IN THEORY:

Former President Jimmy Carter recently organized a meeting of Baptists in Atlanta in an attempt to bridge the liberal-conservative rift in his church. Many church leaders attended, but the Southern Baptist Convention balked, and the church’s President Frank Page denounced what he viewed was the gathering’s “smoke-screen left-wing liberal agenda.” Do you think the political divide in the faith community can be healed, or will it grow further apart?

As the pastor of an American Baptist Church that severed ties with the region formerly known as the Pacific Southwest, I can attest: We know about politics in the church.

Because politics is about power, this matter will not end until power is disseminated to all. As long as churches buy into an exclusive faith, there will always be those who are in and those who are out.

The radical right insists that only a certain few can enter the kingdom, and therefore anyone different is not tolerated.

This kind of faith often turns a blind eye to poverty, injustice and hatred — forgetting Jesus’ words of caring for others, seeking peace, and acting for justice.

However, a surge of interest from traditionally more conservative churches in social issues like AIDS, poverty and hunger, shows that in many ways we are bridging the divide.

It is heartbreaking that Christians have a hard time loving our neighbor and each other, but our faith always offers us hope.

Rev. Sarah Halverson

Fairview Community Church

Costa Mesa

I think that the divide in the faith community will continue to grow, but I do not believe the divide is political, but rather theological.

The Gospel message is that Jesus Christ gave his life to save sinners. It has nothing to do with a person’s political views.

I cannot speak on the issues within the Southern Baptist Denomination, having never been associated with a denomination, but always a part of an independent local church.

The Bible teaches that the religious division will center on a church’s decision to either stay true to the gospel message of the death burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ, or its apostasy into a political and social message instead of the pure gospel.

Pastor Dwight Tomlinson

Liberty Baptist Church

Newport Beach

A Jewish response to this question is that I see the political divide in this country getting both narrower and wider.

It is narrower for Jews and Israel abroad, and wider at home, in a Christian, not Jewish, America. Christian fundamentalists would like to change the United States into a Christian theocracy, ruled not by religious pluralism, governed by Christians, with Christian standards.

Pat Robertson believes Jesus is the Lord of the domestic government, churches, businesses, and the schools and the press. Abroad, Christian fundamentalists will protect Israel.

Most of their leaders are not anti-Semitic. Many are stridently pro-Israel motivated by the second coming. They are too sensitive to Jewish persecution.

For overseas policies, zealous conservative Christians aggressively seek support from Jews and employ people of Jewish background as lobbyists, publicists and lawyers.

In contrast, at home their pro-Christianity can be quite parochial, intolerant, xenophobic, selfish and unthinking. Robertson and Jerry Falwell believe they are “the keepers” of right and wrong in America.

They believe the government should be governed by Christians and all Americans should have Christian values. They see America totally and unequivocally as a Christian nation.

On the other hand, they want the Jewish Holocaust never to be repeated. The soup of the American melting pot is in one way either too hot or too cold.

What can we learn by all this? Alexis de Tocqueville once said, “State religions may serve the interests of politics, but they are always sooner or later, fatal to the church.”

Today there are political primaries in 22 states. The next president of the United States will be elected on political and economic views, not his or her religious views.

Rabbi Marc Rubenstein

Temple Isaiah

Newport Beach