), not vehement and condemning. That sort of language was reserved for the Pharisees and Sadducees (those who were 'in the know' religiously).

One is the way of those who do not care for the Truth, but the other is the way of those who claim to have the Truth.

Yes, Tillich really drove me up the wall, didn't he.

Certainly I don't maintain I have the only truth when it comes to interpretation of non-foundational doctrine. It is in the foundational aspects of Christianity (forgiveness of sins through faith in Christ) that I have staked a claim as it were, that I have decided to believe.

They can regard their adult conversion as a flowering of the sacramental act that was made when they were a baby.

Lovely, PearlyD! I'm entirely in agreement with your post.

And get yourself out of that corner!

[Jnyusa]

The fact is this – had the Emperor Constantine the Great embraced Mithraism, and not Christianity, then that would be the dominant religion in Western Europe and the USA

I'm sorry, but that's not a fact, that's a speculation.

It is to an extent, but very probably accurate. Whichever religion got chosen to be the offical religion of the Roman Empire would be set up for a huge boost - export all across Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. Had another religion been chosen and not supplanted, it would probably be the dominant religion of the west today.

Sorry to take us off the subject of Baptirsm (which I opened), but I would like to come down on the side of Truehobbit on this one.

Christianity did not spread because Rome ruled the world. It was not enforced as the sole official religion of the Roman empire until the edict of Theodosius in 391 CE, and by that time the empire was already doomed. The capital had been moved to Constantinople and the wars that the emperors were fighting were against challengers to the throne. Within 60 years (447 CE) Atilla will have sacked Rome and the Merovingians will rule Gaul. The Roman Empire per se was not responsible for the spread of Christianity.

What I learned - and those who know Church history a lot better than I do can add/subtract details - what I learned is that the outward proselytization of Christianity was the brainchild of St. Ambrose, Bishop of Milan from 374-397 (had to look up the dates). He is the one who dispatched monks to Britain and Germany. Without knowing all the historical details, I can imagine that the edict of Theodosius was given in support of the active conversions already being accomplished by the church, but it was the church who led the empire in the spread of Christianity and not the other way around.

One of the things that we have to accept about Christianity, I think, is that proselytization is inherent in its character, at least from the time of Ambrose onward. This fit very well with Roman attitudes toward trade, conquest and religion. Rome always had an 'official' religion and in Britain, at least, people were persecuted for failing to worship the Roman gods and goddesses. So I think it is true that if Christianity had found its footing ... in Africa, let's say, or in Greece ... it's goals would not have been so consonant with secular authority and the outcome might have been different. But I don't think it is true that if Constantine had converted to Mithraism, Mithraism would be the religion of the West today because the priestly class within that religion was not interested in proselytization.

For Christianity to spread during that particular time period, it had to want to do so.

Jn

[Windfola]

Windy! Imagine my surprise and delight when I scrolled down and saw a Windfola post!

Yeah, and I bet it lasted until you read my post.

I think Christians are off track today in combining religion with politics in the way the Christian right is doing.

I don't disagree in the least , but when I am truly honest with myself, I have to wonder if that is just because I disagree with their politics.

I posted on that *other messageboard* in one of your threads about how the bible is political as well as personal and how that seems to surprise many Christians (especially Evangelicals, I think, who seem to focus more on personal revelation, though I may be wrong about this).

But I can't imagine being a person of faith and not having that faith inform my politics and my political actions as a citizen.

Is there some distinction to be made between what you are talking about and what I am talking about with regard to the approrpriate and inappropriate intersection of religion and politics?

Certainly I don't maintain I have the only truth when it comes to interpretation of non-foundational doctrine. It is in the foundational aspects of Christianity (forgiveness of sins through faith in Christ) that I have staked a claim as it were, that I have decided to believe.

This is a very admirable trait that some Christians share with you, but many don't, in my exerience, hence some of the negative feelings between Christians and non-Christians, and even between liberal (for lack of a better word) and conservative (ditto) Christians.

