Involvement in Worldly Affairs Disturbs Many

CLERGYMEN are frequently in the news today. When you pick up a newspaper or magazine it is not unusual to read about their involvement in worldly affairs. Many of them now join in protest activities, participate in civil disobedience and even advocate revolution and violence under certain circumstances.

The Argentine news magazine Analysis observed: “In the last weeks of 1968, some 150 Catholic priests created political expectation in various parts of the country. Thus in Córdoba they advocated the need for violent revolution: in Neuquén, Chaco and Tucumán, they harassed the government . . . while in Buenos Aires they presented [President] Onganía with a petition.”

In Brazil, too, church leaders have come into conflict with the government because of their political agitating. And in the United States, the Chicago Tribune noted: “Of 441 persons arrested in recent street disturbances there, 61 of the adult males​—26 percent—​were clergymen.”

Is It Proper?

Do you think it is proper for clergymen thus to meddle in worldly affairs? Many persons do not think it is, and they are disturbed and even angered.

In South Africa, a government leader, Ben Schoeman, angrily said: “We are growing tired of political bishops. They use their pulpits to justify their dirty attacks on the government.” Similarly, in Bridgend, Glamorgan, England, members of a Baptist church became incensed by political sermons. One member said: “The minister is a fanatic about politics. . . . We go to chapel to hear the Gospel​—not that nonsense.”

The Berlin Morning Post noted that the political meddling of church leaders has incurred the “indignation and anger of many,” and concluded: “A church, which believes politics are more important than preaching . . . has become offensive.”​—August 29, 1969.

Do you feel the same way? Have you wondered how such activity could possibly be Christian? But many persons also find offensive the advocating by some clergymen of violent revolution. And these ministers have official church justification for their views!

For example, at its Uppsala, Sweden, assembly in 1968 the World Council of Churches, which has some 237 member churches, declared: “The building of political structures suitable to national development involves revolutionary changes in social structures. . . .

In countries where the ruling groups are oppressive . . . the revolutionary change may take a violent form.”​—Uppsala Speaks, page 48.

And Joseph Michenfelder, a Maryknoll priest who directs the Catholic Information Service in Peru, explains: “The Catholic revolutionaries are basing their efforts on the Popes’ encyclicals, especially the recent ‘Development of Peoples,’ which [supports] . . . violent revolution.”

What Does God’s Word Say?

But does God’s Word advise Christian ministers to meddle in worldly affairs, and even participate in violent revolution? Never do we read of this in the Bible!

Rather, the Bible says: “Do you not know that the friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever, therefore, wants to be a friend of the world is constituting himself an enemy of God.” (Jas. 4:4) In full agreement, Jesus Christ said: “My kingdom is no part of this world.” And he also said that his true followers “are no part of the world, just as I am no part of the world.” (John 18:36; 17:16) But what about the organizations of Protestantism, Catholicism and Judaism?

How clear it should be that they are part of the world, often working hand-in-glove with political leaders. What should this mean to you? Well, if the churches are not following the proper example set forth in God’s Word, should you continue to go to church? Could the churches really be approved by God? Certainly in this matter they are not doing God’s will!

No Basic Change

Nor should the recent publicity to these matters cause you to think that the churches’ deep involvement in worldly affairs represents a basic change for them. Not at all! They have long meddled in politics, even requiring support by their peoples of worldly wars. Thus Catholic historian Gordon Zahn admits: “The Church did become an agency of social control operating in behalf of the Nazi state insofar as insuring wholehearted Catholic support of the [second world] war was concerned.”​—German Catholics and Hitler’s Wars, page 202.

Nation’s Business of August 1964 accurately notes the result of this support of the world wars by the churches:

“The armies of 1914 were composed of Catholics, Protestants and Jews in roughly equal numbers on both sides. Equally acclaimed, or disregarded, on both sides were the teaching of the Hebrew prophets and of Christ Himself. Disdain of religious precepts, it is noted, became even more pronounced in the second war.”

A Catholic, distressed by the unchristian course of the churches, wrote in a Catholic journal:

“See how in World War I, the German and Italian Catholics hated and killed their American and English brothers and we, acting in a like manner, killed our German brethren in Christ. In World War II this same horrible scene was repeated when most Catholics obeyed their respective States and in hatred and fear killed those whom Christ insists they love. . . .

“If the State would order us to kill ourselves we would refuse to obey . . . However, if the State tells us to kill our innocent brother living in another land we generally do so, forgetting entirely, ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself’ and that ‘Love does no evil to a neighbor.’”​—The Sign, September 1955.

The bloodguilt of Christendom cannot be denied. Pope Paul, on the first day of 1970, acknowledged: “Our hands are still bloodstained from the last World Wars.”​—New York Times, January 2, 1970.

Yet the churches continue their meddling in worldly affairs, becoming ever more involved. But more and more persons grow disgusted with them, so their decline rapidly gains momentum. And what eventually happens to the churches will directly affect you. Why so?