According to reports, evangelical leaders are planning a
gathering that will bring a thousand pastors to Washington later this spring to
make plans for rallying their base on behalf of candidates supported by
President Trump in the November elections.
If so, it goes without saying that this will touch off another
fierce round of criticism in the Trump-averse media claiming political activism
by evangelicals violates an American tradition of religion and politics
separate.
It likewise hardly needs saying that many of those assailing
evangelicals for supporting Trump — 75 percent of white evangelicals in one
recent poll — would be praising them if, by some miracle, they’d backed Hillary
Clinton in 2016 and were now preparing to back Clinton-friendly candidates in
the midterms.
Leaving here-and-now specifics aside, however, certain
fundamental questions merit consideration in seeking sensible parameters for
religious involvement in politics. A bit of history first.
In the High Middle Ages, popes claimed authority to depose secular
rulers; centuries later, troops of the French Revolution hauled Pope Pius VI
out of Rome to stand trial (old and ill, he died en route in a provincial
French town). The golden mean surely lies somewhere between these extremes.
And just here, in the U.S. at least, the two Religion Clauses of
the First Amendment come into play.
The first says the government may not create an “establishment”
of religion — the designation, that is, of a government-approved state church
and, by extension, the direct support of religion precisely as religion. But
the second, no less important than the first, says government may not inhibit
free exercise of religion by individuals and groups.
Note that the first Religion Clause prohibits government from
showing special favor to a particular church or even to religion in general. It
does not forbid a friendly attitude by government toward religion or to
religious groups that share the same vision of the common good that it holds.
And — the key to the current debate about evangelicals — it raises no objection
to political activism by religious bodies and the free exercise on behalf of
their religious convictions.
But does a religious group have a right to get actively and
directly involved in politics? And is that a good idea?
The answer to the first question is almost certainly yes — religious
groups have the same right to support and oppose policies and even politicians
that non-religious groups have. That is implicit in the free exercise guarantee
of the First Amendment. And Vatican Council II, speaking of the Catholic Church
but using language that presumably would apply to any legitimate religious
body, said religion should be free to “proclaim its teaching about society” and
“pass moral judgment even in matters relating to politics, whenever the
fundamental rights of man or the salvation of souls requires it” (Gaudium et Spes, 76).
But is direct religious involvement in politics a good idea? Here
contingent factors and prudential judgments come into play, especially if it’s
a matter of supporting or opposing particular candidates. Churches do well to
approach that minefield with extreme caution. Usually a hands-off approach is
best.
Even so, exceptions are possible. Opposing candidates whose
policy positions are inimical to the values of a church or churches and
supporting candidates committed to all they hold dear can make good sense. But
if they do decide to enter the political fray, churches should have a
clear-eyed recognition of the risks they run and the buffeting that comes with
political activism. That goes for the evangelicals as much as anybody else.
Shaw is a freelance writer from Washington and author of American Church: The
Remarkable Rise, Meteoric Fall, and Uncertain Future of Catholicism in America.