Politics in the Pulpit by C. E. H.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Oct 20, 1910

Politics in the Pulpit

By C. E. H.

It is getting to be a common thing for clergymen to give political speeches in their pulpits. The ministers apparently think they will fail to hold the attention of the congregation, and to draw others into the church, unless they deal with the different social and political problems which burden the minds of men. To those who thus endeavor to mix the things of this world with the things of heaven, we commend the words of Edmund Burke, the well-known English statesman. A minister of eminence in England once preached a sermon in which there were “some good moral and religious sentiments, and not ill expressed, mixed up with a sort of porridge of various political opinion and reflection.” In writing to a young man, Mr. Burke expressed himself thus regarding such preaching:—

No sound ought to be heard in the church but the healing voice of Christian charity. The cause of civil liberty and civil government gain as little as that of religion by this confusion of duties. Those who quit their proper character, to assume what does not belong to them, are for the greater part ignorant both of the character they leave and the character they assume. Surely the church is a place where one day's truce ought to be allowed to the dissension and animosities of mankind.

C. E. H.