Following my post on religion in government but certainly not as a result of it (I’m not that good) come the following observations…
Brian notes…
The NZ Herald on Friday…
Ewen McQueen comments that –
With proportional representation the strategic realities have changed. Now Christians can express a political calling in two ways: there remains the option of working within a secular party but there is also now the option of a Christian political party.
Though such a concept might be new in New Zealand, it has plenty of international precedents. The Dutch Christian Democrats have their roots in three different Christian political parties, the first of which was established in 1898.
...
Although the Christian Democratic movement in Europe has since strayed from its founding values, there can be no doubt about its origins. In more recent years Europe has seen a resurgence of smaller Christian parties. Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Estonia, Switzerland and the Netherlands all have such parties holding seats in federal or state parliaments.
Elsewhere in the world, including in South Africa and Australia, new Christian political parties are springing up and finding support.
The significance of the Dutch Reform Church (one of its offspring) as the formative force behind apartheidt in South Africa is forgotten rather than ignored. Well, I will give him benefit of the doubt anyways.
The Richard Randerson column is here…
His conclusion I think says much for retaining the secular government this country has –
In the midst of the American Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln said of the warring parties: "Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other. The prayers of both could not be answered; that of neither has been answered fully." (Second Inaugural Address, 1865).
Lincoln displayed in many speeches the recognition that the will of God could not be assumed to lie with his own side, and that in exercising power the ability to think broadly about divine justice was a central ingredient. His was a healthy objectivity one might hope for in all political leaders.
Such objectivity is even more essential in the life of religious bodies, whose advocacy of ultimate objectives in human affairs is fatally compromised by aspirations to political power.
Randerson is the assistant Anglican Bishop of Auckland.
1 comment:
I think that some within the United States could well go back and read what Abraham Lincoln had to say.
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