RENDER UNTO CAESAR, BUT HELP CHOOSE YOUR CAESAR:

Warily, a Religious Leader Lifts His Voice in Politics (DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK, 5/13/04, NY Times)

James C. Dobson, the child psychologist who is widely regarded as one of the nation's most influential evangelical leaders, has always sought to keep his public persona at a safe distance from the battlefield of partisan politics.

But this year, amid the debate over same-sex marriage and the presidential election, he is throwing himself into the fray, creating a political organization, stumping for candidates, drawing a crowd of 20,000 to a rally against same-sex marriage and backing a drive to register conservative Christian voters.

Because of Dr. Dobson's wide following among conservative Christians, his new activism promises to help social conservative candidates and causes. It could be a particular boon for President Bush, whose chief political adviser, Karl Rove, has made getting sympathetic churchgoers to the polls one of the Bush campaign's priorities.

But motivating evangelical Christians to go the polls is a delicate and risky endeavor, political scientists and strategists say, because many are suspicious of the worldly pursuit of political power.

Dr. Dobson, founder of the nonprofit organization Focus on the Family in Colorado Springs, owes his following mainly to his trademark mixture of psychological and biblical expertise, and his millions of admirers know him primarily as a source of folksy advice about children and families who insists he has no love for politics. Getting too close to partisan politics risks undercutting Dr. Dobson's spiritual and psychological authority, just as evangelical conservative leaders like the Rev. Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson have lost some of their influence, political scientists and other influential Christian conservatives say.

"When Pat Robertson started running for president, his ministry took a big hit, because a lot of people tuned in to 'The 700 Club' for spiritual reasons, not political reasons," said John Green, a political scientist at the University of Akron who studies religion and politics.

A friend of Dr. Dobson, Charles W. Colson, the Watergate figure who founded Prison Fellowship Ministries, also questioned the wisdom of endorsements, saying: "I think anybody who is a Christian leader or a pastor has to be very careful not to divide his flock. I think you can be a good Christian and not necessarily agree with me politically."

In an interview in early May, Dr. Dobson acknowledged the risks, but said he felt compelled to act.

"There are dangers, and that is why I have never done it before," he said, speaking on the phone from Washington, where he was lobbying for an amendment banning same-sex marriage. "But the attack and assault on marriage is so distressing that I just feel like I can't remain silent."

Caesar & Conscience (Patrick Henry Reardon, May 2004, Touchstone)

The Christian submits to civil authority, St. Paul says, not only because civil authority has the power to exact that submission, but also “for the sake of conscience” (Romans 13:5). In view of Paul’s high respect for conscience, his assertion that submission to civil authority is a conscientious concern is truly remarkable.

Conscience (syneidesis), a word that Paul uses seventeen times in his epistles, refers to man’s inner light, the faculty by which he discerns moral differences and directs his ethical decisions. Paul’s use of this word contains, in addition, the sense of “consciousness” and pertains to the reflecting self-possession of the moral person (Romans 2:15; 2 Corinthians 1:12). It designates the critical moral discourse that man conducts within his mind (synoida). It refers to his human intentionality, his transcendent capacity as a conscious moral agent.

The Christian’s conscience, therefore, is the necessary and inseparable companion of his faith. It is to man’s conscience, his reflective faculty of cognitive intention, that the gospel itself is addressed (2 Corinthians 4:4; 5:11), and it is conscience that receives the witness of the Holy Spirit (Romans 9:1).

When Paul appeals, therefore, to the conscience with regard to civil authority, he exalts political responsibility to a very high order, recognizing that the Christian stands within a social context of grave and radical obligations. For the Christian, that is to say, political responsibility, including civil obedience, is not optional. He can flee from the responsibilities of the political order no more than he can abandon his own humanity, for the first are necessary components of the second.

For this reason also, man’s relationship to civil authority has to do with his relationship to God. It pertains to those essential matters about which every conscience is finally answerable to the Judge of history. Although the things of Caesar are not to be confused with the things of God, God himself requires that to Caesar be rendered his due, and that conscientiously.

Consequently, disobedience to civil authority is no light thing and never warranted except for the sake of conscience itself. What is commonly called “civil disobedience,” therefore, must not degenerate into a form of political fun and games. It is a very serious undertaking, and in order to be morally legitimate, such disobedience must express a stern dictate of conscience and never be employed simply as a mechanism of political influence. [...]

Another important inference is to be drawn from these considerations about conscience and the civil order, and St. Paul does, in fact, draw that inference. If civil government truly acts as “God’s servant,” then the political order can hardly be amoral, or morally neutral. On the contrary, the Apostle regards civil authority not only as subject to the restraints of the moral law, but also as charged with a special oversight of the moral foundation of human life. He describes this oversight in both negative and positive terms.

First, in a negative way, civil government serves the moral order by discouraging evil, and specifically by punishing people who do evil things. In doing so, it is not inspired solely by political or economic purposes. It functions, rather, as the proper political agent of sanctions supportive of the moral law. For example, the government throws bank robbers in jail, not because bank robbing is harmful to the economy, but because the bank robber violates the moral law in a very serious manner. The government punishes murderers, not because murder adversely affects the census report, but because the murderer violates the moral law in a very grave way. It is precisely to vindicate moral principle that the civil authority possesses the jus gladii, and “it does not bear the sword in vain” (Romans 13:4). This truth seems obvious enough to everybody but anarchists.

Our assertion here does not mean, obviously, that the sanctions of civil law should cover every conceivable moral situation, and certainly there is no proper execution of civil justice apart from political prudence, even wisdom. We do mean, however, that the sanctions of civil government are not arbitrary; they are, and in principle must be, buttressed by the moral law and presuppose a moral foundation. That is to say, it is certainly a function of government to “legislate morality,” not in the sense of establishing the moral law by its legislation (for that would put Caesar in the place of God), but by consulting moral principles in the crafting of that legislation.

Second, in a positive way, civil government serves the moral order by encouraging the good. “Do what is good and you will have praise from the same,” wrote St. Paul, thereby affirming the pedagogical value of civil law. Government does not exist solely for the restraint of evil, but also for the advancement of the good, appreciating and fostering such things as tend to improve the moral existence of men. Good government, in short, will not only respect conscience; it will endeavor to inspire and to inform conscience.

Those who wish to separate religion from politics are asking for unilateral disarmament.

Posted by Orrin Judd at May 16, 2004 11:08 AM