Riverwood Presbyterian Church

Politics

On Christianity and Political Activism

by Jimmy Hopper

A column in the Tuscaloosa News that I almost never miss is that of Cary McMullen, who appears each Saturday on the Religion page. I’m not sure why I’m so faithful to read him because He is obviously a bit to the left of my stance on most things. Maybe it’s because he’s thoughtful and articulate, and that’s relatively rare today; maybe it’s becaue he’s obviously a believer; maybe it’s simply because, looking at his picture, he’s at least close to my age. He writes for a newspaper in Florida and has been picked up nationwide.

His column today is written in the style of C.S. Lewis’ Screwtape Letters (with, he notes, apologies to his memory,) and in it, he discusses Jerry Falwell’s latest faux pas during a meeting of the Value Voters Summit. It seems that Falwell stated that Hillary Clinton would “energize ‘my’ constituency” even more than if Satan himself ran. McMullen discusses this as a memo between the two demons Lewis used in his book, Screwtape and Wormwood. Wormwood, the underling, had written his boss, Screwtape, complaining that this was an insult to their leader, Satan himself. Screwtape tells him not to worry, that “Insults are our domain.” He says that Christians were led to believe that “hating this woman is an act of serving our enemy,” who is, of course, God.

There is more, but McCullen’s final argument from Screwtape’s perspective is fascinating and, to me, right on. He has Screwtape, Satan’s demon, say this: “You see? Any time we can persuade people that their faith must be tied to a particular political platform or party, we distract them from the practice of what one of their more influential writers called ‘Mere Christianity.’ And the more they think Christianity has to do with comfort, political influence and something nebulous like values, rather than the hard disciplines of unselfish worship, prayer, study of scripture and service to the less fortunate, why then, the better our chances of making them ours.”

I think “distract” is putting it mildly. What happens is all too often we develop a wrong view of our faith and a wrong view of the gospel when it becomes part of some kind of secular crusade. Christians are free to vote on and support political causes they believe in but I believe none of them are a part of our faith. When we make them part of our faith, just as when we make patriotism part of our faith, we then have to accept the bad and even the downright evil that is in them also as part of our faith because the world will insist on it. Since we set the terms of the argument, there is no logical way out of it.

The Link to the column is here. http://http://www.tuscaloosanews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060930/NEWS/609300307/1005/SPORTS0106