How to Relate to Secular Politics & Society as a Christian?

[switalabe]

Hello CA,

I would like to lead this thread posting off with a question, but for better or worse I’ve put my question close to the end, after explaining where I’m coming from.

I was recently reading 1 Cor Ch. 5, and verses 10 and 11 stood out to me. St. Paul in those verses seems to me to say that I as a Christian have to recognize whether people I interact with are Christians or non-Christians: a higher standard of behavior is imposed upon Christians, but not upon non-Christians.

As I thought about this, I kind of mentally extended it to my political life as a Christian. How can I expect my non-Christian friends to live by Christian morals? I can’t, right? – for whatever reason, they haven’t encountered Christ in such a way to find motivation to follow Christian moral teachings (say, on abortion or homosexual unions).

It seems I can do some work as a Christian in evangelizing others and representing Christ to them, as far as God intends for me to do. However, it doesn’t seem to me that simply voting for & enacting laws against what we as Christians believe is morally wrong (abortion, euthanasia, homosexual unions, unjust immigration policies) is sufficient. I’m thinking in particular of the outlook I pick up from documents like this one: catholic.com/sites/default/files/voters_guide_for_serious_catholics.pdf

So, I don’t know if I have a specific question, but I would appreciate some commentary or guidance or correction on this area of being a Christian. I think it’s about how we as a Christian body relate to the non-Christian society we live in. Can we really expect non-Christians, or Christians of different denominations, to live in the way that we strive to live? Isn’t our relationship with our non-Christian or non-Catholic brothers and sisters more than simply transmitting to them through secular political activity a list of rules?

Thanks,
Ben

 

[PaulfromIowa]

Opposing abortion, euthanasia, other murders is not strictly a Christian issue, nor is it a case of forcing our ideas on secular society. The right to life is a human right and those who debase it are violating basic human rights, from either a Christian or secular point of view.

 

[switalabe]

I see…

But the document I mentioned earlier is a Voter’s Guide for Serious Catholics. Would you agree that we would be very hard pressed to find a Voter’s Guide for Serious Secularists that advocates the same positions?

Doesn’t the Church teach that the Church is the ultimate teacher and interpreter on earth of the natural moral law? If that is the case, wouldn’t these so called human rights actually be Christian rights?

Finally, don’t some people consider “reproductive rights” to be “human rights,” although we as Catholic Christians deny that those are rights (such as contraception, abortion)?

 

[revert_jen]

Well, there are some things that apply only to Christians, and some things that apply to everyone.

For example, abortion and euthanasia simply are murder. Nobody thinks that non-Christians should be let off for murders, except in the womb or if people are old or sick. I don’t think murder becomes less important because the victim is one of the weaker people in society. That just makes it the more important that we fight for them.

For same-sex unions, marriage is what it is. Homosexual unions aren’t marriages. Nobody’s trying to have laws that stop people engaging in homosexual behavior, but allowing 3% of the population to force us all to pretend that marriage is something that it’s not (and never has been) is wrong, and it is moral to fight that wrong, whatever religion you are.

We don’t however, attempt to enact laws on strictly religious issues. We don’t try to pass laws requiring anyone who was baptized Catholic only to marry according to canon law for valid sacramental marriages. We don’t try to have laws that require anyone to go the Church on Sunday. We don’t (except in Germany) have the government collect the tithes for the Church through taxation. We don’t try to have laws against, umm, solitary sexual sin.

Some people seem to want people to think that it is wrong to enact any law that agrees with one religious position but not another. But that doesn’t really make sense. There are probably religions out there where certain murders are allowed. Any gun-control laws probably agree with some religion but not others. But I vote on pro-life issues as a citizen who thinks abortion, euthanasia, and so forth are bad for society and inconsistent with natural law.

In any case, it seems to me like the passage you refer to isn’t talking about that.
1 Cor 5:9-13:

I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with immoral men; not at all meaning the immoral of this world, or the greedy and robbers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. But rather I wrote to you not to associate with any one who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or robber—not even to eat with such a one. For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? God judges those outside. “Drive out the wicked person from among you.”

