The Regent's Voice

Permanent Place Picked for Wren Chapel Cross, I Heard

2007-04-18T10:36:00.000-07:00

I thought that March 6, 2007 heralded Armistice Day for the War of the Wren Cross. It seemed that threats by an unnamed donor to withdraw $12 million in funding from the college had the intended effect of driving President Nichol to reconsider his position. In keeping with the bureaucratic method, President Nichol formed his hand-picked Committee on Religion in a Public University to study options. They had magnanimously recommended the Cross’s deliverance from the closet of darkness to the light of the Wren Chapel.

Ah, victory—peace at last.

And then came the reality of the proffered treaty. It failed the smell test. There’s something about the display and placement of the cross in the Chapel that stinks like a pair of old gym shoes.

At the risk of dating myself, I remember the days in elementary school when the teacher would remove a rebellious and distracting child by making him sit in the corner facing the wall. The Cross shall suffer the same humiliation. The Cross that distracts from the doctrine of political correctness, the Cross that leads the rebels of tribal exclusivity, shall sit entombed in a glass box in a shadow-swaddled corner of the Chapel.

The Committee offered to place the cross “in a prominent, readily visible place…,” non-committal words, those. The Committee never intended to include the altar as an option for prominent display. According to Webster’s Dictionary, prominence means “conspicuous, noticeable at once”—in other words, where one’s attention is drawn. I suppose compared to where the cross has been displayed the last few months—in a closet smothered in blinding darkness—anywhere in the Chapel can be defined as prominent. If the committee meant “prominent” according to the universally accepted definition of the word, then they should have recommended that the cross be placed at the location where attention is drawn: the altar.

The Committee’s decision to confine the Cross chaps my backside even worse than the intended placement. Even with an accompanying sign to explain the College’s Anglican roots, sealing the Cross in a glass box has the psychological effect of erecting a wall between the Cross’s historical identity of the past and its active meaning today. Caging the Cross diminishes its significance as a piece of living history and reduces it to a meaningless, dusty old museum relic—like old bones. Yet other potential religious displays in the historically Christian chapel will have no such restraint. The rule that now requires the Cross to remain in the Chapel during all other types of ceremonies and meetings is pointless. Who would be offended by old bones?

Mr. Nichol’s propaganda machine, aka his religion committee, has a purported mission to explore the role of religion in the public university, whatever that means. Mr. Nichol’s bureaucratic edict for this bureaucratic arm is nothing more than a magician’s misdirection. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. Rather, know that this whole process demonstrates that the Cross is neither equal to other symbols nor particularly welcome anymore in its own historical house. To the perpetually offended few this is a good thing. But the placement-and-display decision is not a solution but only a first step toward the real goal: a return to the status quo of October ’06.

Wren Cross: The Solution's Problems

2007-03-11T13:32:00.000-07:00

The battle was hard fought on both sides of the line, but March 6 brought an armistice in the War of the Cross.

President Gene Nichol’s Committee on Religion in a Public University unanimously agreed on a compromise that will deliver the cross from the closet of darkness and return it permanently to the light of the chapel. It seems that the 18,000 plus who signed the Save The Wren Cross petition and withheld funds can now move on, satisfied in the victory.

But something about the proffered treaty is a bit odoriferous—something about the proposed display and placement of the cross in the Chapel smells like a pair of old gym shoes.

The first smelly concern is the proposal to display the cross sealed in a glass box. Even with an accompanying sign to explain the College’s Anglican roots, such a display has the psychological effect of erecting a wall between the cross’s meaning today in the life of the chapel and its historical identity of the past. Caging the cross diminishes its significance as a piece of living history and reduces it to a meaningless, dusty old museum relic—like old bones. Yet other potential religious displays in the historically Christian chapel will have no such restraint. This is a nonsensical dichotomy.

The second concern is the nebulous placement of the cross “in a prominent, readily visible place…,” obviously not on the altar. According to Webster’s Dictionary, prominence means “conspicuous, noticeable at once”—in other words, where one’s attention is drawn. I suppose compared to where the cross has been displayed the last few months—in a closet smothered in blinding darkness—anywhere in the Chapel can be defined as prominent and that is the problem. If the committee means “prominent” according to the universally accepted definition of the word, then we must place the cross at the location where attention is drawn: the altar.

Add these two issues together and the committee’s compromise sends the clear message that the cross is neither equal to other symbols nor particularly welcome anymore in its own historical house. To the perpetually offended few this is a good thing and apparently a goal achieved.

But the goal, my goal, hasn’t just been to return an object to permanent residence in the chapel. It has been to return all that the cross stands for: a staunch reminder of the heritage that has driven the values of the “alma mater of a nation” and the message of welcome to all that enter the Chapel. This compromise does not meet this goal.

Many on all sides of the conflict have sincerely held beliefs. The Committee has worked hard to accommodate the diverse views. However, the lion’s share of the compromise burden stands on the shoulders of the supporters of the cross’s return. The recommendations are only a first step toward a complete solution. I recommend the next step be the permanent placement of the glass encased cross on the altar.

Wren Cross Removal is Official Censorship

2007-02-05T16:55:00.000-08:00

Does American democracy offend you? Then burn the flag—that’s free expression guaranteed.
Do decency laws cramp your style? Then sue for your porn—against censorship unlawful.
Does the sight of a Christian symbol anger you? Then banish it in the name of tolerance—the First Amendment need not apply.

I heard it all began with a letter from a disgruntled somebody. Or was it a prospective student who fled the Wren Chapel and its dreaded cross screaming, “My eyes, my eyes, they burn!” Who knows? We do know that Gene R. Nichol, President of the College of William and Mary and former ACLU leader, continues to stubbornly stand by his no-cross-unless-asked-for policy. He formulated his policy on his belief that the cross in the historic Anglican chapel makes other-faith people feel unwelcome in contradiction to the “best values of the College.”

But Mr. Nichol’s deceptively altruistic policy violates much worse than feelings.

Some people don’t see this as an important issue. Indeed some, like Kate Perkins (Richmond Times Dispatch December 18th op-ed), see this as a “cosmetic battle” over an “anachronism” that fails to follow the higher road to love people and serve God. But these two choices are not mutually exclusive—they compliment one another. While I do not doubt Ms. Perkins’ sincerity of faith, I think she and many people, having been seduced by Mr. Nichol’s flowery rhetoric, do not comprehend what is ultimately at stake: our religious freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment.

