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The Church and Politics

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Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Nov 14, 1907

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 84, No. 46.

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The Church and Politics

WE heard the remark at a religious gathering last summer that “it is right for the church to enter politics; but when politics undertake to enter the church, we will attend to the politics.” The remark was called to mind by the following news item dated at Beaver Falls, Pa., November 5:—
For the first time in Pennsylvania, a large church was used for a polling place at the invitation of the pastor. In the Third Ward the voters have been compelled to cast their ballots in a woodshed in a back alley.
The Rev. C. F. Swift, of the Methodist Protestant Church, recently said in a sermon that the church-members should take an active part in the election, and he hoped to see the day when churches could be turned into polling places.
This morning, when the election board organized, the Rev. Mr. Swift visited the Sunday-school room, where the election was held, offered a blessing on the day’s proceedings, and requested the board not to permit swearing, smoking, tobacco chewing, or drinking in the sacred precincts. This was promised by the election board.
When it is remembered that the sacred edifice is set apart as a meeting-place between God and his people, and that in the history of his dealings with his people in the past we have the record of his sore displeasure when the sacred and the common have been mingled, we can be certain that a move of this kind is not in the order of the Lord. In the first place, the church has its own definite, sacred work to do. In the second place, the custodians of the sacred edifice have no divine permission to turn the house of prayer into a polling place. This inability to distinguish between the holy and the profane, the sacred and the common, grows out of the efforts being put forth in this country to unite religion and the state; and it will end, as all such efforts have ended, in the corruption of both institutions. The church that enters politics must lay aside her armor, and must then contend with the great adversary unprotected and in her own strength.