United Press International Church elite vs. faithful By Uwe Siemon-Netto UPI Religious Affairs Editor Thursday, October 28, 2004 TORONTO – As the United States approaches Election Day, a discord as old as Protestantism haunts Christians in America. The issue is this: To what extent should the church opine on or even intervene in secular affairs? A case in point is the decision by the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) to withdraw its $3 million in investments from Israel. This was compounded by senior clerics from the group traveling to southern Lebanon and making favorable remarks about Hezbollah, which the U.S. government lists as a terrorist group. "Relations and conversations with Islamic leaders are a lot easier than dealings and dialogues with Jewish leaders," the Rev. Ron Stone, a member of the PCUSA's Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy, told Al Manar Hezbollah's satellite television network, angering Jewish organizations and embarrassing his own denominational leadership. Stone, a former professor of Christian ethics at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, also praised Hezbollah's "expression of goodwill toward the American people." The U.S. government blames this group for the deaths of 270 U.S. citizens in two terrorist bombings. Meanwhile, the Rev. Nile Harper, chairman of the advisory committee, called on Israel to end its occupation of the West Bank and Gaza "because it is oppressive and destructive for the Palestinian people." The PCUSA leadership disassociated itself from these statements. Still, they reflect a malaise plaguing Protestantism since Martin Luther's conflict with his violent antagonist Thomas Muentzer, a rebel leader during the Peasants' Wars of the early 16th century. Drawing a sharp line between the secular and the spiritual realms, Luther felt that when the leaders of one dabbled in the other, they were doing the devil's work: "The devil never stops cooking and brewing these two kingdoms into each other," he fumed. "In the devil's name the secular leaders always want to be Christ's masters and teach him how he should run his church and spiritual government. Similarly, the false governments and schismatic spirits always want to be masters, though not in God's name, and to teach people how to organize the secular government. Thus the devil is indeed very busy on both sides, and he has much to do." Presbyterians are of course Calvinists, not Lutherans. But Calvin did sign the 1530 Augsburg Confession, Lutheranism's principal document of faith, whose 28th article clearly draws the line between temporal and spiritual responsibilities. Yet it appears that clericalism interfering with political matters is as much a temptation in 21st-century Protestantism as it was in pre-Reformation Christianity. It is one thing for a clergyman to opine on secular problems for which biblical guidelines exist; racism and the right to life come to mind. It is quite another to play at issues that a cleric is not professionally equipped to handle, other than by prayer – intractable issues such as the ongoing Middle East conflict. The promotion of political causes, currently mainly leftist, has often split denominational elites and bureaucracies from the faithful. This is particularly obvious in U.S. Presbyterianism, one of America's most venerable faith families. As in other denominations – and other Western nations – controversial political statements and policy decisions in the Presbyterian Church USA are often the work of "specialized clergy." Specialized clergy work as staff at the denomination's headquarters, or teach at seminaries and other schools. A recent PCUSA survey shows a deep divide between these professionals and the men and women in the pews – and their pastors. Specialized clerics spend less time reading the Bible than other church officials; only 37 percent do so every week, compared with 52 percent of elders and 53 percent of parish pastors. Specialized clergymen and women are more inclined to hold postmodern views than pastors or congregants. For example only 56 percent of specialized clerics – but three-quarters of all regular pastors and congregants – agree with the statement that "the only absolute truth for humankind is in Jesus Christ," which is taken from the Gospel of John: "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." (John 14:6). It is primarily due to this small elite's ideological agitation that the PCUSA has shrunk from 4.2 million members in 1967 to 2.4 million today, while the conservative Presbyterian Church in America has grown from 60,000 in 1972 to currently 350,000. Other mainline denominations have seen similar developments. There may also be a message in this for the forthcoming election, for which the Republicans are said to have been very successful in mobilizing evangelicals both within and outside the mainline churches. In the survey, six in ten specialized PCUSA clerics described themselves as Democrats. On the other hand, 55 percent of the faithful told pollsters they were Republicans.

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