Why WE Should Separate the Local Church and Politics

In their haste to smear Family Research Council’s Justice Sunday and Senator Frist’s involvement, the New York Times (about which I’ll say more later) and others in the MSM have not even recognized the most troubling part of the Justice Sunday telecast. The telecast will originate at Highview Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky, and will be simulcast in churches and other venues that sign-up for the satellite feed.

I am a politically active Christian and I encourage followers of Christ to engage the ideas of our time and the opportunities to make a difference in public and political arenas. However, my visits to my local church are for worship and deeply spiritual concerns. I would have no problem with the facility being used by a group to show a telecast such as the Justice Sunday program. The church building is used for a lot of activities outside of the core purposes of the church (such as voting). But I would not want it to be promoted by my local church or discussed from the pulpit.

This is not because it would be dangerous to the state (and Frist’s participation is not even close to being unconstitutional establishment of religion). But if places of worship become centers of political discourse they will lose their focus on the eternal and fall prey to political seduction. It is dangerous for the church.

On the other hand, we benefit from para-church organizations that are established with various purposes by Christians who take up political and any other causes of concern to people of Christian faith.

It is the church not the government that should fear when boundaries are crossed and politics invades the sanctuary of the sacred and seeks to purchase its soul.

--James Jewell