Religion and Politics in Sioux City
ACCORDING to the Sioux City (Iowa) Tribune, the coming municipal campaign in that city will present as one of its leading features a plain case of the union of politics with religion. The Sioux City Ministerial Association will enter the campaign, bent on securing the election of officials who will close the saloons and eliminate vice. “The preparations being made by various religious organizations,” says the Tribune, is evidence “that one of the hottest campaigns in the history of the city will be waged in Sioux City next spring.” “As yet,” the report says, “the plans of the ministers are in embryo. They do not know whether they will have candidates of their own, or whether their support will be given to the candidate who will abide by their wishes. But the fact is plainly written that Sioux City will witness the greatest political upheaval in years.” Any logic which will justify the union of religion and politics in this instance, will justify it in every other instance. If there should be such a union in Sioux City to eliminate certain existing evils, there may just as properly be such a union in every city to eliminate similar or other evils susceptible of control by the ballot, and just as properly also a general union of the churches to purify politics in State and nation. This would be a plain union of church and state. The history of church and state union gives a most emphatic warning against such an experiment. The union of religion with politics corrupts religion, and the final result is the promotion of degeneracy in both state and church.