Despite this threat, proponents of Mr. Nichol’s policy remind us that William and Mary is a state institution and as such church-state separation must be rigorously enforced. The over-used legal argument of “separation of church and state” has been a favorite chisel of the ACLU and its allies to remove Christian symbols and to stop public expressions of faith. This argument has been used so often over the years that people think it is in the Constitution. It isn’t.

In 1802, Thomas Jefferson came up with the phrase “wall of separation of church and state” in a letter to the Danbury Baptist Church to allay the congregation’s fear that the government would try to regulate religious expression. Jefferson wrote “that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between church and state.” The “wall” was not meant to stop religion from public life but to stop the government’s interference with it.

The infamous 1947 Everson case mutated Jefferson’s idea to the ACLU mantra we have today. Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black wrote that the First Amendment had erected a wall between church and state. Despite numerous subsequent rebuttals from constitutional scholars and Supreme Court decisions, the ACLU has used the 1947 opinion to shut down public religious expression and remove symbols from public view.

The First Amendment will not be wiped out by a band of Capital-storming Bolsheviks who will rip it away from 300 million Americans in one day. Rather, it is stripped of its power by methodically chipping away religion, specifically Christianity, from America’s religious history and replacing Judeo-Christian values with secular ones.

The Wren cross controversy is not a matter of insensitivity to members of a diverse university as Mr. Nichol has asserted. It is official censorship. To challenge the presence of the symbol of the College’s cultural and historical roots from which said values are derived smacks of anti-Christian bias.

But the chips are small and people, like frogs in steadily heating water, won’t notice the tiny erosions of our religious freedoms until it’s too late. How many steps are there from here to a totalitarian denial of the First Amendment?

The cross is only a two-foot portable brass object in one small chapel on one campus of thousands in America. But given the stakes, I protest one little piece at a time to help preserve one of America’s most cherished and important freedoms.

Wren Cross: Compromise Is Not Enough

2007-01-13T10:50:00.000-08:00

The following piece was published in the December 23 issue of the Virginia Gazette in an edited form.

University president Gene Nichol has been creating quite a big stink in the College of William and Mary community. Last October, he had made a unilateral decision to quietly banish the Wren Chapel’s two-foot brass cross to a closet until it was requested—a reversal of the original policy which allowed the removal of the cross from the altar during secular or other activities that did not appreciate its presence. His decision had received both praise and wrath; praise for his sensitivity and social enlightenment and wrath for his discrimination against the Christian history of the College. In response to the uproar among concerned community members, he has offered to replace the cross on Sundays. This gesture of compromise is still unacceptable.

Mr. Nichol based his decision on his belief that the Christian icon creates an atmosphere of exclusivity and intolerance that he sees as contrary to the values of the university in this multicultural age of assentation. Out of sight, out of mind—his policy, formulated in the name of diversity, inclusiveness and sensitivity, attempts to erase the memory of the Christian influence on the university’s development and even the university’s reason for being. The chapel seems to have become a battleground between the secularist agenda and legitimate traditional history. Despite the pretty words the president has used to mitigate outrage at his policy, suspicion about the politics remains.

Mr. Nichol’s reasons for removing the 100 year old cross seem to be more controversial than the act itself. Reactions in the blogosphere and commentaries in several regional newspapers have ranged from hailing him as courageous for standing on Jeffersonian principles to criticizing him for indulging his own secular agenda. Mr. Nichol has been very careful to avoid overtly arguing separation of church and state, instead blurring the notion with educationally ingrained political correctness: “And though we haven’t meant to do so,” said Mr. Nichol to the William and Mary Board of Visitors, “the display of a Christian cross—the most potent symbol of my own religion—in the heart of our most important building sends an unmistakable message that the Chapel belongs more fully to some of us than to others; that there are, at the College, insiders and outsiders; those for whom our most revered place is meant to be keenly welcoming, and those for whom presence is only tolerated.”

His colleague Melvin Ely, Professor of History and Black Studies, writing to the editor of The Flat Hat, was more transparent: “I respect tradition and am not inclined to tamper with it lightly. Yet I also believe that, in avoiding the implicit establishment of a particular religion by the state, the president is conforming to Jefferson’s Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom and to the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution at, what I would remind readers, is a state institution.” Evidently, the mere presence of a religious symbol in the public space constitutes the official establishment of the religion, thereby creating a situation where one religion is acceptable and the others, be they faith-based or secular, only tolerated. But even a cursory reading of the 1786 Virginia Act for Establishing Freedom of Religion shows that Jefferson’s goal was to abolish governmental coercion that employed “temporal punishments” and “civil incapacitations” to force loyalty to a governmentally supported church. The presence of symbols does not a religion endorse.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit decided a similar case in the 2005 American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky v. Mercer County. The ACLU demanded the removal of a Ten Commandments display from a Mercer County, Kentucky courthouse charging it signified state endorsement of a religion. An Alliance Defense Fund press release reported that in its decision, the court wrote: "the ACLU makes repeated reference to 'the separation of church and state.' This extra-constitutional construct has grown tiresome. The First Amendment does not demand a wall of separation between church and state." The court went on to note that the ACLU's argument that the Ten Commandments are religious does not answer the question of whether the display actually endorses religion. The ACLU, the court said, "erroneously-though perhaps intentionally" equates merely recognizing religion as government endorsement of religion. "To endorse is necessarily to recognize, but the converse does not follow." The parallel between the two situations is clear.

If church-state separation isn’t the driving force behind the decision, then perhaps the pressure of secularism is. Reiterating the president’s view, one Wren building employee told me that as an evolving institution—socio-political evolution presumably—the Wren Chapel as part of the university must evolve too, for it is not a museum “frozen in amber.” If this were the case, she reasoned, the historic rules that denied the admission of women and African-American students should stand. But changes like these do not violate any of what the altar cross stands for and stands against. History is frozen in amber and must not be revised to accommodate those social philosophies that would minimize or eradicate the historic record of Christian influence on this campus and in this country. The former policy clearly solved the problems of offended sensibilities without revising the historic significance of the Chapel. The new policy, despite his latest offer, accomplishes the opposite.

Even if we give Mr. Nichol the benefit of the doubt and accept that his goal is only and genuinely a concern for people’s feelings, then we must realize that neither the Constitution nor adulthood guarantee that an individual will not see things that are disagreeable. The removal of the cross will not satisfy those who determine to be offended at the sight of Christianity. But we cannot develop public policy on the basis of feelings. If we did, the only logical response in the Chapel’s case would be to rip out the altar, sever the pews from the floor, tear down the wall plaques that refer to scripture and the Lord and rename it the Wren Multipurpose Room.
The final question remains: will political correctness erase the noble history of the Wren Chapel or will reason preserve it? As Martin Luther King Jr. said, “Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”

Update on the Cross and the Politics

2006-12-22T17:18:00.000-08:00

University president Gene Nichol seems to be buckling under the pressure of William and Mary students, alumni and others who are outraged at his decision to remove the cross from the altar at the Wren Chapel, College of William and Mary.