[Whistler]

This notion of "not mixing faith and politics" is utter nonsense.

Both are about where our values lie and where we place our priorities as we live our lives. How can they never cross paths?

Of course there are abuses. If somebody says that God wants us to build a new highway or balance the budget, he's trivializing and abusing religion. But if he takes a particular position on war, abortion, ecology, etc. with religion as its basis, he is quite right to do so because morality enters strongly into such matters.

People who want to ensure "separation of church and state" (as the phrase is popularly used today) usually have instead only a determination to keep a certain kind of religious thinking out of politics, while they are happy to accept (and sometimes encourage) religious thinking, when it squares with their own agendas.

Has anybody, anywhere, even once, suggested that the Rev. Martin Luther King ought to have stayed out of politics because he was a clergyman? Of course not. Ah, but the most trivial observation by a modern fundamentalist or evangelical is claimed to mark the beginning of a new inquisition or crusade.

What nonsense.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Both are about where our values lie and where we place our priorities as we live our lives. How can they never cross paths?

Whist, I think that the success of the Republican Party in American politics in recent years can largely be attributed to its recognition of this fact - and the Democratic Party's refusal to recognize it. One Democratic Party candidate that did not shy away from promoting his faith as an issue in his campaign was Governor Tim Kaine of Virginia. I don't think it was a coincidence that his campaign was successful.

I have no problem with people acknowledging how their own faith influences their own moral and political choices. Where I do have a problem is when people attempt to impose their faith on other people. That is why the doctrine of the separation of church and state is so important. Because the state is so powerful, it is critically important to our most basic freedoms to not allow there to be even a patina of an appearance of the state imposing one religious belief over another (or even religious belief in general over non-religious belief).

[Cerin]

Yeah, and I bet it lasted until you read my post.

Not at all, silly.

But I can't imagine being a person of faith and not having that faith inform my politics and my political actions as a citizen.

Is there some distinction to be made between what you are talking about and what I am talking about with regard to the approrpriate and inappropriate intersection of religion and politics?

Yes, I think there is a distinction.

Naturally we are all animated in every aspect of our lives by our spiritual beliefs, and that will shape our political opinions as well. But exercise of our civic responsibilities should be entered into as Americans in support of our Constitution (not as atheists, Christians, Taoists, etc. in support of our religious beliefs).

I think at some point in our recent history, a certain segment of Christianity began wanting to make our government a Christian government, began wanting to impose their beliefs on the nation through the institutions of government.

I oppose this as strongly as I would oppose any religion trying to establish itself through the government, because the prohibition on government establishment of any one religion is the very thing that allows me to worship according to my conscience (and everyone else as well).

I'm not sure just where this line has been crossed in our recent history, perhaps it has been crossed incrementally in a thousand little ways: Pres. Bush declaring after 9/11 that 'the light will shine in the darkness and the darkness will not overcome it' (speaking not of Christ but of his administration's agenda); churches openly advocating for political candidates and organizing politically within their membership; the Catholic church threatening excommunication if its members vote for a certain candidate; a Missouri assemblyman proposing a bill that Christianity be the official religion of the state. These things are symptomatic, in my view, of a wrong attitude and level of religious involvement in politics.

Has anybody, anywhere, even once, suggested that the Rev. Martin Luther King ought to have stayed out of politics because he was a clergyman? Of course not. Ah, but the most trivial observation by a modern fundamentalist or evangelical is claimed to mark the beginning of a new inquisition or crusade.

Whistler, it seems to me that Martin Luther King's approach was very much different than that of the religious right today. He campaigned in terms of principles such as freedom and justice (which of course flowed from his beliefs) that I think even non-religious people could embrace.

Perhaps if we could examine the difference in the way King framed his causes and the way the religious right frames their causes, that might help pinpoint the idea I'm trying to express.

Both are about where our values lie and where we place our priorities as we live our lives. How can they never cross paths?

