When piety becomes policy: The theological reorientation of faith from inner grace to national strategy

“ It is Our conviction that all the activities of the children of men which are not guided by the Spirit and counsel of God will bear no lasting fruit, they will not be acceptable in the sight of the Lord and will therefore come to nought as the Tower of Babel came to nought.
It is for this reason that the Church of Christ, and especially Christian leaders, have such an enormous responsibility. However wise or however mighty a person may be, he is like a ship without a rudder if he is without God. ”

“ You can fast by yourself, you can keep vigils by yourself, you can say prayers by yourself—and you can do these things by the devil! But, verily, Christian faith, which Christ Jesus truly said to be in spirit; Christian hope, which, despairing of its own merits, confides only in the mercy of God; Christian charity, which is not puffed up, is not made angry, does not seek its own glory,—none, indeed, can attain these except by the grace and gracious help of God alone. ”

“ True believers are too apt to live by other things than by Christ alone. It is the duty of every believer to keep the faith, and constantly to live by believing in Christ. This is a lesson not soon or easily learned. To keep the faith, in opposition to the natural propensity which is in us all, to live by our own righteousness, or something of our own, is the principal part of the Christian warfare. It is like the pendulum in a clock, which moves all the wheels. If the pendulum stops, then the whole clock stands. ”

“ I pray that thou wouldest keep them from the evil,' is the true cause of our standing, and of our continuing in the faith and holy profession of the gospel to this very day. Wherefore we must give the glory of all to God by Christ: 'I will not trust in my bow,' said David, 'neither shall my sword save me. But thou hast saved us from our enemies, and hast put them to shame that hated us. In God we boast all the day long, and praise thy name for ever. ”

“ And so, all along the consecrated way and line of service, it is when the law of faith is written in the mind, and becomes a settled perception or conviction, that the sanctified heart is able to find rest. 'By grace are ye saved through faith', is true at the beginning; but equally true is the word, 'Kept by the power of God through faith'; and the principle is that the law in the mind and heart constantly operates as we tread the appointed path of life and service. ”

“ A nation is only as strong as its spirit. We are only as dynamic as our pride. We are only as vibrant as the faith that beats in the hearts of our people.
No nation can long thrive that loses faith in its own values, history, and heroes, for these are the very sources of our unity and our vitality.
What has always allowed America to prevail and triumph over the great challenges of the past has been an unyielding and unashamed conviction in the nobility of our country and its unique purpose in history. We must never lose this conviction. We must never forsake our belief in America. ”

“ In America, we believe in the majesty of freedom and the dignity of the individual. We believe in self-government and the rule of law. And we prize the culture that sustains our liberty -– a culture built on strong families, deep faith, and fierce independence. We celebrate our heroes, we treasure our traditions, and above all, we love our country.
Inside everyone in this great chamber today, and everyone listening all around the globe, there is the heart of a patriot that feels the same powerful love for your nation, the same intense loyalty to your homeland. ”

“ The Christian life is not one of soft, luxurious ease; it is a hard, fierce conflict. The graces of faith, love, and hope constitute the most complete armour of the soul. The breastplate and helmet protect the two most vital parts—the head and the heart. With head and heart right, the whole man is right. Let us keep the head from error and the heart from sinful lust, and we are safe. The best guards against error in religion and viciousness in life are—faith, hope, and charity; these are the virtues that inspire the most enterprising bravery. Drunkards and sluggards never make good soldiers. ”

“ Against these our enemies, may God arm us and you, my dear brethren and sisters in the Lord, with the armor of righteousness, [and grant] that we may be shod with the Gospel of peace, and our loins be girt about with truth, always having the two edged sword of the Spirit at our side, thus preserving our helmet of salvation with the shield of faith, guarding the knapsack of love, and thus following the Captain of our faith, as Christian soldiers, boldly waging the war of the Lord, under the bloody banner of Christ ”

“ You think that he who eateth will fall by his presumption, or that he who eateth not will sink under the weight of his own fears and scruples; but if they have true faith, and an eye to God, the one in the intelligent use of his Christian liberty and the other in the conscientious forbearance of it, they shall be held up—the one in his integrity, and the other in his comfort. This hope is built upon the power of God, for God is able to make him stand; and, being able, no doubt he is willing to exert that power for the preservation of those that are his own. ”

“ Let us, I say, join and knit all these together with the chearful exercise of faith and trust in God. Let us excite one another, with comfortable words, to cast ♦off all fear of man. Wheresoever God hath wrought a good will, let us take heed of damping it in any of the least members of Christ; but let us cherish it by the word of the gospel, and by the rules of true Christian discretion, keep it within such bounds, as may bring it to a fuller and more substantial maturity. ”

