Power without divisions:
Rutledge, Fleming
THE POPE & THE NATIONS Power without divisions FLEMING RUTLEDGE alike,...
...An obscure Polish cardinal with no divisions- judgment of God will lie hard upon them...
...If a man believes that, it does make a difference...
...In the biblical drama there are three dramatis personae: As virtually every journalist writing about the Pope's trip to God, the nations, and Israel...
...will be able to separate us we should be dissident in our own land...
...Paul, and the apostle concluded, "He was wearing only the armor of God, carrying nothing but the crucified in weakness, but lives by the power of God...
...Paul, "that neither death nor life . . successful and prosperous...
...As thou didst send me creed...
...Millions of Polish throats civil religion is the norm, where Billy Graham was a regular sang a certain hymn wherever John Paul went...
...The Kremlin is not Lord...
...We are not so the world (in New Testament terms) may indeed be one of accustomed to thinking in these terms as are the Polish separation, but of detachment, never...
...Jesus is Lord-that was the first Christian world, even as 1 am not of the world...
...As the over seventy different ethnic groups mentioned...
...THE POPE & THE NATIONS Power without divisions FLEMING RUTLEDGE alike, relish the first kind of church-state separation that I was, talking about, while fearing and hating the second...
...but "how many divisions does the Pope all earthly power...
...Without Christ it is impossible to The Judaeo-Christian tradition is profoundly, irrevocably, understand the history of Poland...
...One Cracow bishop told several the secular powers...
...FLEMING RUTLEDGE, a priest of the Episcopal Church, is As- him...
...It is power based on the knowledge the Lord of Hosts, whose church is founded in eternity, spread that Jesus is Lord...
...The resistance of the worldwide church to this evil has only begun, but it will continue...
...The gospel of Jesus...
...into the world, so I have sent them into the world...
...Jesus is King...
...14 September 1979: 499...
...everyone who makes Governments all over the world, capitalist and Communist himself a king sets himself against Caesar.' . . . Pilate said to the people, 'Behold your king!' They cried out, 'away with REV...
...the Almighty God, and that he purposes the judgment of all Well, sneered Josef Stalin in the 1930s, it is all very well to earthly nations-including Israel-as he prepares the end of talk about the Pope...
...Nowhere is this more apparent than in reporters, "They're scared, they're afraid of an uprising...
...the church would restrict its concern to moral and spiritual The other way of understanding the separation of church and questions and leave political and temporal matters to the austate is very different...
...From the military matters to the generals...
...For who is it compared to a great tree whose branches reached among the that overcomes the world but he who believes that Jesus is the clouds...
...Jesus prayed for -his Catholics, but the early Christians would have had no trouble disciples in these words: "Holy Father...
...In the first THERE ARE two ways, of understanding what is often sort, the ruling powers are free to go their own way without referred to as the separation of church and state...
...It is a power that comes with empty of Nazareth, yes, and also the power, dominion and glory of hands and no divisions...
...In similar vein, a French journalist wrote cynically, teaching his people to depend on him alone...
...this man, you are not Caesar's friend...
...There will be more and more protests, more and Lord's servants...
...he shall surely deal with it as its wickedness other way...
...These paradoxes are at the center of we saw the unleashed power of the church as the Vicar of Christian faith...
...My power is made perfect in weakness," the Rome came back to his native land, with empty hands indeed, Lord said to St...
...Such preoccupation begins...
...The bishop should stay away ship has long held that the church and state could coexist here if from the nuclear issue...
...For born-again Christians testify that Jesus Christ has made them I am persuaded," wrote St...
...The church should never take New York Times, June 3, 1979: "Poland's Communist leaderpositions on political questions...
...One must choose...
...the other, though Christ, free from any kind of alliance with the government, commonly held, is unbiblical, false and dangerous...
...It does not always work...
...Some 35 years sion...
...Even the more conservative denominations and groups are beginning to realize that the nations of the world, including our own nation, have taken the wrong course in this matter...
...This article is Caesar.' " adapted from a sermon she preached at Christ Church...
...10, there are between politics and faith in certain circumstances...
...In the second type, the church, as the body of these interpretations is deeply biblical...
...Ruling powers everywhere kept apart because they have nothing to do with one another, do their best to encourage the church to be not only separate but "religion and politics don't mix...
...The Pope is nothing by himself...
...This interest deft historical reference had political connotations in this setin the nations accurately reflects the biblical emphasis on ting...
...views today have clearly not changed...
...sent hundreds of truckloads of militia into Cracow the state...
...The proud of its height, I will give it into the hand of a Mighty One government performed its deeds and the church looked the of the nations...
...One of interference...
...Its roots lie deep in the biblical .narrativethorities...
...He has empty hands...
...Crucify him!' Pilate said to them, 'Shall I crucify sociate Rector of Christ's Church in Rye, New York...
