By the Rev. Laura Rose
One by one the red, white, blue, green and yellow signs have popped up all over town in an effort to get us out to vote for local and state candidates this Tuesday. And, if your kitchen counter is anything like mine, it is piled high with candidate brochures and voter guides demanding your careful attention.
As citizens and community members, we have lots of choices to make. First and foremost we have the choice, as Gandhi wrote, to exercise our power to engage and be the change we wish to see in the world. The alternative is to stand on the sidelines, throw up our hands in despair, and yield to the kind of apathetic groupthink that leads to the idea that nothing can change so why try.
If we do make the decision to engage we are then faced with the question of what set of values will guide our decisions about candidates, propositions and political issues. This is where religious faith can come into play.
We hear a lot of talk today about our Judeo-Christian heritage, and yet when one reads the Hebrew and New Testament scriptures in their social, political and cultural context, the first thing we need to recognize is that the various texts of the bible were not written in a context where there was a separation of church and state. Thus using the bible as a defense for posting the Ten Commandments in government buildings or as a defense for elevating one particular moral or religious viewpoint over all others is to deny this fundamental difference between the biblical context and our contemporary context.
We live in a democracy that affirms religious diversity and the kind of universal moral principles that seek to foster the common good. We do not live in a theocracy that advocates for a specific state-sanctioned religious worldview or protects the right to use religious texts to defend the rights of one group of people over another group.
One way that people of faith can respect the separation of church and state and still allow our sacred texts to guide our values and inform our decisions in the political sphere is to ask one question: What are the most universal and time-transcendent principles running through the sacred texts that guide our faith? In the case of the Hebrew and New Testament scriptures, the answer is undeniable: 1. Treat your neighbor as you wish to be treated. 2. Pay special attention to the weak, the vulnerable, the marginalized and those denied equality.
As I prepare to vote this Tuesday, in addition to reading all the materials piled up on my kitchen counter, I will also be asking these questions based on the principles noted above: Is the candidate or the proponents of a given proposition seeking to serve and advocate for the interests of the weakest and the most marginalized members of society or the strongest and most privileged? Has the candidate or the group proposing or opposing a proposition engaged in public discourse in a civil, respectful and truthful manner?
These are the kind of faith-based questions that do not jeopardize the separation of church and state. They are also the kind of questions that have inspired civil rights movements throughout history and can rouse us from despair and challenge to be the change we wish to see in the world.
This article first appeared in the Alameda Patch.com
Rev. Laura Rose is the senior pastor of First Congregational Church in Alameda, CA and an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ, a denomination known for its bold stances on issues of justice and its commitment to interfaith dialogue.
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