{"id":1167,"date":"2005-03-30T18:05:26","date_gmt":"2005-03-30T22:05:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/nateptest\/2005\/03\/30\/politics-of-god\/"},"modified":"2005-03-30T18:05:26","modified_gmt":"2005-03-30T22:05:26","slug":"politics-of-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/2005\/03\/30\/politics-of-god\/","title":{"rendered":"Politics of God?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a name='a971'><\/a><\/p>\n<p>John Danforth, former Republican senator and an Episcopal priest, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2005\/03\/30\/opinion\/30danforth.html?partner=rssuserland\">writes in the Times today<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>The problem is not with people or churches that are politically<br \/>\nactive. It is with a party that has gone so far in adopting a sectarian<br \/>\nagenda that it has become the political extension of a religious<br \/>\nmovement.<\/p>\n<p>When government becomes the means of carrying out a<br \/>\nreligious program, it raises obvious questions under the First<br \/>\nAmendment. But even in the absence of constitutional issues, a<br \/>\npolitical party should resist identification with a religious movement.<br \/>\nWhile religions are free to advocate for their own sectarian causes,<br \/>\nthe work of government and those who engage in it is to hold together<br \/>\nas one people a very diverse country. At its best, religion can be a<br \/>\nuniting influence, but in practice, nothing is more divisive. For<br \/>\npoliticians to advance the cause of one religious group is often to<br \/>\noppose the cause of another&#8230;.<\/p>\n<p>During the 18 years I served in the Senate, Republicans often<br \/>\ndisagreed with each other. But there was much that held us together. We<br \/>\nbelieved in limited government, in keeping light the burden of taxation<br \/>\nand regulation. We encouraged the private sector, so that a free<br \/>\neconomy might thrive. We believed that judges should interpret the law,<br \/>\nnot legislate. We were internationalists who supported an engaged<br \/>\nforeign policy, a strong national defense and free trade. These were<br \/>\nprinciples shared by virtually all Republicans. <\/p>\n<p>But in recent<br \/>\ntimes, we Republicans have allowed this shared agenda to become<br \/>\nsecondary to the agenda of Christian conservatives. As a senator, I<br \/>\nworried every day about the size of the federal deficit. I did not<br \/>\nspend a single minute worrying about the effect of gays on the<br \/>\ninstitution of marriage. Today it seems to be the other way around.\n  <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Amen.&nbsp; My marriage to a man isn&#8217;t going to hurt your<br \/>\nkids.&nbsp; But signs from home and abroad indicate that the crushing<br \/>\nnational debt, the national security state, and the dissolved social<br \/>\nsafety net will.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>John Danforth, former Republican senator and an Episcopal priest, writes in the Times today: The problem is not with people or churches that are politically active. It is with a party that has gone so far in adopting a sectarian agenda that it has become the political extension of a religious movement. When government becomes [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":709,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[46],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politicks"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5G3PH-iP","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/709"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1167"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1167\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}