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Within recent memory, conservative-evangelical-fundamentalist (choose your modifier) Christians used Scripture to justify their opposition to political activism. No less an authority than Jerry Falwell, godfather of the "Religious Right," argued in a previous incarnation, "We have a message of redeeeming grace through a crucified and risen Lord. Nowhere are we told to reform the externals. We are not told to wage a war against bootleggers, liquor stores, gamblers, murderers, prostitutes, racketeers, prejudiced persons or institutions, or any other exisiting evil as such. The Gospel does not clean up the outside but rather regenerates the inside."

For the past 20 years, Falwell and others who once regarded politics with the same antipathy they held for movies, liquor, and dancing have been singing a different tune. They use the same "inerrant, infallible" Bible, but reach different conclusions in order to justify their claim that the laity and preachers must be involved in politics. Either they were wrong then or they are wrong now.

Should Christians involve themselves in politics? To paraphrase the President, that depends on what the meaning of involve involves.

Should we vote after informing ourselves about issues and candidates? Absolutely! The things that are Caesar's are not only our tax dollars, but our citizenship. Laypeople can organize, peacefully demonstrate, boycott, pray for those in authority (that includes Democrats as well as Republicans), participate in pregnancy-help centers, and lobby elected officials.

But they should do so without illusions. Real change comes heart by heart, not election by election, because our primary problems are not economic and political but moral and spiritual.

Should those who are set apart to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ descend to a lower kingdom so that they resemble the sounding brass and tinkling cymbal of the legions now competing for temporal power? Absolutely not! They corrupt the gospel and suggest in deed and in word that if one is to receive Jesus as Savior, one must also receive the entire political and social agenda of the "Religious Right," which has nothing to do with salvation. After one becomes a believer, one can then understand what the Bible teaches about the unique value of all human life at every stage and of sexual purity and the danger of putting vain things before our eyes. But the unbeliever is unlikely to accept biblical truth when it comes wrapped in the voter guides of the Christian Coalition.

Preachers occupy a unique place in American life. When they are known for their denunciation of the President or the endorsement of someone to replace him, unbelievers see them as players in the corrupting political power game. Preachers already possess a greater power than the world offers. When they grasp for the immediate and lesser power of partisan and necessarily compromising politics, they make a Faustian bargain for something that rarely changes hearts and minds.

I have seen many convert on cultural and political issues once they come to Christ, but I have seen very few converted to my political point of view as a result of condemnation or electoral victory. When "my side" defeats "their side," their side tries harder the next time to beat my side. Truth is seldom advanced.

The debate about the "proper" relations between church and state is not new. People have been arguing about it for centuries. In his book Major Themes in the Reformed Tradition, Donald K. McKim revisits the church-state debate of the last 500 years. He quotes Martin Luther's "On Temporal Authority" (1523). Luther said that the tasks of the church and state are of two types and that they are to be distinguished from each other and may not be mixed. Theologian Ulrich Zwingli, Luther's contemporary, wrote in that same year "On Divine and Human Righteousness" that "divine righteousness" refers to the content of the church's proclamation, God's gracious activity; and "human righteousness (justice)" is that of the earthly state.

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September 6 1999, Vol. 43, No. 10