His appeasement is to allow the replacement of the cross on Sundays for limited hours and mount a plaque acknowledging the place of the Anglican Church in the establishment of the Chapel. Although he appears to be caving under pressure, his offer is just the classic wink and nod to stifle the opposition. He continues to push his secularist agenda by trying to eradicate the memory of the solid Christian foundation of the College and the chapel and make believe that secular humanism and other anti-Christian beliefs had something to do with the College's development.

He claims that he is not trying to bleach out the Anglican memory, but that he is oh so deeply concerned that people don't feel excluded. The school is evolving, they say. Yes, and nicely too according to secularist plans, but this does not affect the history of the Chapel. It doesn't matter that the chapel is used for traditional matriculation exercises or other secular activities, its history is frozen. Exclusivity? The chapel could be used for nothing else but Episcopal church services if this were true, but instead anyone can visit, and use the chapel for any reason. It couldn't be more inclusive. Mr. Nichol's reasoning is irrational and irritating. Read the latest emails he sent out to the student body explaining his offer:

From: Gene R. Nichol [mailto:gnichol@wm.edu]
Sent: Wednesday, December 20, 2006 2:30 PM
To: william-mary-leadership-boards-l@wm.edu
Subject: [william-mary-leadership-boards-l]

TO: Leadership Boards, The College of William and Mary

FROM: Gene R. Nichol, President

DATE: December 20, 2006

As many of you know, in late October, after many conversations with
students, faculty, and staff, I requested that we amend our display of the
Wren Chapel cross. Instead of being present on the altar until removed for
a private event, the cross is kept in the Chapel's sacristy unless
requested for use during an event or by individual students for quiet
reflection.

I've since heard from students, staff, faculty, alumni, friends--some
supportive, many critical. I've been reminded that all of us,
unsurprisingly, hold the Chapel close to our hearts. Since that's so, and
since the symbolism and history and peace of the cross mean so much to so
many--including, not incidentally, to me--I have thought long about our
practice in recent weeks.

The attached note, which I sent to the campus community this afternoon,
reflects much of my thinking. Though I plan to share a few of these ideas
with the broader alumni community in my January annual letter, I wanted to
share this fuller account with you, as well.

My goal, which I hope I've adequately explained in the attached, is to make
the Chapel, so much a part of the life of the College, appropriately
welcoming to all. In the last few weeks I began to hope for ways to also
recognize the historic importance of Christianity in the Wren Building and
the College. We will soon take the steps I describe herein.

Issues that challenge us, as I told the Board of Visitors last month, are
the grist of great universities. I much appreciate those of you who have
already begun considering this one with me, and I invite you to be in touch
if you'd like to share your ideas. Thanks, as ever, for all you do for
William and Mary. Glenn and I send our very best to you and yours for the
holidays.

December 20, 2006

To the College Community:

I trust that you are enjoying the close of the semester. There are, as yet,
still a few exams to be completed, papers to be graded, projects to be
mastered, and, finally, miles to be traveled toward those who have missed
you more than it was thought possible. My family and I have again been
amazed by the warmth of the College community. From the Yule Log, to the
carolers and singers who have brought greetings to our house, to the
later-night enthusiasts of the Sunken Garden , you have lifted our hearts.

I write, though, on another front. Controversy continues about my decision
to alter the display of the cross in the Wren Chapel. Although the faculty
has been strongly supportive, and the Student Senate voted by a wide margin
not to oppose the change, opinion on campus is far from uniform. And beyond
our walls, many alumni and friends of the College have urged, in the
strongest terms, that the decision be reconsidered.

I have tried to read each letter, note and email I've received about the
issue--though the volume has been high and the language sometimes heated.
And even as the semester has drawn to a close, I have continued to speak
with faculty, students, staff, campus ministers, alumni and the members of
our Board of Visitors about ways to honor our traditions while assuring
that the Chapel is equally welcoming to all. I've found no magic answers.
But having heard much, and having had the opportunity for at least some
quiet reflection on the dispute, I write to offer a few words about the
steps we've undertaken, the disagreements that have ensued, and my hopes
for the future.

I am much taken with the Wren Chapel. Like many others, I attend an array
of crucial College events there. Unlike others, I also have a key to its
imposing west door. So I make studied and frequent use of the Chapel late
in the evenings. It is, by my lights, the most ennobling and inspiring
place on one of the most remarkable campuses in the world. That's saying a
good deal.

But I hadn't been here long before I began to understand that the
experience of the Chapel is not the same for all of us. Over the past
eighteen months, a number of members of our community have indicated to me
that the display of a cross--in the heart of our most important and
defining building--is at odds with our role as a public institution. They
did not say, of course, that the cross is an offensive or antagonistic
symbol. They often understand that to Christians, like me, the cross
conveys an inspiring message of sacrifice, redemption and love. Rather,
they have suggested that the presence of such a powerful religious
symbol--in a place so central to our efforts--sends a message that the
Chapel belongs more fully to some of us than to others. That there are, at
the College, insiders and outsiders. Those for whom our most revered space
is keenly inviting and those whose presence is only tolerated.

Nor are such sentiments merely fanciful. I have been saddened to learn of
potential students and their families who have been escorted into the
Chapel on campus tours and chosen to depart immediately thereafter. And to
read of a Jewish student, required to participate in an honor council
program in the Chapel during his first week of classes, vowing never to
return to the Wren. Or to hear of students, whose a capella groups are
invited to perform there, being discomfited by the display of the cross. Or
of students being told in times of tragedy of the special opening of the
Chapel for solace--to discover that it was only available as a Christian
space. Or to hear from a campus counselor that Muslim students don't take
advantage of the Chapel in times of spiritual or emotional crisis. Or to
learn of the concerns of parents, immensely proud for the celebration of a
senior's initiation into Phi Beta Kappa, but unable to understand why, at a
public university, the ceremony should occur in the presence of a cross.

I have sought, then, to find ways to assure that the Wren Chapel is equally
open and welcoming to every member of this community. My goal has not been
to bleach all trace of religious thought and influence from our facilities
and programs, but rather to offer the inspiration of the Wren to all. As an
array of our campus ministers have indicated--in expressing strong support
for the altered policy--it is the very vitality and the increasing
diversity of our religious community that calls for a more encompassing and
accessible use of the Wren.

