WAGNER: No separation of Christians from politics

As the Alberta Christian Municipal Rally tour moved through the province this week, the tired old complaint of politically-active Christians “violating the separation of church and state” once again reared its ugly head.Whenever conservative Christians bring their beliefs into their politics, the church is allegedly influencing the state and thereby forcing those beliefs on unwilling citizens. This violates the vital “separation of church and state” of our secular society, it is said. Christians should keep their religion to themselves and not bring it into the public square.This old canard needs to be put to rest..First of all, it’s worth pointing out that this objection is only trotted out when conservative Christians get involved in politics — no other group receives this criticism.Brian Lilley of the Toronto Sun had an excellent column on this point one year ago. Pierre Poilievre visited three evangelical churches at the time and the resulting public reaction would, Lilley pointed out, “make you think The Handmaid’s Tale was about to move from fiction to reality.”As Lilley observed, “Seems to some so-called progressive Canadians, politicians can seek the votes of any religious or ethnic group, but Christians need to be avoided.”Lilley quotes one leftist who posted on social media that Poilievre was “trying to bring religion into politics in Canada. It’s so American of him.”.Even worse, Liberal commentator Andrew Perez posted to X: “The far-right Evangelical Christian movement is a scourge on our politics. They’re a dangerous lot. Yet these are the sort of groups Poilievre seeks out.”Astutely, Lilley pointed out that “None of these Liberals complain when Poilievre visits mosques, synagogues, gurdwaras or temples, just evangelical churches and perhaps a Catholic church if he went to one considered conservative in any way.”They don’t complain when Poilievre attends those other religious congregations because they’re not really concerned about mixing religion and politics, they’re just concerned about mixing conservative Christianity and politics — every other religion is perfectly welcome..I emphasize “conservative” Christianity because liberal Christians also get a pass. Many United Church of Canada ministers have been elected as NDP politicians at the federal and provincial levels but that never leads to a leftist freak-out.To give just one example, consider that the NDP premier of Saskatchewan from 2001 to 2007, Lorne Calvert, was a United Church of Canada minister.More directly though, the accusation that Christian activism violates the separation of church and state is simply false. The church and the state are separate institutions, and they remain entirely separate even when Christians engage society from an explicitly Christian perspective. Christians are citizens too and have just as much right to participate in society and politics as anyone else..It’s important to notice the difference between two different concepts that are often confused. On the one hand is the issue of the separation of church and state. On the other hand is the issue of the separation of religion and politics. These are not the same thing.The separation of church and state refers to organizational and functional separation between two entirely different institutions. Each of these institutions has its own particular leaders with their own roles and responsibilities.The separation of church and state is a good thing and it is Biblical because the Bible establishes both the church and the state as separate entities with different purposes and functions. Even in the Old Testament the king and the high priest had entirely different roles and could not impinge on the jurisdiction of the other..Separating religion from politics is a completely different matter. Religion, generally speaking, refers to fundamental beliefs. Every person has fundamental beliefs about life even if they don’t like to refer to their beliefs as a religion.People get involved in politics to further their beliefs — that is, their religion — because they want government policies to reflect those beliefs. This is what conservative Christians do, and it’s also what everybody else does even if they reject the label of “religion” for their beliefs.In short, progressives and secularists bring a particular set of fundamental beliefs into their politics just like Christians do when they get involved in politics. Separation of religion and politics is impossible, because all political activity is based on fundamental beliefs that function as religion.The frequent criticism that conservative Christians are somehow violating the “separation of church and state” when they get involved in politics is categorically false. And it’s important to realise that such criticism is a deliberate effort to marginalize conservative Christians from social and political influence. In one sense, it’s an attempt to deny us our equal rights as citizens to participate in our society.So Christians should not fall for this canard. We have all the same rights as other citizens and should not be intimidated by those who want to exclude us from political activity.

WAGNER: No separation of Christians from politics

Related Stories