“RENDER UNTO CAESAR THE THINGS THAT ARE CAESAR’S, BUT RENDER UNTO GOD THE THINGS THAT ARE GOD’S”

6/28/09

The Chicago Tribune, in an article in today’s (i.e., Sunday, 6/28’s) paper entitled “Scandals strain GOP’s religious appeal,” reports that Brandt Waggoner, a 25 year old student at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, NC, proclaimed:

“If we place our hope in a political party or a politician, we’ll be let down. My hope is in God, not in government.”

Rarely in recorded history have truer or more profound words been uttered. Mr. Waggoner is obviously wise beyond his tender years.

As my readers know, I am not an evangelical Christian, but I do have a great deal of sympathy, and empathy, for many, if not most, of their social and spiritual views. However, I am opposed to their political agenda, which I find far too heavy on government intervention and coercion. This opposition springs from the sentiment expressed in Mr. Waggoner’s comment.

Whenever I see people of faith, be it the Black minister on the South Side of my hometown ushering the latest Machine scoundrel to his pulpit or the evangelical preacher telling us the Democrats are the agents of godless Communism who will lead us straight to hell, I cringe. Not only is there no salvation in politics and politicians, but there are very few answers to earthly problems in politics and politicians. But there is always a meretricious politician who will say that he espouses one’s views on issues that properly have no place in politics in order to amass enough votes to start a career on the public payroll or to garner just enough votes to get him the latest taxpayer financed sinecure he craves.

Even more dangerous, perhaps, than the politician who pays lip service to one’s religious views is the politician, who, either because he is a true believer or because he feels he must honor at least one IOU, is the politician with the power to get some portion of one’s social agenda codified in law. Why? Because voters are fickle, and, come next election, they are just as likely to vote for the other party, the party who espouses social views one finds anathema. That party could be equally successful in codifying its social agenda.

God won’t let us down, but the politicians will. And in those very few instances in which they don’t let us down, we will, in all likelihood, end up wishing they had.