But many, many have seen it otherwise. They have worried that, as a new
president, I have failed to understand and sufficiently value the storied
traditions of the College. I can imagine myself, were our roles reversed,
coming to a similar conclusion. (Although no cross would have been
displayed in the colonial Chapel, one has been placed in the Wren for many
decades.) Others have believed, even worse, that my actions disparage
religion. No Christian can warm to the label "anti-Christian"--even if he
is a public figure with need, on occasion, of thickened skin.

I have also perhaps added to the turmoil by my own missteps. I likely acted
too quickly and should have consulted more broadly. Patience is a vital
virtue--especially for a university president. I'm still learning it. The
decision was also announced to the university community in an inelegant
way. I know, or at least I hope, that you are accustomed to fuller and more
appealing explanations of our practices.

But still, I have asked myself and others, does the Wren Chapel, our most
remarkable place, belong to every member of the College community, or is it
principally for our Christian students? Do we take seriously our claims for
religious diversity, or do we, even as a public university, align ourselves
with one particular religious tradition? And I know that despite
disagreements over my actions, no member of the extended William & Mary
family believes that any of our students should be cast as
outsiders--however unintentionally--because of religious preference.

I am mindful, nonetheless, of the powerful claim that altering the display
of the Chapel cross ignores the storied traditions of the College.
Accordingly, I have asked Louise Kale, director of the historic campus, to
take the following modest steps:

First, we will commission a permanent plaque to commemorate the Chapel's
origins as an Anglican place of worship and symbol of the Christian
beginnings of the College.

Second, in an effort to give further recognition to the heritage of the
Chapel without substantially affecting its openness and accessibility for
College use, I have asked that the altar cross be displayed throughout the
day on Sundays with expanded hours. The cross will also continue to be in
place on the altar when the Chapel is used for Christian religious services
or when any individual requests its display for moments of quiet prayer and
contemplation.

Neither these alterations, nor anything I have said, will likely halt the
controversy. The issues it touches are perhaps too powerful, and heartfelt,
and close to the core. And the College community--both within our walls and
across the globe--is too articulate and passionate and too committed--for
easy words or opinions to assuage. But, the cross is, at present, being
displayed frequently, by request, in the Chapel. A number of Muslim and
Jewish students now report, for the first time, that they are using the
Chapel for prayer and contemplation. And I was pleased to learn that the
student organization Hillel recently made a reservation to use space in the
Wren for the first time anyone can remember.

I close only by noting common ground--both for those who support the
decision and those who oppose it.

We believe in the cause of the College--its singular history, its tradition
of life-changing learning rooted in character and rigor, and its promising
role in the future of the nation and the world.

We believe, to the person, in fostering and sustaining an institution, in
the words of the College's Diversity Statement, "where people of all
backgrounds feel at home."

And we believe in the inspiration, even if not uniformly in the theology,
of Archbishop Tutu's claim: "In God's family there are no outsiders. All
are insiders. Black and white, rich and poor, Jew and Arab, Palestinian and
Israeli, Roman Catholic and Protestant, Muslim and Christian . . . all
belong."

Go Tribe.

Hark upon the Gale.

Gene Nichol

The Cross and the Politics

2006-12-19T13:19:00.000-08:00

University president Gene Nichol has created quite a big stink in the College of William and Mary community over the last few weeks. His unilateral decision of last October to quietly banish the Wren Chapel’s two-foot brass cross to a closet until it is requested has received both praise and wrath. Mr. Nichol believes that the Christian icon creates an atmosphere of exclusivity and intolerance that he sees as contrary to the values of the university in this multicultural age of assentation. Out of sight, out of mind—his policy, formulated in the name of diversity, inclusiveness and sensitivity, attempts to erase the memory of the Christian influence on the university’s development and even the university’s reason for being. The chapel seems to have become a battleground between the secularist agenda and legitimate traditional history. Despite the pretty words the president has used to mitigate outrage at his policy, suspicion about the politics remains.

Mr. Nichol’s reasons for removing the 100 year old cross seem to be more controversial than the act itself. Reactions in the blogosphere and commentaries in several regional newspapers have ranged from hailing him as courageous for standing on Jeffersonian principles to criticizing him for indulging his own secular agenda. Mr. Nichol has been very careful to avoid overtly arguing separation of church and state, instead blurring the notion with educationally ingrained political correctness: “And though we haven’t meant to do so,” said Mr. Nichol to the William and Mary Board of Visitors, “the display of a Christian cross—the most potent symbol of my own religion—in the heart of our most important building sends an unmistakable message that the Chapel belongs more fully to some of us than to others; that there are, at the College, insiders and outsiders; those for whom our most revered place is meant to be keenly welcoming, and those for whom presence is only tolerated.”

His colleague Melvin Ely, Professor of History and Black Studies, writing to the editor of The Flat Hat, was more transparent: “I respect tradition and am not inclined to tamper with it lightly. Yet I also believe that, in avoiding the implicit establishment of a particular religion by the state, the president is conforming to Jefferson’s Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom and to the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution at, what I would remind readers, is a state institution.” Evidently, the mere presence of a religious symbol in the public space constitutes the official establishment of the religion, thereby creating a situation where one religion is acceptable and the others, be they faith-based or secular, only tolerated. But even a cursory reading of the 1786 Virginia Act for Establishing Freedom of Religion shows that Jefferson’s goal was to abolish governmental coercion that employed “temporal punishments” and “civil incapacitations” to force loyalty to a governmentally supported church. The presence of symbols does nothing of the kind.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit decided a similar case in the 2005 American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky v. Mercer County. The ACLU demanded the removal of a Ten Commandments display from a Mercer County, Kentucky courthouse charging it signified state endorsement of a religion. An Alliance Defense Fund press release reported that in its decision, the court wrote: "the ACLU makes repeated reference to 'the separation of church and state.' This extra-constitutional construct has grown tiresome. The First Amendment does not demand a wall of separation between church and state." The court went on to note that the ACLU's argument that the Ten Commandments are religious does not answer the question of whether the display actually endorses religion. The ACLU, the court said, "erroneously-though perhaps intentionally" equates merely recognizing religion as government endorsement of religion. "To endorse is necessarily to recognize, but the converse does not follow." The parallel betweeen the cases is clear.

If church-state separation isn’t the driving force behind the decision, then perhaps the pressure of secularism is. Reiterating the president’s view, one Wren building employee told me that as an evolving institution—socio-political evolution presumably—the Wren Chapel as part of the university must evolve too, for it is not a museum “frozen in amber.” If this were the case, she reasoned, the historic rules that denied the admission of women and African-American students should stand. But changes like these do not violate any of what the altar cross stands for and stands against. History is frozen in amber and must not be revised to accommodate those social philosophies that would minimize or eradicate the historic record of Christian influence on this campus and in this country.

