Editorial: Religion and Public Policy

April 29, 2003

Source: Christianity Today

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2003/005/27.30.html

On April 29, 2003 Christianity Today printed an editorial stating that "many critics don't understand the complexity of religious and specifically Judeo-Christian language. Through religious language, as Fuller Theological Seminary President Richard Mouw recently put it, Bush 'has reintroduced into the culture the language of morality and moral distinctions...' This is not to defend all the President's speeches, or to pretend that some previous American forays into religiously tinged policies (some of those based on "manifest destiny," for instance) were not disasters. It is only to suggest that for political leaders to use biblical categories to describe their policies is hardly inappropriate. Bush is certainly not the first President to do so—though this tradition was only recently revived... Let's move from wringing our hands that Bush or any politician has a religious worldview, and stick to debating whether the specific policies that emerge from that worldview actually bring peace and justice to the world."