Keep clergy out of public office?

Otto von Bismarck is famous for saying that there are two things no ordinary citizen should ever watch being made: sausage and the nation's laws.

Apparently there is a movement in the country to get 1,000 evangelical Christian clergy to run for office. But that is a really bad idea.

The American Renewal Project is founded and directed by David Lane, a conservative Christian political activist and former Jerry Falwell Sr. operative who is trying to get 1,000 pastors to run for political office between 2016-2018.

Now, as an American citizen any cleric has the right to run for elective office and no, it does not violate the First Amendment. But as the writer goes on to explain, the country's founders were against the idea.

The founders who crafted the original state governments — those governments celebrated by today's conservative politicians as the most important source of democratic life — thought it was a good idea for ministers to stay out of politics.

The state constitutions of North Carolina (1776), New York (1777), Georgia (1777), South Carolina (1778), Delaware (1792),Tennessee (1796), Maryland (1799), and Kentucky (1799) all banned clergymen from running for office.

The 1776 North Carolina Constitution states “that no clergyman, or preacher of the gospel of any denomination, shall be capable of being a member of either the Senate, House of Commons, or Council of State, while he continues in the exercise of the pastoral function.”

However, these prohibitions did not survive. The Rev. John Witherspoon was signer of the Declaration of Independence one of the most prominent evangelists of that era. When the first draft of the new Georgia Constitution barred clergy from running for office, he wrote a blistering public attack. The clause was quickly removed due to public outrage.

So methinks that while the author overstates the history of early America regarding the topic, I think that the idea that being clergy is some special qualification for public office is foolish in the extreme.

Being ordained does not make anyone smarter. It does not necessarily make someone even more religious or devout. It does, in most denominations, certify that they have passed some tests, sometimes difficult ones, in discerning and validating a call from God to seek the pastoral office. But ordination is neither qualification nor credential for public office. If someone is ordained and seeks office, I would want to know all his/her other qualifications and skills and would adjudge pastoral status as dead last in importance.

But I would want to ask the candidate: What happened to your call to serve in a pastoral role? Did God call you to run for office, and if so, why the detour first into pastoral ministry? I am quite okay that Jesus had a Messiah complex because he was, after all, the Messiah. But one per world history is all we get and is all we need.

And if Bismarck thought that watching ordinary politicians debate and bargain and swap favors to pass legislation was off-putting enough, I would say he never saw a gathering of ministers at a religious conference writing canon law for a denomination.