Although the current policy allows the cross to be retrieved from exile for Christian specific activities, the prior policy was to request temporary removal of the cross from the altar during secular or other activities that do not appreciate its presence. This policy clearly solved the problems of offended sensibilities without revising the historic significance of the Chapel. The new policy clearly accomplishes the opposite.

Even if we give Mr. Nichol the benefit of the doubt and accept that his goal is only and genuinely a concern for people’s feelings, then we must realize that neither the Constitution nor adulthood guarantee that an individual will not see things that are disagreeable. The removal of the cross will not satisfy those who determine to be offended at the sight of Christianity. But we cannot develop public policy on the basis of feelings. If we did, the only logical response in the Chapel’s case would be to rip out the altar, sever the pews from the floor, tear down the wall plaques that refer to scripture and the Lord and rename it the Wren Multipurpose Room.

The final question remains: will political correctness erase the noble history of the Wren Chapel or will reason preserve it? As Martin Luther King Jr. said, “Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”

Democracy Responds to Boyd's Myth of a Christian Nation

2006-09-07T08:57:00.000-07:00

Over the last two weeks I have written four essays about Pastor Greg Boyd’s controversial stand on Christians in politics—they shouldn’t be—where I pretty much disagreed with his position. Apparently I am in the minority opinion in the blogosphere. I thought my reasoning was sound but I couldn’t find any comments like, “Wow, Lisa, I never considered that,” or “You have struck the proper balance.” Well, one or two might be there but most likely they got caught in the stampede of “right-on-pastor” comments by Pastor Boyd’s new fan base.

In his latest book and in his sermons Pastor Boyd attempts to shoot down the concept of America as a Christian nation. “When were we a Christian nation?” he bellowed from the pulpit. “Was it when we were enslaving people and beating them? Or was it when we stole Indian lands?...I don't get it...Where was God in this?” Not that any of these atrocities were carried out under the banner of Christianity but it’s these historic examples of “power over people” that may be associated with the idea of "Christian Nation" that has Pastor Boyd's jeans in a jumble. He is concerned that the evil perpetuated in our history may be associated with the name of Christ. Today's politics (which will be tomorrow's history) are to him a clear and present danger to the reputation and the expression of the kingdom of God when Christians use the political and legislative processes. He calls this methodology to force the Christian agenda (if you can call biblical rightness an agenda) on society through the power of a worldly system "power over people." Such an approach by Christians, he says, is the antithesis to the New Testament teachings that Christians are called to live radically loving lives that will effect changes in the human heart which he believes will ultimately change society.

According to Boyd, political engagement was never part of Jesus’ earthly mission. For example, Pastor Boyd points out that Jesus did not challenge the Roman government in Palestine, but rather taught submission to it and loving one’s enemies. "If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles," Jesus said (Matthew 5:41) A teaching like this would have irritated Jesus' audience because the Jewish nation wanted their Messiah to throw off the shackles of the hated Gentile oppressor and make Israel preeminant. Despite Jesus' teachings there were many that rebelled against Rome's imperialistic authority and most of them were horribly executed. But Jesus used the Roman oppressor to demonstrate God's love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8). But America is not governed by a tyrannical oppressor but is the land of the free where freedom of thought, religion and speech are paramount to a civil and just society. It is by God's laws that we have a civil and just society. Ergo, Christians can and should utilize the political and legal provisions of a representative democracy to secure that civil and just society. I can't understand how the Christians-out-of-politics crowd can morally equate the Roman emperor with the American constitutional democracy and the Christians who seek national strength through obeying God's laws. Such a comparison is hyperbole and borders on slander.

But still, the Lord requires His followers to go the extra mile as Pastor Boyd correctly teaches. However, we are called to take a stand in our society for rightness even as we serve. They are not polar opposites in God's kingdom but are complements. The world knows the difference between right and wrong, but we Christians know and must stand on the Truth. There is New Testament precedent for godly engagement in secular business: John the Baptist challenged the marriage of King Herod to the wife of his own brother. He lost his head for his efforts. The story is significant because John challenged the moral practices of the Roman-appointed authority on Biblical grounds. Sounds pretty much like Christian activism today, doesn’t it?

Christians in politics is not a new 21st century phenomenon. Some have accused the Republican Party of taking political advantage of the Christian voting block. So what? The Republican Party has not been the first to do this. The Christian voting block came to the attention of the Democratic Party elite in 1976 when apparently large numbers of Christian voters helped elect Jimmy Carter, a ''born-again'' Christian. This voting block became terribly disappointed and disillusioned with Carter's liberal politics and absence of common sense, which motivated them to pursue candidates with more sound policies. Christians became a major recruiting ground for the ''New Right''--which included many of the issues Christians and other conservatives are concerned with today--and secured the twice over election of Ronald Reagan. Pat Robertson’s Christian Coalition and his campaign for the Republican nomination in 1995 galvanized the Christian community to seek alternatives to the extreme left policies of the Clinton administration.

Unfortunately, Pastor Boyd makes a grotesquely inaccurate comparison between the Roman Emperor Constantine and the American Church’s political activism. Emperor Galerius issued an edict of toleration in 311 which stipulated Christians, who had "followed such a caprice and had fallen into such a folly that they would not obey the institutes of antiquity", be granted an “indulgence.”

"Wherefore, for this our indulgence, they ought to pray to their God for our safety, for that of the republic, and for their own, that the republic may continue uninjured on every side, and that they may be able to live securely in their homes."

I find it remarkable that this ruler of a decadent, worldly Roman Empire called the Christians to national intercessory prayer.

In 313, Constantine issued the Edict of Milan which returned the meeting places and other properties which had been stolen from the Christians and sold out of the government treasury. Constantine declared Christianity the official religion of the empire and replaced symbols and temples of the old gods with those of Christianity. Christianity in the Roman Empire, Boyd argues, became a political tool wielded by the power of a worldly government, often employing the sword along with it.

Boyd’s analogy disintegrates like vampires in sunlight under the scrutiny of the First Amendment. Christianity never was and never will be declared by the US government to be the country’s official religion. At the same time, the First Amendment guarantees the right to practice religion unhindered by the government. It also keeps Christianity's enemies from using the government to stop its practice, which includes evangelism and its application to good governance--a byproduct the secularists hate. We cannot logically equate Constantine’s official use of Christianity and the public stand the Church takes in the public debates allowed by democracy.