“ What shall we render unto him, my dear sister, but a penitent and contrite heart, and a broken spirit, with love and great gratitude; there rests the spirit of the Lord, says David. Let us love one another fervently, for God is love, and constantly exhort each other, lest we wax cold through the deceitfulness of sin; so that God may be glorified in us, and we may be delivered from pride, and from unreasonable and wicked men; for all men have not faith. The Lord is faithful; he will strengthen and keep us. 1 John 4:8 ”

“ Together, we give thanks for the loved ones who graced our lives and for the heroes who protect our nation, and we asked for God's continued blessings on this magnificent land. Our country is doing very well. Our stock market has hit a new all-time high.
Unemployment is at a 17-year low. We've created five and a half trillion dollars worth of values. We are doing something very special. People are feeling it. The enthusiasm in this country has never been higher. ”

“ In the United States, my administration has made clear to social media companies that we will uphold the right of free speech. A free society cannot allow social media giants to silence the voices of the people, and a free people must never, ever be enlisted in the cause of silencing, coercing, canceling, or blacklisting their own neighbors.
As we defend American values, we affirm the right of all people to live in dignity. ”

“ Today, Americans from diverse ethnic and religious backgrounds remain steadfast in a commitment to the inherent values of faith, honesty, integrity, and patriotism. Our Constitution and laws guarantee Americans the right not just to believe as they see fit, but to freely exercise their religion. Unfortunately, not all have recognized the importance of religious freedom, whether by threatening tax consequences for particular forms of religious speech, or forcing people to comply with laws that violate their core religious beliefs without sufficient justification. ”

“ There is behind moral and political truth a force equally irresistible and always operating, and just as we may expect the harvest in due season, we may be sure of the triumph of these eternal forces that make for man's uplifting. Have faith in your form of government, for it rests upon a growing idea, and if you will but attach yourself to that idea, you will grow with it.
Fourth, the subject presents itself in another aspect. You must not only have faith in yourselves, in humanity and in the form of government under which we live, but if you would do a great work, you must have faith in God. ”

“ As I outlined in my speech in Saudi Arabia three months ago, America and our partners are committed to stripping terrorists of their territory, cutting off their funding, and exposing the false allure of their evil ideology.
Terrorists who slaughter innocent people will find no glory in this life or the next. They are nothing but thugs, and criminals, and predators, and -- that's right -- losers. Working alongside our allies, we will break their will, dry up their recruitment, keep them from crossing our borders, and yes, we will defeat them, and we will defeat them handily. ”

“ For as history attests, persecution of one faith is ultimately the persecution of all faiths. (Applause.)
President Trump will continue to stand without apology to protect this fundamental freedom, not just for our people but stand for it in the world. Since the founding of our nation, America has stood for the proposition that the right to believe and the right to act on one’s beliefs is the right of all peoples at all times. Protecting and promoting religious freedom is a foreign policy priority of the Trump administration. ”

“ Under President Donald Trump, America will continue to condemn persecution of any kind, of any faith, any place, any time. We will stand against it with our ideals and with all our might.
The freedom to worship God according to the dictates of our conscience is at the very heart of who we are as Americans. In a very real sense, America was founded by people who had the courage to cross the Atlantic, motivated in so many cases to come here so that they might have that freedom of religion. ”

“ And so I want to encourage all of you today, fellow believers in Christ, cling to one another in these challenging times. Know that America stands with you and will labor alongside. But be confident because in the midst of it all, he knows the plans he has for us.
And even as history records, even in times of persecution, this church has prospered, it’s grown, it’s had hope and a future. And with your continued courage and faith, and with the strong and unwavering support of America and its courageous President, Donald Trump, I know that future is bright indeed, now and in eternity. ”

“ After the United States, Saudi Arabia is the largest oil producing nation in the world. They have worked closely with us and have been very responsive to my requests to keeping oil prices at reasonable levels – so important for the world. As President of the United States I intend to ensure that, in a very dangerous world, America is pursuing its national interests and vigorously contesting countries that wish to do us harm. ”

“ I understand there are members of Congress who, for political or other reasons, would like to go in a different direction – and they are free to do so. I will consider whatever ideas are presented to me, but only if they are consistent with the absolute security and safety of America. ”

“ When the countries of the Middle East, North East Africa and Asia Minor, where the Gospel was preached by the Apostles, were over run by and succumbed under a power opposed to the Christian Faith, the sovereigns and people of Ethiopia, firm in their deep love for the Faith of Christ and supplemented by the nature of their native land, put up great struggles to preserve Ethiopia as an island of Christianity. ”

“ From then on Christianity spread steadily among the Ethiopian people and became the religion of the Ethiopians in the Fourth Century. It is a matter of pride for Us, a special cause for thankfulness to Almighty God, when We recall that the Christian Faith was introduced to Our people by the Imperial Court and through the instrumentality of the then reigning Monarch. ”

