How will churches handle political power?
Republican members of the House of Representatives have a plan to allow churches to participate in political campaigns for specific candidates without losing their tax-exempt status for non-profit organizations. As individuals and members of other groups, we already have the freedom to support political candidates. Just beware that American politics is a nasty business with standards of conduct that include: deceit, hypocrisy, quickness to anger and to vilify those who question a party’s dogma or methods.
If your church is to be an agent in this process, some questions should be answered. Will political activity unite or divide your congregation? How will it affect your church’s missional efforts? Can your church serve God and Caesar while seeking power and guidance from both? Will politics help your church promote goodwill, or become an instrument against it?
TONY GARDNER, CUMMING
Pitts in denial about modern Democrats
Leonard Pitts Jr. should borrow Wall Street Journal editorialist Daniel Henninger’s column title, “Wonder Land,” for Pitts has clearly joined Alice in Wonderland. In “Why is something so very wrong with the GOP?” Opinion, July 9, Pitts declares: “We are not, after all, divided because Americans pulled back from the center and retreated into extremism. No, we are divided because one party did. And it wasn’t the Democrats.”
Pitts — forgetful, unobservant, or just in denial — declares that Democrats “are pretty much what they were 30 years ago.” Really? President Bill Clinton’s welfare reform, anti-illegal immigration, and “era of big government is over” Democrats are today’s Democratic Party? Hardly! And recalling further, there would be no room whatsoever for John F. Kennedy in the current Democratic Party. Heck! Many Dems today would be rooting for Castro over Kennedy in the Cuban Missile Crisis.
I get that Pitts hates President Trump, but he shouldn’t have let Trump push him through the looking glass.
GREGORY MARSHALL, MARIETTA
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