But to hear Pastor Boyd talk about it, you’d think there was something inherently anti-Jesus about Christians exercising their rights in the democratic process. Pastor Boyd rejects the use of the tools of our democracy as a “kingdom of the world” thing. But democratic values are in line with biblical values. Let’s not confuse nomenclature. “Christian nation” does not refer to a theocracy but a set of principles, biblical in nature, which have been part of American governance and culture. Each citizen benefits from the biblical idea of freedom and the rule of law regardless of his religious persuasion.

God created this country so that people could govern themselves according to biblical ideas and not be forced to unrighteousness and strife from dictatorships. Democracy gives us the governmental vehicle to spread the Good News. Remember that pesky First Amendment I talked about earlier?

It was under democracy based on biblical principles that the Indians were recompensed.
It was under democracy based on biblical principles that slavery was abolished and condemned as an institution.
It is under democracy based on biblical principles that immigrants can come here to worship God without fear of being tossed in jail or sent to forced labor camps.
It is under democracy based on biblical principles that these same immigrants can come here and make better lives for themselves.

It is under this democracy based on Christian principles that the Church fights for the lives of the wounded and the helpless.

Christians are working to preserve this framework. In decrying Christian political activism, Boyd undermines the very vehicle that lets Christians practice their religion. If this is not true, then it makes no sense for the ACLU to be on a constant search and destroy mission to remove even the symbols of Christianity from the public place.

Are we a Christian nation? I see us as a nation of Christians living in a worldly culture that is not entirely devoid of Christian standards—due to democracy based on biblical principles.

This is LM.
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Greg Boyd's Controversial Stand Part 4

2006-09-02T17:46:00.000-07:00

History Shows Christian Political Activism

Pastor Greg Boyd’s fame has spread like oil on a hot griddle among bloggers of all religious leanings thanks to the July 30 New York Times article that lauded his stand for Christian political pacifism. Despite the historical facts of Christian involvement in politics, like the founding of the United States of America for instance, Pastor Boyd believes Christians should stay out of the public debate and commit themselves only to Christ-like service.

Pastor Boyd is concerned that many pastors around the country are hawking for the Republican Party thinking, consciously or not, that they are promoting God's righteousness in the form of the Party's political platform. They are driven in large part by some publicly known pastoral pundits who don't sound much different from their secular conservative counterparts. These pundits politically proselytize with an almost evangelistic fervor making it appear that an umbilical exists between Christianity and the Republican Party.

I think media hype makes such an enjoining appear bigger and deeper than it is. First, most non-profit religious institutions understand they can lose their IRS non-profit status if they are found to be an arm of any political party. Second, most people realize that the Lord does not associate Himself with any political party, nor does any political party represent Him. The reason many Christians vote for Republican candidates is because of ithe Party's apparent willingness to include Christian concerns in its platform. Since our democratic system really only provides two political parties to choose from, despite numerous independents that always crop up at election time, it’s natural for many in the Christian community to endorse the Republican Party for its apparent acknowledgment of the Judeo-Christian God's place in American culture.

We all know that no political party or action committee can save the world from its problems. Salvation, both eternal and temporal, comes only through Jesus—only He is Salvation. The Lord Jesus does not hate gays, or women who have had abortions, or fathers who have abandoned their families or even those who kill Americans in the name of Jihad. He loves us all desperately and died an unspeakable death so that no one would have to face eternal judgment. We do not want to dilute His message of eternal life.

That said, I am very concerned that Dr. Boyd is throwing the proverbial baby out with the bathwater. Pastor Boyd decries a tradition of our democracy that has been around since the start of the American experiment: Christian activism. America was founded on Christian principles and they can be seen very clearly in the Mayflower Compact, the Declaration of Independence, in the philosophies of the Founders, to cite a few references. The Founders believed in God and in His absolute moral law: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” The Founders recognized that the strength and sustainability of our democracy depended on the continued presence of the providential hand of God. Take at look at some of their explanations:

Thomas Jefferson said: “No nation has ever yet existed or been governed without religion, nor can be. The Christian religion is the best religion that has ever been given to man, and I as chief Magistrate of this nation, I am bound to give it the sanction of my example.”

Patrick Henry stated, "The greatest pillars of all government and social life (are) virtue, morality and religion. This is the armor my friend, and this alone that renders us invincible."

James Madison said that “Without God democracy cannot and will not long endure.

The Bible makes it clear that the Lord requires not only individual fealty, but national as well. Here are a couple of examples:

“Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people.” (Proverbs 14:34);

“Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord.” (Palms 33:12);

“The wicked return to the grave; all the nations that forget God.” (Psalms 9:17)

I have no doubt that at least one Founder recognized these truths:“It is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favors,” said the Father of our Country—George Washington.

Apparently such an august precedent doesn’t impress Pastor Boyd. He quotes Ephesians 6:12 to prove that Christians have no place in the public debate: “Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” He neglects the scripture that immediately follows in the context: “Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.” (Ephesians 6:13) Moreover, the Lord tells us: “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men.” (Matthew 5:13) Salt is a preservative that prevents decay. Rather than aligning themselves with the "kingdom of this world" as Dr. Boyd put it, I think scripture is clear that Christians would be remiss in their duty to the kingdom of God to remain silent on social, religious and moral issues. “Do not be deceived: God is not mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction.” (Galatians 6:7-8) I showed in my last essay what happens when we as a nation forsake God’s laws and the Church does not take a stand. The legacy of the 1960s exemplifies this principle in psychedelic color. As Edmund Burke put it, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing.

Today, the secularists would have America believe that a solid moral foundation that honors God’s laws is establishing a theocracy in contravention of the First Amendment. They just keep on trying to remove all vestiges of God from the public square despite the legacy of rot left by the so-called progressive thinkers of the 1960s. But the Founders have made it clear that such a foundation is the basis for the First Amendment. And the Church would be unforgivably foolish to respond the same way today asit did back then.

This is why Christians are so involved with the state of our union.

When I first addressed the New York Times article about Pastor Boyd, I asked if the principles of the Kingdom of God preclude the participation of the faithful in the political processes of our democracy and if participation in the democratic process contradict the sacrificial aspect of God’s kingdom. After four essays of analysis, I conclude:

that the Lord calls the Faithful to take a stand against everything that would usurp His authority, including taking a stand for rightness in our culture. His people are to do justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with their God.

This is LM.

