“FOUR MANDATES”
Acts 17:22-31
The Rev. Ms. Laurie A. McNeill
Montclair, New Jersey
May 1, 2005
“The church should not talk about politics. The church only should talk about God.”
We probably have heard people express such sentiments. Maybe we have thought it ourselves,
“Religion and politics should be kept separate, like church and state.”
There may exist a belief that political issues should be kept out of the church, yet there also
exists a tradition of having the two entwined.
Christians have dual citizenship. We are citizens of God’s realm and we are citizens of earthly
nations. The vary nature of this dual citizenship makes difficult the separation of religious and political
lives. There is a long history of having the purview of church and state overlap. We see this intersection
in Scripture and we see it played out in history.
In the Hebrew Scriptures, we know the story about God instructing Moses to tell Pharaoh, “Let
my people go.” God directed Moses to lobby the political ruler to change Egyptian immigration policy
with regard to the Hebrews.
In the New Testament, we recognize that Jesus was viewed by the Roman Empire as a political
insurgent. The rabbi was considered to be such a threat to the existing political order that he was
arrested, interrogated, tortured and executed.
The Bible is full of stories and teachings about how God’s people function within earthly systems
of governance. And the Bible is full of stories that reveal the way God has sent priests, prophets, Jesus,
and disciples to redress the sufferings of God’s people -- hardships inflicted because of the existing
political order, economic structures, and societal norms.
Beyond Scripture, history is full of stories of how Christians have let their religious identity guide
their actions in the civic realm. Christians have long been engaged in the world beyond the walls of the
church.
Walker McSpadden, author of The Central Presbyterian Church: The Story of a Hundred
Years,” made the following observation, “Presbyterians, more than any other single group, were
responsible for the development and the success of the American Revolution and that is naturally what
would be expected. In numbers they were one of the most dominant national groups. They had
migrated from Scotland and from the north of Ireland because of wars with the English kings, and
persecutions developed by the English rulers. Revolt against the tyranny of the English rule was bred in
their bones, and the very fact that they were Scotch made them ready and eager to oppose any English
tyranny. All the old ardor of the English-Scotch border feuds came to the surface again in the colonies.”
(From “Our Presbyterian Church – Its History, Organization, and Program,” Philadelphia, 1933, as
quoted in McSpadden’s book, pp. 4-5)
Included in the history of Central Presbyterian Church, Montclair, was this acknowledgment of
the broader context into which our church was planted, one steeped in the political formation of our
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