“ Deep is Our thankfulness to our God for this grace. Numerous are our ancestors, who throughout the centuries consecrated and sacrificed their lives on the battlefield that Ethiopia might survive strong in her Christian Faith. ”

“ But when the life of a Christian Church is made to depend not on the faith, love, and liberality of its own members, and the presence and blessing of its Divine Master, but upon the protection and patronage of the civil government, and when, as a necessary consequence, the administration of its affairs falls into the hands of worldly politicians, who use it as an instrument of State, what can be expected but what always has ensued, that its spiritual life should wither, until those who seek real religious nourishment from its breasts are driven in sheer desperation to seek it elsewhere? ”

“ In this book I have portrayed the Christian Church as the servant and henchman of Big Business, a part of the system of Mammon. Every church is necessarily a money machine, holding and administering property. And it is not alone the Catholic Church which is in politics, seeking favors from the state—the exemption of church property from taxation, exemption of ministers from military service, free transportation for them and their families on the railroads, the control of charity and education, laws to deprive people of amusements on Sunday—so on through a long list. ”

“ There can be nothing more hostile to the real spirit of Catholicism than this false principle of nationality; for the end of the church, in a spiritual point of view, is to smooth away all national differences, and bring the different nations into one fold.
To wish, at a time like the present, when the fanaticism of nationality, if we may be allowed the expression, is tending to alienate still more the peoples of different nations—to wish, we say, at such a time to destroy the only tie that holds them together, is to betray the wildest party fanaticism imaginable. ”

“ But such is your infatuation and hostility to our religion that to so undermine it you are willing to see your own faith, whatever that may be, ruined and wrecked as long as you can accomplish your object, and the next generation become atheists and sceptics, totally devoid of all faith. Holding the political power, and in spite of your boasted fair play and in defiance of the spirit of our free institutions, you are determined [Pg 447] to uphold your system and tax us for its support against our consciences, against religion, freedom, equal rights, and the spirit of American institutions. ”

“ In all these old nations the predominant religion is Christian, but the politics are pagan; and Protestants take the lead in political affairs because they have succeeded in paganizing their own religion, and in eliminating all antagonism between it and their politics; while the Catholics are politically inefficient because, owing to the paganism of the state, they have not been able to Christianize their politics and bring them into harmony with their religion. ”

“ Eliminate, by Christianizing politics, all antagonism between politics and religion, which now renders Catholics politically indifferent or imbecile, and enable them to act with a united instead of a divided mind, and they will show even a greater aptitude for the affairs of this world than Protestants, because they will act from a higher plane, from profounder and more luminous principles, and with the energy and tenacity of an ever-present and living faith, instead of interest or expediency. ”

“ Those prominent politicians, in or out of office, who happen to be Catholics, [Pg 123] are the last men in the world to listen to the dictation of the clergy or to act in obedience to the orders of their church, and they take infinite pains to prove that their religion has nothing to do with their politics, in order, we suppose, to escape the suspicion of being influenced in their political conduct by regard for Catholic interests. ”

“ Man gets his authority from man, and is responsible only to man. I want to get theology out of politics. Our ancestors in 1776 retired God from politics, because of the jealousies among the churches, and the result has been splendid for mankind. I want to get theology out of education. Teach the children what somebody knows, not what somebody guesses. I want to get theology out of morality, and out of charity. ”

“ When I speak of the religion of political life, I mean that religion should control men in the exercise of their political rights as it should control them in all their other relations and concerns. The religion of politics is nothing else than the application of religious principles to political action, whether it be the action of a statesman or a private citizen, of an individual or of the community. The politician should respect these principles as much as any other man. Political opinion, political discussion, political life should be brought under the influence of religious convictions. ”

“ Heaven be defied, and earth be stained, but no one culpable! A State is bound to keep good faith as much as an individual. It is bound to deal righteously and glorify God, to “eschew evil and do good.” The doctrine broached in some quarters, that legislation may be dishonest and yet reproach not cleave to the State which suffers it, is as false as it is base. ”

“ Anxious to keep on good terms both with the Gospel, by doing their duty to God, and with the men of the world, by showing charity to their neighbour, they needed all the wisdom they possessed to devise expedients for so nicely adjusting matters as to permit these gentlemen to adopt the methods usually resorted to for vindicating their honour, without wounding their consciences, and thus reconcile two things apparently so opposite to each other as piety and the point of honour. ”

“ It needs, first of all, the Catholic Church—nay, the papacy itself—to declare and apply the law of God to states and empires, to sovereigns and subjects, kings and peoples, that politics may no longer be divorced from religion, but be rendered subsidiary to the spiritual, the eternal end of man, for which both individuals and society exist and civil governments are instituted. ”