...Jesus is Lord...
...When John Paul was a young man tive, he criticized the United States for its corrupt materialism during World War II, he served in the anti-Nazi underground at the same time that he continued to condemn Soviet oppresand hid Jewish refugees who sought to escape...
...Hebrew scriptures would put it), the relation of the church to Jesus Christ and the history of nations...
...It is worth noting the observation in Time magazine that later, with the whole world watching, this same man passed Pope John Paul in Poland "seemed to envision an eventual through the gates of the death camp at Auschwitz, lifted his pan-European Christian alliance against the secular matehands to celebrate the Eucharist of the Christian Church, and rialism of both East and West...
...If Jesus is Lord, Caesar is not Lord...
...reference to the many nations, including Israel, who turned to If there had been more Christians like John Paul during the Egypt for protection...
...as one thoughtful commentator wrote, "The One of the major themes of Ezekiel, as indeed of all the Pope has told people, in effect, that they should be dissi- prophetic literature, is that world history is under the control of dents...
...In the table of nations in Gen...
...I have cast it out...
...A raggle-taggle band of slaves in Egypt-God's chosen think they can escape it by remaining indifferent, then the people...
...Poland...
...The nations are the matrix Poland was moved to observe, there has been no clearer oil Israel's life, and the raison d' titre of her whole history demonstration in the modern world of the intimate connection and calling...
...It is not the sort of power that grows out his person the weakness, simplicity and vulnerability of Jesus of the barrel of a gun...
...may enact God's judgment upon the government at any time The commonly'held view is that church and state should be and in the most inconvenient ways...
...Reverend Rut- your king?' The chief priests answered, 'We have no king but ledge describes herself as a "radical evangelical...
...A man who syn was a hero in America until he delivered his famous has that kind of faith is bold for the truth, even in the teeth of a Harvard address, in which, from a radical Christian perspectyrannical government...
...But what says the Lord God...
...In the fluctuations of world politics, God is have...
...The relation of Israel to the nations (as the so full of splendor and also of terrible difficulties...
...out through all time and space, "Built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the THE REASON that the church must remain separate from the cornerstone...
...It is not so easy for us to see how nor principalities and powers...
...The people of God must always present a contrast to as the Pope approached...
...Some- Pontius Pilate made a half-hearted attempt to coexist with where in the distinction between being in the world and being Jesus of Nazareth, but the people would not allow it: "Pilate of the world we will find the crucial clue to the true meaning of sought to release him, but the people cried out, 'If you release the separation of church and...
...And a Communist party newspaper sourly remarked, history as the vehicle of revelation and the nations as the "It is hard to tell where pastoral work stops and politics object of God's redeeming purpose...
...state relationship...
...The clergy should leave also quiescently religious...
...man is an act against man...
...Alexander Solzhenitfrom the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord...
...Because it Nazi era, there would have been no Auschwitz...
...state...
...As Karol Cardinal Wojtyla, Archbishop of Cracow, of the mighty acts of God...
...For just a few days suddenly a world leader...
...There Commonweal: 498 is theology here as well as politics...
...the hymn was visitor at the Nixon White House, where every secular occaChristus Vincit, "Christ Conquers...
...from the, very heart of the most evil place in all human history In a passage from the great book of the prophet Ezekiel, the spoke these ringing words from the First Epistle of John: "This worldly magnificence and power of the nation of Egypt is is the victory that overcomes the world, our faith...
...The new pope represents another sort of church- deserves...
...The New York Times reported that the Polish state is that the church must never be seen as identical with government...
...In Pope John Paul's own words, spoken in Warsaw's with history cannot be found in any other sacred litera- Victory Square, "The exclusion of Christ from the history of ture of the world...
...That is the true state of the principal issue confronting the church and the world today is the arms race, and particularly nuclear arms...
...It is being said with increasing frequency of late that the Empty hands and no divisions...
...Consider what the International the Pope for 20 years refused to bend to these demands, and his Dictionary of the Bible tells us in its article on "Nations...
...the Time magazine reporter put it, "Every papal gesture, every whole mankind as known by the author...
...lifting high the cross of Christ, proclaiming church confronts the state with power, all right, but it is a the victory of the crucified Lord over terrible evil, bearing in different sort of power...
...The so-called towered high and set its top among the clouds, and its heart was separation of church and state served Hitler very well...
...Jesus is Lord of the sion is blessed by the clergy, where burgeoning numbers of nations...
...Jesus of Nazareth crucified-the Lord of more church involventent, and if individual congregations glory...
...Birds nested in it and animals rested in its shade, a Son of God...
...They are not of the understanding...
...Nowhere is it less apparent than in America, where No wonder...
...this nation, with its past uniquely political...
Vol. 106 • September 1979 • No. 16
