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Newsweek Opinion Piece On the Correct Track
Susan Jacoby writes for Newsweek:
Since the beginning of the Bush administration, we have witnessed--and are still witnessing--the reprehensible results, affecting a wide variety of what are literally life-and-death issues, of a governing philosophy that exudes absolute contempt for the separation of church and state.
While this is not so surprising, the following comments are
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It would be a tragedy if the "religious left," whose representatives
are to be found mainly within the Democratic Party, tried to substitute
its own theology for the theology of the "religious right" during the
2008 campaign. There is absolutely nothing wrong with candidate
expressing their religious convictions whenever and wherever they
choose, but it is profoundly wrong, and an insult to our constitutional
traditions, for any candidate to use religion as a justification for
government policies.
In his book God's Politics,Jim Wallis, an evangelical Christian who is extremely influential in Democratic circles, states flatly that President Bush is guilty of "bad theology" in his attitudes about war and social justice and that "the answer to bad theology is not secularism; it is good theology."
This is a genuinely dangerous idea, and it is irrelevant that I agree
with Wallis on most political issues. The President of the United
States is not elected to be theologian-in-chief. He is not God's
representative on earth but the American people's representative on earth.
What I wish she had said: Mainline Christians believe that it is biblical to expect secular leaders to provide excellent secular leadership based on fair laws established, in this case, on the American Constitution, and not the Bible. I will take what I can get. |
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