I'm not suggesting they not cross paths. I'm suggesting that our principle activities as Christians should be in the church, and that our activities in politics (though informed by our spiritual beliefs, of course) should be entered into primarily with a focus on our Constitution, form of government and understanding of what we believe promotes its continuance and the welfare of a community of diverse faiths.

If somebody says that God wants us to build a new highway or balance the budget, he's trivializing and abusing religion.

I think a good deal of that has gone on and is going on today because of this unhealthy merging of politics and religion. Our religious beliefs do not translate simply into public policy in a representative democracy that forbids the government establishment of religion. Two people who share the same religious belief may have an opposite view of how that belief may best be applied as public policy in accordance with our Constitution. Religion, therefore, cannot be considered to determine what one's political opinion will be on any given issue; the danger comes when people believe their religious beliefs define what is right in terms of public policy both for themselves and for people who don't share those beliefs.

But if he takes a particular position on war, abortion, ecology, etc. with religion as its basis, he is quite right to do so because morality enters strongly into such matters.

I don't think our political positions should have our religion as their basis. I think our political positions should have our understanding of the Constitution and the nature of our republic and the welfare of a diverse community as their basis; of course, our views on these will be informed by the morality of our spiritual beliefs in a way that is difficult to separate. I realize it's a fine distinction, but I believe it is there.

People who want to ensure "separation of church and state" (as the phrase is popularly used today) usually have instead only a determination to keep a certain kind of religious thinking out of politics, while they are happy to accept (and sometimes encourage) religious thinking, when it squares with their own agendas.

I honestly don't think this applies to myself (and I think I'm a rather fundamentalist sort of Christian). If I cherish my right to worship according to my conscience, then I have to cherish everyone else's right to do so just as much.


Edited for typos and missing smiley.

[JewelSong]

What Cerin said.

All of it.

[Windfola]

People who want to ensure "separation of church and state" (as the phrase is popularly used today) usually have instead only a determination to keep a certain kind of religious thinking out of politics, while they are happy to accept (and sometimes encourage) religious thinking, when it squares with their own agendas.

Has anybody, anywhere, even once, suggested that the Rev. Martin Luther King ought to have stayed out of politics because he was a clergyman? Of course not. Ah, but the most trivial observation by a modern fundamentalist or evangelical is claimed to mark the beginning of a new inquisition or crusad e.

Hi Whistler.

Not sure I understand what you're getting at when you say "as the phrase is popularly used today", but these two paragraphs don't seem to follow.

Martin Luther King most certainly did not represent "the State", and as such, applying the concept of church/state separation to him or his political activities doesn't seem appropriate.

As much as many Americans may disagree with him, no one has seriously suggested that the Rev. Jerry Falwell should stay out of politics because he is a clergyman. That would be a more appropriate analogy.

That said, I do think you are right to recognize that our American sensibilities with regard to mixing religion and politics have been changing over the years. I think we tolerated religious speech from our presidents, judges and elected officials more in the past than we do now. And I don't think that is a bad thing. Nor do I assign such partisan motivations to the gradual changes as you do. I believe it is a natural and proper response to our increasingly pluralistic society.

While recently the struggle has frequently been characterized as a need to keep religion separate from government in order to protect the state from religion, in reality, that wall between church and state is far more crucial for the protection of religion from the state! I wish more people of faith would recognize this. I believe they imperil their ability to worship according to own their conscience and endanger freedom of religion for all whenever they fight to keep religion entangled with government.

[truehobbit]

Hehe, Teremia, I said almost the same thing about the dangers of being too certain (about whatever) on TORC a few days ago!

And I did run into the idea, in a Catholic college, that non-Christians could not get into heaven ... well, specifically, people who were not baptized could not get into heaven. Does anyone know if the Catholic church still holds to that belief today?

but I'm more familiar with the Catholic approach, where Baptism is a sort of pass/fail criterion if I understand it properly. Having it doesn't guarantee you heaven, but you can't get in without it. I don't think they view any of their other sacraments as absolutely necessary for salvation, not quite in the same way.

