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Pacific Press Publishing Company · New York · July 31, 1890

FromThe American Sentinel, Vol. 5, No. 30

The Clerical Party.

THE clergy seem to be entering into politics at this period more than ever before in our history. They are not content with giving moral and religious instruction, leaving the laity to apply it in practical affairs according to their own consciences. Instead of this the clergy are taking the part of active political leaders with specific political designs.

The Reformed Presbyterian ministers are circulating petitions to Congress asking that God shall be formally recognized in the Constitution as the only Supreme Ruler; and they are refusing to vote until their request is granted. Methodists and Presbyterians in their general convocations demand that religion shall be made a part of the public school education, and a society, made up of ministers chiefly, has been organized to combat the supposed influence of the Church of Rome upon school legislation. They cry out that the schools must be protected against clerical influence, and yet at the same time they protest that the secularization of the schools must not continue. They seem to be desirous of bringing the religious issue into politics with the clergy as the natural and inevitable leaders.

A large number of ministers of various denominations have also been preaching sermons after an organized plan, declaring that what they call civil-service reform is a religious obligation.

The Rev. Dr. Parkhurst, of the Presbyterians, Dr. Elmendorf, of the Dutch Reformed, and Mr. Heber Newton, of the Episcopalians, have entered into the municipal campaign with great heat, contending that their flocks must make the task of changing the present municipal officers a profound religious duty. To that end, and with the assistance of Bishop Potter, the ministers of this mind are about to organize a clerical party in municipal politics; and the churches will probably be transformed into halls for generating enthusiasm in behalf of the movement. The town will ring with political sermons if this project works, and the test of orthodoxy and Christian principle may be the support of the clerical ticket.

This, of course, is likely to make discord in the churches, for nearly all the leaders of the opposition are church members, and it is improbable that they will change their political course at the dictation of their pastors. For instance, in Dr. Parkhurst’s Madison Square Church, is Collector Erhardt, who wants a straight Republican ticket under any circumstances; and yet, according to the view of the clerical party, the advocacy of such a ticket is downright sin. They want the field unobstructed for their fight with Tammany. Boss Platt is also among the parishioners, and he may make up his mind that it is bad politics to run a clerical ticket. Another of Dr. Parkhurst’s parishioners is Mayor Smith Ely, faithful in his attention to his religious duties, and yet so sagacious that he may regard the project of the clergy as impracticable.

Hence the plan of bringing the clergy and the churches into politics is sure to lead to much embarrassment, and it may provoke dissensions which will be long in healing; for no church would be unanimous in its views of political duty and expediency. Some of the congregation would be on the side of the clerical party, and some would be supporting the regular Democratic or Republican nominations. Yet the pastor would be electioneering for the clerical ticket with might and main, and preaching that it was a Christian duty to vote for it and, inferentially, a sin against God to vote any other way.

When the Church enters the political arena, the great majority of the people will feel that their duty as citizens requires them to administer to it a sharp rebuke as a warning against any repetition of the experiment.

In this Republic, Church and State must be separated absolutely, and always.—The Sun.