The Question: In his speech to U.S. bishops last week, Pope Benedict XVI said: "Any tendency to treat religion as a private matter must be resisted . . . To the extent that religion becomes a purely private affair, it loses its very soul." Do you agree or disagree? Why?
Pope Benedict couldn't have said it any better. To treat religion as a purely private matter is self-refuting. Christianity as a religion seeks to explain all of life. The term logos, used to describe Jesus, in the original Greek understanding meant all truth that could ever be known.
If indeed, as Christians believe, God spoke the universe into being; if by Christ, for Christ, and through Christ the universe is held together; if indeed He created us in His image, how could we believe that any area of life was beyond the scope of religion? The first truly classic text on this subject was Augustine’s City of God. From then, through Aquinas, through Calvin and Luther, through Kuyper ("There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry: 'Mine!'"), to Niebuhr and today's greatest theologians, the faith encompasses all of life.
The now-famous personally opposed/publicly supportive stance—originally espoused by Mario Cuomo—simply contradicts the most basic teaching of the church.
As a Baptist, I say three cheers for this Pope.
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