I think that's correct, but I'm not altogether sure - and I don't know whether there've been changes in how that is viewed since the last Council or so. (I'm sure Mith would know. )

As far as I know (which admittedly isn't very far ), the reason we have infant baptism in the first place is in order to insure that a child would have a chance to go to heaven if it dies in infancy.
Anyone who has read Tristram Shandy will remember the humourous digression on in-utero baptism - this is making fun of a real dilemma for people at the time, namely having to worry about the soul of a child that dies during or right after birth.
There were also "emergency baptisms" right after birth, when a child seemed too weak to survive.
If I understand correctly, this is connected to the concept of inherited sin (edit: I just remembered it's called "original sin" in English).
Because we are born with sin, the belief is that we need the absolution that comes with baptism, in order to be saved.

(As a side note: because baptism brings complete absolution from all sins, in the early church people would convert to Christianity but only be baptised on their deathbeds! Pretty good insurance for heaven, in their reckoning! )

Baptism is what makes you a member of the church, as Prim has explained. That's why all the other sacraments are not as vital. But of course, because you can't consciously choose Christianity as a baby, there are ceremonies of confirmation later on in life.
If you're baptised, you are still a member of the church, even if you never get confirmed - but you can't get confirmed when you haven't been baptised first.

However, all that said, I don't know how many Catholics today are at all aware of the meaning of baptism (like I said, I'm not really sure myself) - and if they are (and if it is at all still seen as the pass for salvation), whether they'd believe it!
Let's face it, a lot of people don't believe anything - they just have their kids baptised because that's the thing you do, and you get to have a grand celebration. So, I think one should always differentiate between the official dogma of a church and what the average member believes.

One of the things that we have to accept about Christianity, I think, is that proselytization is inherent in its character, at least from the time of Ambrose onward.

It's inherent in its character because according to the Gospels, Jesus gave the explicit instruction to go and bring the good news to all the world.
AFAIK, it gave the early followers a bit of a headache to decide whether 'all the world' could really mean to include all the non-Jewish world, but they finally decided that it did (not an easy decision for the Jews, as it meant "sullying" themselves by making contact with unbelievers).

in reality, that wall between church and state is far more crucial for the protection of religion from the state!

I think that's very true, Windfola!
Abusing the name of God for worldly ends is certainly one of the most heinous abuses, IMO.

[Jnyusa]

Hobby, thanks very much for that explanation. Now that you mention in utero baptism, it was a discussion about something similar to that (way back in college days) which formed my impressions about the Catholic approach to baptism.

So, I think one should always differentiate between the official dogma of a church and what the average member believes.

This is a very good point. And also related, I think, to the point that eborr was making. What people really believe and how they actually behave is not often completely consistent with official dogma.

Jn

[Whistler]

As much as many Americans may disagree with him, no one has seriously suggested that the Rev. Jerry Falwell should stay out of politics because he is a clergyman.

Yes, that is precisely what I hear suggested, all the time. And that is the only point I meant to make.

[nerdanel]

Whistler,

Once again, I must concede one of your points that makes me squirm slightly - even to concede halfway, as I am doing here. I would find it much more comfortable to agree wholeheartedly with Cerin and Voronwë.

People who want to ensure "separation of church and state" (as the phrase is popularly used today) usually have instead only a determination to keep a certain kind of religious thinking out of politics, while they are happy to accept (and sometimes encourage) religious thinking, when it squares with their own agendas.

Here's the halfway:

I would be most comfortable with seeing no religious thought whatsoever in legislation. However, I concede that if America was 90% comprised of UCC members who wanted to legalize same-sex marriage because they believed their Christianity required it, I would not be taking to the streets to protest this. If the majority religious view was pro-choice on abortion, pro-stem cell research, pro-teaching of evolution in schools, and so on...I would still feel that our legislative and judicial choices should be made on secular grounds, on principle. I wouldn't want to see a Supreme Court decision affirming Roe v. Wade in which the justices announce that their opinion is based on what Jesus (or Allah or Vishnu or Buddha) would want. I would still think that sort of reasoning has no place in our secular government, and most of all not in the judiciary. However, am I results oriented enough that I wouldn't raise any major protest if 90% of Americans supported abortion because their religion told them it was right to be pro-choice? Probably.

