The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-07-02
Shall the Church
 Go Into Politics :?
BY FRANK MOODY, State Senator From Tuscaloosa County.

the candidates of the prohibition party. ! ct all the arguments made by Dr. Law renee are the same arguments that are iilaae py the national prohibition party. Indeed, Dr. Lawrence seems to suggest that the Anti-Saloon league is simply irving To do on a smaller scale and by piece meal what the prohibition party is irving to do on a larger scale, Here is what the doctor says:
 The Anti-Saloon league stands for pro- hloltlon principles, first in local activiton, then in the larger activities of the state and nation.' As far as 1 am aware the national prohibition party has never in Alabama gone into the pulpit on Sunday and asked the people to vote for its can dldates, or to take collections to defray It's campaign expenses. But when the Ahtl-Saloon leagues goes into the pulpit on Sunday and asks the people in the church to vote only for candidates of certain hue of thought and to take up collections to further it's political policies Is 1t not running a political party? They may say that they are working through local. option. But do they not call them selves an "interdenominational' organ lzation, and are they not a political party
 a wheel within a wheel" all the same [? Are they not asking the church. as a church, to go beyond what the doctor is pleased to call "the imbecillic whsperings ot love- or even the spiritual warnings and to go into politics? Parenthetically 1t may be said that the words of Dr. Law renee Just referred to sound a little strange when they are used by a min Y1ster or ex-minster Has the church lost its power? Is the state now to be regarded as the great moral regenerator and should the preachers quit their preaching and go, like Dr. Lawrence into the business of making civil law? If the Anti-Saloon league is advocating the sa me principles that the national prohibition party Is advocating on a larger scale" has the league any greater right to use the church In effecting it's purpose than has the national prohibition party?
 This letter of the doctors is singular compound. While he repudiates by thousand nos the idea that the church should go Into politics, yet this same good doctor says that under certain conditions,
 It is the privilege, nay. the stern duty or the church" to overthrow the "admin- 1startion," meaning, of course the na- tional administration. and knowing well that the national administration cannot pc overthrow except through the agency or a national political party. The doctor speaks of reforms of a religious char acter It Is this same argument pushed little further, of saving souls and up- holding what was claimed to be religious truth, that led the Catholics in the middle ages to persecute the Protestants, even to death. It was this same argument of eff rectlng reforms of a religious character ana saving souls that led the Protesta nts In the middle ages to persecute the Cath olics The church, like the doctor, took the position that the government should be run by good religious men on good reli- glous principles, and that therefore, the n tra1 eIa@
 ulate these principles. It was this con tention that led to the terrible persecu- tons of the middle ages. Seeing the evil results or the union of church and state our forefathers provided in the constitu- ton that these two great agencies for good should be kept separate and apart, and that each should observe its own proper function In this country the church itself contends that Christ Him. self contemplated that they should be kept separate and apart I do not re- member that in my former article l un- dertook to quote a single text of scrip lure. Though l did not quote a single text. I maintain that the position which I took in said article was more in har- mony with the scriptures, as now inter- preted in this country than the reply of the doctor. In this paper I have quoted text or two, and now l will quote an- other. l will quote an expression used by Christ Himself It is the text on which the church has based the proposition that It should keep out of politics It is the text which Dr. Lawrence seems to have entirely overlooked. It was made at the time when Caesar was emperor of nearly all the known world. Christs dfsciples wanted to know His attitude toward the government, government, by the way, which did not undertake to put the slight est legal check upon intoxication and tol- erated all sorts of vice and immorality The text says: Render unto Caesar" a synonym of government, the things that are Caesars and unto God the things that are God g. I do not here express any interpretation of this passage. But I re- Ter to the recent and best commentators Of this country on the subject
 The doctor talks about 'Jugelers' and Juggling with words" It is a little diff- cult to see the relevancy of these remarks to the subject under discussion The doc tor does not specifically say that I am a
 Juggler,' and I will not charge that in a discussion of the grave question. whether the church should go into poll tlcs,' the doctor has been Juggling But l invite the candid reader to recall the article written by Dr. Lawrence and also the article written by me. and then to ask himself whether either of us has been guilty of Juggling" and. if so. "hetnef Dr Lawrence or myself was the ''juggler'
 The doctor says that politics is bad and that 1t is often controlled by the "manipu- latlon of a few If so, the remedy might be primary. thing which some of us have long advocated and at last ob- tained The doctors remedy seems 10 be the injection of the church into poli- tics. But serious questions would be lia- ble to come up in the church itself There are often different opinions among church people as to how to treat a moral or political question. For example church people differed as to whether 1t was right and proper for the United States to at tack, kill and overrun the Philippines. In order to give them a better govern ment In such cases who would decide as to which side the church would es- pouse? On political temperance questions also the church people differ I do not know that in the time of Christ there was any regulation of the liquor traffic by la IT Is probable that then there was said that the Christian church has no doctrine on the subject Whether Christ. if living now, would advocate free trade or dispensary or prohibition or some oeher method of controlling the liquor traffic, is matter of inference and opinion. Dispensaries may be very loose- ly constructed, or they may be so strict ly framed and operated that they would permit the sale of only one glass of wine to one man in on day or in one week The machinery by which they are con ducted has much to do with their ef-