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Christian Activism and the Legacy of the 1960s

2006-08-29T18:45:00.000-07:00

The Controversial Stand of Pastor Greg Boyd Part 3

In my last essay, I argued that the effect of the Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925 was to subsume traditional biblical thinking to the philosophies of the Modernist Movement. Although the trial dealt with a violation of the Tennessee Butler Act, which prohibited the teaching of Darwin’s Theory of Evolution in public schools, it was essentially a contest between the Traditionalists and the Modernists. The Modernist Movement was in full swing by the 1920’s. Although the court ruled against the defendant, it was not a victory for the Bible in American life because the ruling was based on a legal technicality, not for constitutional reasons.

I also see the Monkey Trial as the twentieth century’s first case of “separation of church and state.” The trial gave credence to the general move to replace fundamental biblical teachings for modernist thinking in the body politic. Traditional Christian teachings were relegated to the inside of church buildings, seen as having no appropriate place in education or public debate. As Joseph Loconte of the Heritage Foundation brilliantly phrased it: “We Americans jealously enforce the separation of church and state—but not the separation of faith from life.” I believe this separation of faith from life laid the groundwork for the upheaval of the counter cultural revolution of the 1960’s, the legacy of which America is still suffering today.

The decade of the ‘60’s is identified with revolution: political revolution, cultural revolution, sexual revolution. Here’s a short list of some of the revolutionary activities of the ‘60’s:

· assassination of John F. Kennedy
· assassination of Robert Kennedy
· assassination of Martin Luther King
· civil rights movement
· “President Johnson’s war”
· draft card burning
· “hell no we won’t go!”
· Woodstock
· hippies
Deep breath
· Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
· “bra burning”
· “don’t trust anybody under thirty”
· Black Power Movement
· Peyton Place
· Georgy Girl
· abortion
· Helen Gurley Brown’s Cosmo

Revolution is a word jam-packed with emotion. It can have a positive meaning or an evil one depending on which side of a revolution one is on. But looking back at the 1960’s, I am hard pressed to see any real value in the counter cultural revolution. It was nothing more than a thoughtless and wholesale rebellion against authority with self-indulgent hedonism.

God established government and authority for an orderly and peaceful society. “Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every authority instituted among men: whether to the king, as the supreme authority, or to governors, who are sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to commend those who do right.” (I Peter 2:13-14) The Apostle Peter continues: “Live as free men, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as servants of God. Show proper respect for everyone, love the brotherhood of believers, fear God, honor the king.” (I Peter 2:16-17) At the time Peter told his readers to submit to the civil authorities, the notoriously cruel Roman Emperor Nero was in charge.

I believe that the Bible not only commands Christians, but all members of a society, to cooperate with their rulers as far as conscience will allow. Sometimes civil disobedience is necessary to right wrongs. For example, Martin Luther King used Ghandi-like peaceful resistance to fight the status quo of racial discrimination and start the nation on the road to correct the racial injustices of the past. That's the beauty of our democracy: it makes room for dissent within the instructions of the First Epistle of Peter. But violent defiance, murder, promiscuity in all its forms and hedonism are not forms of civil disobedience, but rebellion against God's established order and man's execution of it. If people don’t want a society built on a foundation of biblical principles, then on what basis do they determine right from wrong or how to decide which actions of conscience may rightly supersede the law? A just and civil society cannot practice freedom without boundaries in which to operate. Without boundaries, anything goes. Some call this pure freedom, but the downside of pure freedom is its consequences.

Here are some of the consequences of sexual "freedom" that its revolution wrought:

1. The divorce rate is much higher today than 40 years ago. In 2004, the number of divorces per 1000 married women was 17.7; in 1960 it was 9.2. (National Marriage Project, State of Our Unions, 2005). According to the Heritage Foundation, children of divorced parents have more health, behavioral, and emotional problems; are involved more frequently in crime and drug abuse; and have higher rates of suicide. They also are more likely to repeat a grade and to have higher drop-out rates and lower rates of college graduation.

2. Families with children that were not poor before the divorce see their income drop as much as 50 percent. Almost 50 percent of the parents with children that are going through a divorce move into poverty after the divorce.

3. According to a Heritage Foundation study, sexually active teens are far more likely to be depressed and attempt suicide than those that wait for marriage. This same study says that 8000 teenagers a day become infected with STDs. In the year 2000, some 240,000 babies were born to girls 18 years and younger. Most of these mothers were unmarried. They and their children are extremely likely to have long-term poverty and welfare dependence.

4. Sexually active teenagers are far more likely to be depressed and to attempt suicide than those who waited until marriage.

5. Violent crime rate has quadrupled since 1960. Crime rates are also affected by demographic and cultural conditions. For example, the violent crime rate increases with the share of births to single mothers, according to a study by the Cato Institute.

6. Sevenfold increase in cohabitation since 1960 (cohabitation is an indicator of future divorce).

This is evangelism: to preach God's Word of salvation, to stop death in all its forms. I agree wholeheartedly with Pastor Boyd that Christians must be available to serve under the power of the kingdom of God to bring about long term healing for people who have reaped what they have sown. But I don't believe it is wise or scriptural to wait until the damage is done before Christians act.

Back in the sixties revolt was largely practiced by the populace against the prevailing authorities. Nowadays Hollywood, many media pundits, some elected officials and even some judges (like the ninth circuit) all seem to be actively working to institutionalize the sixties culture of rebellion, often against majority public opinion, in the name of civil rights and freedom. And Pastor Boyd says Christians are wrong, and idolators, for being involved in the public debate. I don’t know who is scarier.

This is LM
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Christians Should Be Political Pacifists?

2006-08-21T12:28:00.000-07:00

The Controversial Stand of Pastor Greg Boyd Part 2

Last time, I introduced Dr. Greg Boyd, pastor of the Woodland Hills Church in St. Paul, Minnesota, who caused a big stink in his church in 2004 by preaching a series of sermons called the Cross and the Sword, which essentially demands that Christians practice political pacifism. Pastor Boyd has since followed up with a book based on those sermons, published in May of this year, called The Myth of the Christian Nation, which, not surprisingly, attracted the attention of the New York Times.

Pastor Boyd’s sermons generate two questions in my mind: Do the principles of the Kingdom of God preclude the participation of the Christians in the political processes of our democracy? Does participation in the democratic process contradict the sacrificial aspect of God’s kingdom?

It is tempting to answer with a simple yes or no, but then I wouldn’t have anything to write about. Besides, the answers aren’t that simple because they call into question the definition of evangelism and its place in a democracy. While many Christian leaders voice their convictions about moral and socio-political issues in the public forum, I do not believe they have forsaken power of God’s kingdom in favor of the power of politics. Rather, I believe it is precisely their loyalty to and love for the kingdom of God that motivates them to join the public debate.