So, for clarity: I agree with you that I personally am far less uncomfortable with the idea of religious people supporting the legal results I want for religious reasons, than I am with religious people opposing the results I want for religious reasons. I am probably not the only socially liberal person to feel this way. However, I am not entirely comfortable with any religious reasoning underlying our secular laws, their interpretation, or their enforcement.

I have no problem with people acknowledging how their own faith influences their own moral and political choices. Where I do have a problem is when people attempt to impose their faith on other people.

Voronwë, of course, the problem is when people's faith leads them to believe that the only moral thing to do is to limit everyone's choices. To use the tried and tested abortion example - how can someone whose faith leads them to believe generally that abortion is murder say in good conscience, "Okay, I won't have an abortion because I believe it's murder, but I won't interfere with anyone else's ability to commit murder."

Understand, I personally agree with you, and Cerin when she says, "the danger comes when people believe their religious beliefs define what is right in terms of public policy both for themselves and for people who don't share those beliefs." Truthfully, I am deeply uncomfortable with religious viewpoints that would seem to prescribe public policy outcomes, such as the cliched abortion example above. But I do not understand how it is reasonable to tell a person who holds those views that they should divorce them from the realm of politics. I think this is exactly what one is doing in saying that they should not impose their faith on other people, at least as to certain major hot-button issues. This seems to amount to telling them they should set aside those beliefs entirely, and honestly, if that's probably what I would personally mean to communicate by saying such a thing.

***
Quick shoutout to Pearly Di - that was an excellent post. I agree fully, to the extent I can agree with such things as an agnostic.


Cerin, even if I am a book-to-movie purist, I am an afterlife pragmatist, and I think that if I was informed that I would be allowed into heaven purely due to my Catholic baptism, I would be doing very little kicking and screaming about that outcome - except to protest that all the others who held agnostic beliefs on Earth but were not fortunate enough to have Catholic parents to get them baptized should be granted the same form of 'amnesty'

[Whistler]

To use the tried and tested abortion example - how can someone whose faith leads them to believe generally that abortion is murder say in good conscience, "Okay, I won't have an abortion because I believe it's murder, but I won't interfere with anyone else's ability to commit murder."

Again you reveal (even to one who usually disagrees with you) that you always seek intellectual honesty.

One might as well say, "I think slavery is an abomination, but who am I to impose my morality on others?" That's the talk of a coward.

There are infrequent times when every person of conscience MUST seek to impose his morality on others. Ultimately all law comes down to somebody doing exactly that. Some of us derive our morality from a system of religious faith, and some derive it elsewhere. But we all (I hope) have some moral code, and that code is hot air unless it sometimes motivates us to action.

[Cerin]

Understand, I personally agree with you, and Cerin when she says, "the danger comes when people believe their religious beliefs define what is right in terms of public policy both for themselves and for people who don't share those beliefs." Truthfully, I am deeply uncomfortable with religious viewpoints that would seem to prescribe public policy outcomes, such as the cliched abortion example above. But I do not understand how it is reasonable to tell a person who holds those views that they should divorce them from the realm of politics.

Abortion is actually a good example of this. I'm pretty sure that my spiritual beliefs would disallow me from considering abortion as an option (except in the most dire circumstances and even then I'm not sure), but I recognize that in a free society other people shouldn't be held to the decisions I would make because of beliefs that they don't share and which the government is disallowed from establishing as law.

I'm not suggesting we should tell people that they should divorce their spiritual beliefs from the realm of politics; they have every right to exercise their civic duties in accordance with their religious beliefs. But they need to understand that other people don't hold those beliefs, and that another person who does hold those same beliefs can legitimately come to another conclusion about a matter of public policy. Divine truth does not directly translate to a certain view on political issues.

