Religion in Politics

Extract

Father Gerald Vann’s broadcast talks here reproduced strike a topical note in view of the Albert Hall meeting of the Industrial Christian Fellowship at the end of September and of the discussion it aroused. Religion has an intimate relation to politics and prayer is the heart of religion. A man’s social and political action should, in fact, flow from his relations with God in prayer. But the primary question brought to the fore by the Archbishop of Canterbury’s speech is whether one’s prayer and religion are to play an essential part in particular practical judgments about society and politics.

The attack on the Archbishop, in the letters to the Times for instance, did not lack an element of truth. There were times when he left the principles he rightly declared to be the province of religion for applications which were far from being the only ones acceptable to the conscience of the Christian.. But the fundamental problem raised was that of the very mission of the Church. Is the Church to turn from preaching eternal salvation through the Cross to concentrate all her energies on providing for the social well-being and happiness of the citizen on earth? In constantly driving home the social teaching implied in the Sermon on the Mount, as well as in the relation between man and his Creator, we are in danger of presenting that teaching upside-down. We may find ourselves standing on a platform shoulder to shoulder with Socialist and Communist, trying to raise our voices above theirs and to sell our wares by making them more attractive than those of our ‘rivals.’