WASHINGTON, D.C. (WordNews.org) Oct. 5, 2013 – There has been a range of responses to the government shutdown from a variety of religious organizations, with one group even calling the shutdown unbiblical.
Institute on Religion and Democracy noted responses ranged from temperate from “oldline” Protestant groups to the declaration for the socially liberal Sojourners’ Jim Wallis that the shutdown was “unbiblical.”
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Religious services denied military personnel because of shutdown
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Wallis falted “a clear hostility to government itself, government per se, from a group of political extremists that I believe is unbiblical.”
Unitarian Universalists, Bread of the World and denominations such as Methodist, Evangelical Lutheran, Presbyterian Church USA, Episcopal Church all have stated their opposition to the “will of a few” threatening the “common good,” IRD stated. But otherwise, they’re statement has been what IRD labeled “relatively benign.”
Indiana Bishop Mike Coyner pondered “The Government We Deserve.” He notes: “All of the traits in Washington that we decry are actually an outgrowth of the messed-up values in our whole culture.” He faults Americans’ over spending, their “entitlement” attitude, and their “unruly behavior.”
Coyner said the answer is to be “honest about the nature of human sin” and “confess that we all are the root of the problems we see in Washington,” and “pray that God will forgive us for choosing the government we deserve.”
IRD President Mark Tooley weighed in as well.
“Church leaders urging prayers for God’s help are faithful to their churchly vocation,” he said. “Picking partisan sides, or portraying government as primarily a cornucopia of endless entitlements, is not. Ideally, the government shut-down would motivate church thinkers more carefully to consider God’s vocation for the state, starting with Romans 13.”
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