The Farmville herald. (Farmville, Va.) 1957-current, 1959-06-26

follow Jehoiada's ~
line, for obvious M
reasons. For one -
thing, he was an DR.. Foreman
uncle tby marriage) of the boy
king. whose parents had been muir.
dered when he was a baby. Little
JQash has been brought up IL
the Temple itself, IN secret, and
we can be sure that the High Priest
had had much to say to his nephew
Now we can't pick some future
President of the U. S. A. in his IN
fancy and take him OF (say) to a
Bishops home, or rather the
Bishops cathedral, and bring him
up there-even if his uncle were a
bishop, which isn't likely. Further
more, High Priest Jehoida was not
only an m-hw Of royalty. He was
head Of the official state religion.
Most Americans do not want a
state religion, we fell it is better
for all its drawbacks) to have a
rehgiousiy free nation So If we
are going to make religion a force
m national affairs we shah have
to do something different from
what Jehoiada did.
Tvo Mistakes
But we have the same problem
Jehoiada had: How can we get re-
ligion into public life? The point
is. he used the opportunity he had.
And SO may we, if we use any con
secrated ingenuity. To make the
problem simpler, let us limit it to
this question: How can organized
religion, that is to say the church,
make itself felt in the public (that
is, the offician life OF the nation ?
Two opposite mistakes have been
made One is to throw the weight
of the church into the political
arena, as a voting and fighting
unit, so that the church becomes
either in name or in effect polit-
ical party. This has happened more
than once in European politics.
The short verdict must be that it
does neither the church nor pol
itics any good The opposite mis-
take is made by some Of those who
see well enough what is wrong
with the church's becoming a
clerical party" or anything of the
sort. Shying away from that blum
der, some have stumbled into
another: namely withdrawing the
church entirely from political life,
so much SO that no minister and
no church body ever raise a voice
regarding any political issue, or
any issue which politicians and
lawmakers have TO deal with. The
Verdict On this also IS short and
straight: A bad solution Political
life and leaders, left to themselves,
assume that religion has nothing
to say about public interests; and
the church becomes morally deaf
and blind
Vbst H. ehseeh CO Do
Between these two futile mis-
takes there are some actual pos
sible ways of making Christian IN
fiuence felt by those who stand IN
places Of power, great or small
~ Churches can make public
statements in their conventions or
assemblies, about matters of ma
tional or international concern.
Examples Of this would be such
statement made by the National
the south on the race question,
bringing popular race prejudice to
the light Of Gods Word and finding
| it q sin. Another example IS q
statements as have been made IN
Council Of Churches criticizing the
governments foreign policy at GER
tain points. This is not politics: i
is the church seeing moral issues
and saying what they are 81
Churches can make an effort to wiz
public men to Christian living
(3) The church can encourage
young Christians 10 prepare them
selves for public service as Chris.
tan duty.
Biased On oat1fnes copyrighted b
4 the DivisioD - Christian Education
National CeancH u tie Churches .
Christ IN the q. 8. A. Raaeooed b,
Conama1fty Press eeRvinal