If every Christian would imagine the country full of Muslims advancing a political agenda in the same way Christians have done over the past several decades, they should be able to understand intuitively what I'm trying to express. We shouldn't try to pass laws on the basis of religious doctrine, because we wouldn't want someone else of a different belief to be doing it to us. I think this is what the religious right has tried to accomplish, but I don't think it's what Jimmy Carter tried to accomplish, and I don't think it's what Martin Luther King tried to accomplish. Maybe someone can help me articulate the difference that I see there.

[Ethel]

There are aspects of the ascendancy of what is commonly referred to as the Religious Right that make me queasy. But I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that politically I disagree with them on many issues.

I deeply believe in the right to free speech, association, all of that. I cannot and will not make an exception for those who, in their ideal world, would impose a theocracy upon us. If that is what they want, surely they have every right under the US Constitution to pursue that end by every legal means available to them. As long as the struggle is at the ballot box, it is - in my opinion - entirely legitimate.

I do not want to live in a theocracy. But if an overwhelming majority of my countrymen voted for it, can I legitimately object? In the Heathens thread someone cited a study that claimed that atheists were the most hated minority in the US. My name is Ethel, and I'm an atheist.

Yet I do not fear retribution. I mostly keep my mouth shut about it (er... except on messageboards... ) - and it causes me no great trouble in my everyday life. Despite the material influence the Religious Right has come to have on government in this country, I do think there is still a tradition of religious liberty that will protect the minorities.

I vote my conscience and cannot blame anyone else for doing the same.

[Primula Baggins]

I vote my conscience and cannot blame anyone else for doing the same.

Exactly.

I don't believe that anyone's political views materialize spontaneously from a perfect vacuum. They have some source or basis. People have reasons for believing as they do. I see no inherent danger if those reasons are religious, as long as what they inform is political action within our system. As long as the playing field is level, so to speak.

[Cerin]

It occurred to me last night that I had inadvertently led the discussion away from Windy's first question by answering the second from the wrong perspective. Windy initially asked, in what ways do I think today's Christians might be off the track. I answered:

I think Christians are off track today in combining religion with politics in the way the Christian right is doing.

To which Windy replied

But I can't imagine being a person of faith and not having that faith inform my politics and my political actions as a citizen.

Is there some distinction to be made between what you are talking about and what I am talking about with regard to the approrpriate and inappropriate intersection of religion and politics?

I then mistakenly began talking about the inappropriate intersection of religion and politics from the secular point of view. But Windy was asking me as a Christian, where I thought Christians may have gone off the mark, and about the distinction between appropriate and inappropriate intersection of religion and politics as a Christian.

The reason I see this focus on politics as off the mark for Christians is because I don't think it follows Jesus' example, because it places too much emphasis on the world, and because this combining of religion and politics is what leads to events like the inquisition (that is, in hideous mutant manifestations of faith).

Repeating what I said above, we may believe with absolute certainty in the tenets of our faith, but that should not translate to a similar degree of certainty about our rightness (and therefore everyone else's wrongness) in matters of politics. In other words, my believing that the Bible is divine truth should not lead me to assume that my understanding of the justness of tax cuts for the wealthy in the context of my biblical beliefs is divine truth. President Bush believing the Bible is divine truth, should not have led him to assume his invasion of Iraq was a manifestation of divine truth.

Certainly everyone, religious and non-religious alike, should exercise our best judgment about matters of politics within the context of our spiritual beliefs ('vote our conscience'). But having as the motivation for our political actions, the belief that we represent the truth of God in promoting particular political solutions to the world's problems, is, I believe, off the mark for a Christian.

We have one solution to one problem -- Jesus, the Savior of the world -- that we should put forward with a singular certainty and fervor. No offering of worldy truths or solutions should reflect that same certainty and fervor, because there is too great a likelihood that we will be wrong in some aspect of our understanding and perspective, and therefore too great a danger that we will misrepresent Christ to the world in the name of politics.