The church and the government

The Bush administration has been proposing that faith-based groups, like churches, be given money to assist in addressing the human needs in our society. Of course, this initiative is not new with the present administration; it was also true with previous administrations going back a couple of decades. Many people believe in the separation of church and state, but there has always been a utilitarian relationship between the government and religion since President Washington said in his farewell address, "And let us with caution indulge the supposition, that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on the minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principles."

But what shall be the boundaries of that "working" relationship between the rule of government and the rule of faith? How much shall the government impose its influence upon faith-based groups when money is given by the government to provide services for the common good of the people?

When people of other faith groups or of no faith in our pluralistic society pay their taxes, is it just for a particular church group to discriminate against them by denying services because they don’t agree with the same basic theological tenets of faith? Is it just for a faith-based group to deny employment to persons who do not adhere to their basic theological views if they receive government money to run a program for only "their kind of people?" Eyal Press reported in a recent New York Times article that "Stephen Goldsmith, a White House advisor, explained that such organizations will indeed be allowed to discriminate in their hiring practices, but only ‘on the basis of religion.’ What Goldsmith did not say is that religion can often bleed into other categories, like gender, sexual orientation and race."

The United Church of Christ and our predecessor denominational parents have always been involved in the public sphere because of our reformed theology heritage in which we believe in a God that has dominion over all. That dominion transcends both the public and the private spheres of life. There is nothing that our faith in God does not touch. Robert Thiemann wrote in his book Constructing a Public Theology, "The line between private and public, between the personal and the political, can no longer be drawn with absolute clarity. If moral decision making has an inevitable political dimension, then moral and theological reflection must seek to assist Christians in dealing with the public aspects of their lives."

If faith-based groups want to discriminate about who they want to hire, then all the funds for that position should come from the faith-based group itself. But if public funds are being used, I believe that the faith-based group must abide by the civil principles of our democratic secular society that require that one does not discriminate. Not-for-profit groups are influenced all the time by what their donors want. It is interesting that the Boy Scouts, who will not allow any gay man to be a scout leader, have the Mormon Church as their largest participating faith group. What other ways are they influencing the Boy Scouts? The Girl Scouts have no such discrimination clause denying lesbian leaders of scout groups.

I believe that faith-based groups should share in the tasks of serving the common good for all people of our society. If a faith-based group assumes the responsibility for serving the common good with funding from government sources, then I believe the faith-based group must abide by the principles of non-discriminatory practices concerning whom they serve and whom they hire. If one’s theological conscience does not allow for that, then don’t use the taxpayers’ money.

I believe that faith-based groups such as churches can do a great good in meeting the needs of persons caught in the web of poverty, poor housing, inadequate health care and more.

I believe that being a practicing Christian is like being a practicing doctor. Doctors prepare themselves through years of education and other training to be sure that, when confronted with a patient in medical need, they can provide the very best service and care. As we Christians continue to learn more about what it means to meet the needs of people and society, we discover that we cannot always identify all that is needed or know how to provide it. We have never before had to confront many of these needs, but we keep trying to meet the challenges, hoping that our knowledge and our faith in God will guide us to heal the ills we see in our society.

Being a practicing Christian means that we are always on the way to discovering how God calls us to responsible and faithful citizenship in the world. The scriptures provide for us a window of knowledge about God’s call. Robert Thiemann wrote it well: "Scripture’s claim to truth comes not in the form of a tyrannical dogmatic assertion but in the form of an invitation, or better, a promise. The text’s authority lies not in its ability to coerce or compel but in its ability to persuade and convince the reader that the promise it presents is trustworthy."

Being a practicing Christian means being a trustworthy colleague of Christ. We also call it discipleship.