Bishops of Cyprus should read Skillen

Readers of this blog know that I think highly of James W. Skillen and his writings. Here is something from the latest issue of the Public Justice Report, articulating the Center for Public Justice's understanding of its own mission, and the limitations of that mission:

We, like many other Americans, wish we had the answers to all questions and could simply declare what is just and unjust in all situations. But that is not the case and never will be. Humans have been called by God to act justly, to govern wisely for the public good, and to be the kind of citizens who give as much attention to the welfare of their civic neighbors as they do to themselves. But what this means in any given policy area cannot be known ahead of time or from outside the arena of public responsibility. Moreover, we are all sinners, often blinded by selfishness and bad judgment.

For these and other reasons, even with the Center's statements of principle we will never claim that the Center is doing or speaking God's will. We claim no more than that we are trying to respond in obedience to God's call to do justice. And we fully expect and hope that others will respond by affirming or challenging the stances we take and the arguments we publish. That is the way to strengthen Christian civic responsibility.

Perhaps the bishops of the Church of Cyprus need to read this and take some lessons about the role of Christians in the political realm.

First lesson: Prudential judgements on concrete political issues are always fallible and should be advanced with humility. The principles undergirding such judgements, e.g., the rule of law, the need to punish crime and protection of the vulnerable, are on a firmer footing. But we will always disagree when it comes to application of these principles.

Second lesson: Ecclesiastical officers are not in the best position, structurally speaking, to make such prudential judgements. To begin with, they lack sufficient information, unlike government policy-makers. But, more seriously, their offices, along with the tasks that go with them, are limited. Clerics properly give voice to the biblical call to do justice. When they start to apply those principles themselves, blessing and anathematizing Christians who agree or disgree respectively, they are pushing the normative bounds of their offices pretty far. Better to have Christians organized separately for political purposes.