Benjamin Rush notes that Christianity should support government “only from the love of justice and peace.” And he warns against clergy “settling the political affairs of the world.”  This advice seems wise. Clergy are called to a particular vocation, to preach the Gospel, to disciple believers, to administer their churches. They are not generally invested with particular political wisdom and authority over their flocks. They are equal citizens and have every civil right to speak, of course. But wisdom and a proper regard for their office should generally restrain them on political topics, lest their flocks conflate the Gospel with political opinions.

Historian of American religion Thomas Kidd of Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary recently shared a quote from Benjamin Rush to Thomas Jefferson:

I agree with you in your wishes to keep religion and government independent of each Other. Were it possible for St. Paul to rise from his grave at the present juncture, he would say to the Clergy who are now so active in settling the political Affairs of the World. “Cease from your political labors, your kingdom is not of this World. Read my Epistles. In no part of them will you perceive me aiming to depose a pagan Emperor, or to place a Christian upon a throne. Christianity disdains to receive Support from human Governments. From this, it derives its preeminence over all the religions that ever have, or ever Shall exist in the World. Human Governments may receive Support from Christianity but it must be only from the love of justice, and peace which it is calculated to produce in the minds of men. By promoting these, and all the Other Christian Virtues by your precepts, and example, you will much sooner overthrow errors of all kind, and establish our pure and holy religion in the World, than by aiming to produce by your preaching, or pamphlets any change in the political state of mankind.”

Rush and Jefferson were corresponding within the context of government established religion, which of course had been the norm in Europe, and really throughout the world, since nearly the beginning of civilization, whether Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, or paganism. Jefferson and James Madison successfully worked to end the established Church of England in Virginia, which was supported by tax dollars, and under which dissenters were sometimes persecuted, even imprisoned. The vision of non-established religion eventually prevailed throughout the United States, to the benefit of vibrant Christianity.

Methodists and Baptists at the time Rush wrote this letter, and who supported non-establishment, were surging during the Second Great Awakening, as they evangelized the frontier. Non establishment never meant that religious people or religious institutions should withhold their views from public life. Unlike in post-revolutionary France, the American republic deemed religion in civil society to be a cornerstone of healthy democracy.

Rush notes that Christianity should support government “only from the love of justice and peace.” And he warns against clergy “settling the political affairs of the world.”  This advice seems wise. Clergy are called to a particular vocation, to preach the Gospel, to disciple believers, to administer their churches.

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