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"First Things First," Stephen L. Carter, Christianity Today
This op-ed by Stephen Carter, Yale Law School professor and member of The Becket Fund's Board of Advisors, addresses the recent controversy over a Pastor in North Carolina who resigned from his post soon after declaring a political litmus test for his congregation. The piece includes gems like these:
Certainly, we need robust Christian witness in our politics. Christians, as we all know, have made tremendous contributions standing up for civil rights and the sanctity of human life, to mention just two examples.
. . .
Where do those moral commitments come from? For Christians, they come from our faith. It is dangerous, both to ourselves and to the project of democracy, to pretend that these commitments have another, more secular source. We should oppose any effort to use the metaphor of separating church and state to bar the faithful from political discourse.
. . .
[T]here is a sharp distinction between witnessing for the truth and creating a partisan litmus test for church membership. Some pastors on the Right do it. Other pastors on the Left do it. All of them ought to be free to make that choice. But all of them are wrong.
Click here for the full op-ed.