Thanks for throwing your thoughts out there. I appreciate your willingness to send out a work in progress!
I think a way people of faith can participate in politics authentically, without mingling church and state explicitly, is to use scripture as a source of wisdom rather than authority. Using religious values to inform debate is different than saying “the Bible says so.” The former opens a dialogue, the latter is thought terminating.
This is a great point. I really like the distinction between wisdom and authority.
I think in some ways it works in both directions too. Saying "here's a passage from the Bible that lays out this particular set of values, let's think about how these values play out in real complex life" is a lot different from using scripture is often used as a bludgeon. The same goes for pointing to Jesus' teachings as a source of values vs. saying that Jesus was "pro-life," which is kind of a meaningless statement when you dig into it. We often, maybe without realizing it, try to apply secular slogans or categories onto religious belief in authoritative ways, when the more interesting question is how these sets of values interact and how humans can harmonize them in meaningful ways in their own lives and communities.
Thanks for throwing your thoughts out there. I appreciate your willingness to send out a work in progress!
I think a way people of faith can participate in politics authentically, without mingling church and state explicitly, is to use scripture as a source of wisdom rather than authority. Using religious values to inform debate is different than saying “the Bible says so.” The former opens a dialogue, the latter is thought terminating.
This is a great point. I really like the distinction between wisdom and authority.
I think in some ways it works in both directions too. Saying "here's a passage from the Bible that lays out this particular set of values, let's think about how these values play out in real complex life" is a lot different from using scripture is often used as a bludgeon. The same goes for pointing to Jesus' teachings as a source of values vs. saying that Jesus was "pro-life," which is kind of a meaningless statement when you dig into it. We often, maybe without realizing it, try to apply secular slogans or categories onto religious belief in authoritative ways, when the more interesting question is how these sets of values interact and how humans can harmonize them in meaningful ways in their own lives and communities.