Usiing that passage to support your argument would seem to mean that we have to make robbery legal. AFAICT, St. Paul was talking about our private judgements of whom to associate with, lest we appear that as Christians we condone bad behavior among other Christians. It’s not talking about what the civil laws should be.

Just MHO, though.

–Jen

 

[switalabe]

Hi Jen,

Thank you very much for your well-thought out reply.

I hadn’t thought of my original post as an argument. My intention was to explain my thinking and ask for corrections. If I argue for anything, I do not want to argue that we should not seek an end to abortion or euthanasia in our society. I do believe that the natural moral law as taught by the Church is what is best for humanity, regardless of our present religious affiliations. So I want to make it clear that I do desire a just society, one that follows Catholic moral teachings (e.g. no abortions, no euthanasia, no homosexual unions, welcoming the stranger through just immigration laws, and so on).

Again, if in this post I argue for anything, I will continue and argue that it is not enough for us as Catholic Christians to simply enact our morals into the civil law – supposing that we had electoral majority (and unity – neither of which we have). I think we need to relate to secular society in a totally different way – not merely as statistics “X people did not have abortions in the past decade, and Y people did have abortions – we need to enact further laws A, B and C to counter Y’s activities” but as people who are seeking and need a personal relationship with…you know, God and all.

Maybe what I’m saying is that for non-Catholic people to wake up on Wednesday morning after an election to find that the whole body of Catholic moral teaching has been enacted into the civil law is not going to cut it on its own. At least, that’s MHO.

As for “solitary sexual sin” – I believe you are referring to masturbation? Although “solitary sexual sin” could mean a lot of things, I guess. As I understand the matter, this is against the natural moral law, in the same category as fornication or marital infidelity, although at a less grave level. If I understand the Church’s teaching correctly, “solitary sexual sin” is not merely against a religious law such as “use the holy water when you go into the church.”

Finally, regarding the passage – I didn’t think that St. Paul was referring in this passage to, say, the relationship between church and state per se. But I was trying to draw out a principle that we need to recognize that our relationships with each other as Catholic Christians and our relationships to our non-Catholic brothers and sisters are different.

I like your point about not making robbery legal; I will continue to think about that. But perhaps civil laws do at times permit robberies of sorts…we have anti-trust laws for a reason (corporations doing unethical things?), and before we had anti-trust laws, we had no anti-trust laws. For example.

Ben

 

[shockerfan]

Here are my 2 cents:

1. Every law passed is effectively one group forcing their views on other groups. I reject the idea that because I am a Catholic Christian, that somehow my views should not count as much as a secularist.
2. Catholics don’t force their purely religious views on other people. It was a lie, in the last presidential election, for people to claim that Republicans want to ban contraception. [We do, however, have an issue with abortafacient drugs that are mislabeled “contraceptives”…but that is a bit off point]
3. Many (maybe all) of the Catholic positions on social issues can be defended from a “natural law” perspective, which cuts across religious and non-religous people. Most secularists know, without formal religious training, that to kill your neighbor, rape his wife, and take his stuff is wrong. Natural law can be used to argue against Same Sex Unions, or gay adoption, or abortion, or embryonic stem cell research, etc.
4. Lastly, I do try to have “non-Catholic” reasons for defending my position on social issues. Our defenses should resonate with the person we are trying to sway to support our position. All depends on who we are talking to.

Bottom line is this: I am a citizen of this country and my vote counts the same as a secularist. I will not apologize to anyone that my faith impacts my position on social issues, and I will not yield my right to speak my mind in the public arena because of it.

 

[Viki63]

Doesn’t the Church teach that the Church is the ultimate teacher and interpreter on earth of the natural moral law? If that is the case, wouldn’t these so called human rights actually be Christian rights?

Not exactly, IMO.
The natural moral law is what is written on the hearts of men, even those who have never heard of the Christian God. All men instinctively know that kindness to the weak, mercy to enemies, keeping your promises, is good behavior.
The Church is the guardian of the revelation of God, especially through his son, That goes beyond the natural moral law, as seen in the sermon on the mount.

So society should codify into law behavior that we can all agree is good, i.e. don’t murder, steal, or bear false witness.
Laws specifically for Christians are left for the churches,such as rules about sacramental marriages, who can receive the Eucharist, etc. We don’t insist those rules be made into laws for everyone.