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10/10/2004: "Skewering political preachers"
Janet Albrechtson of The Australian newspaper nailed not only the outgoing Australian Anglican Primate, Archbishop Peter Carnley, but lots of politicized preachers in the United States when she wrote this week:
it's a stretch to take Carnley's moral guidance seriously, so engulfed is he by moral relativism. On Iraq, Carnley told his congregation that the coalition of the willing had, in liberating Iraq from Saddam Hussein, resorted to terrorist tactics. Which "terrorist tactic", Dr Carnley? Hijacking civilian planes and flying them into skyscrapers full of civilians? Sending suicide bombers into a Bali nightclub and blowing up more innocents with a car bomb outside? Wiring a Beslan school with explosives and slaughtering children who dared to cry?
Democracy is a fine thing and Carnley's political views are his to enjoy. But dressing up his political arguments in priestly robes and using "morality" as a Trojan horse for his preferred foreign policy does not give this churchman gravitas. On the contrary, many of us see it as an unholy sight and turn away.
Political priests such as Carnley use the morality card to hide the fact they are ignorant, at best, and downright dangerous, at worst, on issues that go to the heart of our national security. Like other leftist rabble rousers, Carnley can only bring himself to refer to the "so-called" war on terrorism....
Political preachers who evince such uncompromising moral certainty on the battlefields of Caesar and yet are so timid in defending orthodox Christian principles bring to mind what G.K. Chesterton said about a well-meaning cleric of his own times: "There is scarcely a shade of difference left between meaning well and meaning nothing."...
So where then do we set the bar for acceptable intervention by religious leaders in political campaigns? It is probably foolhardy to attempt a precise answer. But one can identify the extremities. At one end is considered commentary by informed churchmen on matters squarely within their areas of expertise. For example, praise from the head of Catholic Health Australia, Francis Sullivan, for Labor's health policy or the Pell/Jensen team's view on education add to debate. Carnley's self-indulgent political rodomontade does not.
It's more complicated that a daily newspaper column can convey, but I think Albrechtson is definitely on to something. And it goes for the Right as well as the Left. Preachers not only have a right but an obligation to express themselves on issues within their competence. When they wander outside, they make themselves foolish more often than not. (An excellent example is the incendiary, moronic stuff Pat Robertson had to say in Israel earlier this week: "I see the rise of Islam to destroy Israel and take the land from the Jews and give east Jerusalem to Yasser Arafat. I see that as Satan's plan to prevent the return of Jesus Christ the Lord." Count the ways that's stupid: 1) theologically [it's Manichaean to claim that Satan can "prevent" the Second Coming; 2) historically [east Jerusalem was in Arab hands until 1967 without, presumably, upsetting God's time-table]; 3) politically [Israel withdrawing from the Gaza Strip and West Bank, done properly, will do more to insure Israel's survival than all of Robertson's huffing and puffing]; 4) diplomatically [it's the kind of remark that makes Jews wonder whether evangelicals really care about Jews in anything other than a utilitarian manner. But other than these problems, ol' Pat knew just what he was talking about.)
Having and expressing opinions is fine (that's what blogs are about), but not when you do so in an official capacity, speaking specifically as a religious leader, on issues that are not of religious or moral import.