Evangelism means to preach the gospel, to spread the gospel. The gospel not only glorifies the name of Jesus as the only Way to salvation, but it glorifies all that is part of the Lord's character, His wisdom, His Lordship and indeed His requirements for His creatures. On the other hand, the worldly spirit, or should I say religion, of secularism pushes a system of doctrines and practices that reject any form of religious faith and God's wise standards for a civil and just society. Without God and His standards, society has no absolute ruler by which to measure the efficacy and validity of its decisions. And yet, the secularists justify their agenda in the name of freedom. The big lie is that constitutional freedom guarantees the right of its citizens to do whatever they want whenever they want. I doubt the Founders intended an American civilization built on such a foundation of shifting sand. Christians see the folly of the secularist belief system and in turn reject it for depriving American society of the stability that religious character and influence brings. Pastor Boyd is wrong in saying that Christians defy the purposes of the Kingdom of God by utilizing the tools of the political process to take a stand for rightness in our society. Rather, Christians are fulfilling part of their evangelical purpose in God's kingdom.

Unfortunately, too many people buy the secularists’ argument that the so-called religious right is explointing the First Amendment guarantees in an attempt to install a theocracy. That's just dumb. Christian involvement in national affairs and culture has been a fact of life in America since this country’s beginning. The idea was and still is to preserve the democratic republic. The First Amendment not only guarantees the free practice of religion without the interference of government, but to also protect free practice from elements in private society that would exploit the government's power to interfere with it. How about some politically incorrect comments from a few of the august Founders?

James Madison: “We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government…. We have staked the future upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to sustain ourselves, according to the Ten Commandments of God.”
Benjamin Franklin: "...the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth-that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid?”
Thomas Jefferson: “No nation has ever yet existed or been governed without religion. Nor can be. The Christian religion is the best religion that has ever been given to man, and I as chief Magistrate of this nation am bound to give it the sanction of my example.”
John Jay: “No human society has ever been able to maintain both order and freedom, both cohesiveness and liberty apart from the moral precepts of the Christian religion…. Should our Republic ever forget this fundamental precept of governance…this great experiment will then surely be doomed.”

Western and American jurisprudence is largely based on Judeo-Christian law. History, however, has shown that there has been, and always will be, challenges to this foundation.

A notable challenge was the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial. A Dayton, Tennessee high school teacher by the name of John T. Scopes was charged with violating the Butler Act which forbade the teaching of Darwin’s Theory of Evolution. The American Civil Liberties Union helped defend Scopes as a test of the statute. Although the trial’s purpose was to challenge the constitutionality of the law, it was more a test of the nation’s loyalty to its belief system. It was a contest between the Traditionalists—those who maintained traditional biblical and Christian teachings as handed down from an original divine revelation—versus the Modernists—those who wanted to redefine those teachings and doctrines in terms of modern science. Which god would win society’s heart: science or faith? Although the court ruled against Scopes on a legal technicality, the ruling was not a victory for Christianity. After the public debate surrounding the trial, the overarching result of the trial was to banish the Bible to the inside of church buildings, charged as having no serious relevancy to society. Christian influence went dormant. Secularism began to set up its own theocracy.

I believe that the absence of Christian activism in the public square contributed in no small way to the upheaval of the 1960s. Edmund Burke said that the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil was for good men to do nothing.

Today, America is still suffering from the fruit of the sorry legacy that resulted from the worldly spirit having replaced the Bible’s influence: enter the counter cultural revolution of the 1960s.

This is LM
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Pastor Greg Boyd Says Christians Out of Politics

2006-08-21T12:16:00.000-07:00

The Controversial Stand of Pastor Greg Boyd Part 1

Given the reputation of the New York Times as a left-of-center journal that eschews anything that smacks of Christian and conservative ideals, I wasn’t surprised to see an article about a St. Paul, Minnesota evangelical pastor who has “disowned conservative politics” and is teaching his Woodland Hills Church congregation to do the same. Pastor Boyd asserts that the Church is too closely associated with the Republican agenda to the harm of the Church's mission to love and serve God's kingdom on earth. I can understand the Times’ interest in Pastor Greg Boyd's teachings since it was the Evangelical Christians and the “vast right-wing conspiracy” that swung the two presidential elections away from the Left’s favorite sons, Al Gore and John Kerry—or so claim a variety of pundits.

Dr. Boyd is a prolific and dynamic preacher whose knowledgeable teaching of the Bible has brought thousands to his church. This same dynamism has stirred up a fine controversy with the May 2006 publication of his book The Myth of a Christian Nation: How the Quest for Political Power is Destroying the Church. Pastor Boyd based his book on his 2004 six-part sermon called “The Cross and the Sword” in which he said that the Church should stay out of politics, stop moralizing on sexual issues, cease calling the US a Christian nation and stop glorifying American military campaigns.

In his first sermon, “Taking America Back for God?” Pastor Boyd says that Christians are confusing and even fusing two polar opposites: God’s kingdom and the kingdom of this world, this world being American politics. He asserts that the Christian Church, or at least some of its leadership, is seeking "power over others" by forcing biblical morality through the power of politics and legislation. This, he says, is a mistake because it relies on earthly power, which is corrupting. Pastor Boyd calls it militant Christianity--the antithesis of the Christianity demanded by the gospel: "winning people's hearts" by sacrificing for those in need, as Jesus did.

The confusion between the “two kingdoms,” as Pastor Boyd puts it, happens when typically conservative viewpoints in such socio-political areas as immigration, taxation, social security, welfare and other issues get tangled up with biblical moral edicts that political conservatives and Christians often agree on. The Republican Party is generally willing to support the moral issues that are important to Christians. This does not mean that all Republicans and conservatives believe in every biblical directive nor do all Christians agree with the entire conservative or Republican political agendas. But this does not mean Christians should remain silent on theological or moral issues that affect the foundation of our democracy, such as religious liberty, abortion, the sanctity of marriage and the family or any other issue, just because our society deems it political. If Christians do, they are playing into the hands of the kingdom of this world.

Pastor Boyd bases his argument on Matthew 20:24-28. Jesus said, “You know the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave, just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.” Yes! we are to help people. Yes! we are to pour out our lives for them. Yes! we are to pray for them. Why? Jesus said, “Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5:16). It is not to serve as an end in itself, but so that Christians can create opportunities to point others to eternal salvation in Jesus Christ.

Does this mean we are never to speak the truth about the policies that affect every American life? Do the principles of the Kingdom of God preclude the participation of the faithful in the political processes of our democracy? Does participation in the democratic process contradict the sacrificial aspect of God’s kingdom? Stay tuned.

This is LM.
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