POLITICS by Joseph Clarke

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 14, 1876

POLITICS

By Joseph Clarke

Politics is a term referring to the management of public affairs, in towns, cities, and nations; and it does not necessarily limit itself to the conduct of elections and the low, corrupt administration of senates and courts of justice.

Daniel, in the court of Babylon, and in the presence of the Medo-Persian monarchs, was a politician, or more properly a statesman, of the first class, whom no rewards could swerve, nor threats intimidate. Peter and John publicly announced their position on a question which the powers of their day had made a political one; and most of the prophets of the Old Testament and the apostles of the New Testament were brought in contact with the politics of the times in which they lived, because the governments of those times attempted to legislate upon moral questions, and legalized and enforced principles and forms of religious worship, with pains and penalties for non-conforming to such laws and religious regulations.

In the low, common use of the term “politics,” Christians have little to do with it, as the common mission of a modern politician embraces in its scope a large share of corruption and intrigue; but in the higher use of the term, the best men of the world, from Noah down to the sturdy reformers of our own time, Luther and Wickliffe of the sixteenth, and others of the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth, centuries, have been forced by God’s wise arrangements to wrestle manfully for the right in courts, in senates, and in councils.

See Luther in the Diet at Worms confronting the highest and proudest of the world’s mighty men, both ecclesiastical and political; and now, when moral and religious principles are discussed, if the government attempts to decide the matter for the people, it becomes the duty of every good man to do all in his power to check the advance of the political power upon the proper domain of the church. It is the duty of all to love God; but will it help the matter for the government to enact a law to this effect? All Christians believe in baptism; but shall the government point out the mode of baptism, and say just how the ordinance shall be administered?

Christians generally keep one day in the week holy; but how will it work for the government to specify the day, and say which shall be kept holy? Shall it say that the first day or the seventh shall be so observed? Would not the State be out of its sphere in so doing? and are the men who usually sit in legislative halls competent to decide upon such affairs?

The moment a government makes laws on religious subjects, that moment it assumes a power which it has no right to act upon. We speak here of such points as above quoted. Of course, it is in the province of the government to protect its citizens against crime and oppression. It is not to be an oppressor, nor cause others to be so. It should protect the weak against the strong in matters of justice; but when it legalizes particular forms of religion, and seeks to be a guide for the church in holy things, it becomes a blind leader of the blind, and both will fall into the ditch.

It has been the ruin of earthly governments to undertake this task, as the pages of history do abundantly testify. With the past before them, the European kingdoms are fast rushing into the same maelstrom which engulfed their predecessors; and the American republic bids fair to fall into the same pit, and in like manner.

But shall Christians meddle with politics? In one sense we say, no; in another sense we say, yes. As long as the State does not oppress the people, nor mislead them, the Christian can go on in the even tenor of his way, and no warning cry is called for; but when false systems of religion are legalized, then a Luther arises with his hosts of helpers, to clear the path and make a way for truth to pass in her dignity and beauty.

When oppression fills a continent with man-hunters and man-stealers, and dots the ocean with piratical slave-ships, crowded with miserable victims whose groans fill Heaven, then God raises up a Wilberforce to stem the flood of crime and woe; and the consequence we see in the fact, that the most powerful navy in the world becomes at once the ally of the weak and defenseless, and the slave trade is outlawed by the greatest nations upon the earth.

God has not set his church here in this dark world to be a dark, clumsy thing, the foot-ball of every wicked tyrant. No; her Hezekiah’s triumph in spite of the proud, boasting Sennacheribs; and her Davids get the victory over the Hanuns who seek her dishonor. The governments of earth cannot transform God’s people into hounds to pursue the oppressed as they flee from servitude. Religious toleration and political freedom are the boons God delights to confer upon the people he loves; and when they walk in the light, no power can long restrain the freedom of the people, and the freedom of the press. God’s people are free to stand up in defence of freedom and of right. He likes to see them outspoken as possible, with prudence, in behalf of the truth, and in defense of the oppressed.

Politics! Shall we meddle with politics? No, if we must mingle in the noisy crowd, and shout the praises of the poor, puny man who is to be raised to the pinnacle of power. No, if we must give currency to the many-voiced, slanderous reports, which fill the political atmosphere with clouds and mists. But we may deposit a ballot quietly in the box in behalf of freedom, and as quietly give a reason therefor. We may vigorously and heartily denounce the extravagance and crime so openly and unblushingly manifested in high political circles. We may speak as Paul did of the superstition and bigotry of the present so-called enlightened age.

Surely, to be a politician in a low sense is not to be a Christian; but to mingle in politics as did the prophets of ancient times, to tell the people that a sin is hidden beneath a ballot, which strengthens the oppressor, is no crime.

JOSEPH CLARKE.