Every time the Church has gotten into the political game, no matter what the manner of her entry, no matter what her opinion or posing choices in a political situation with regard to an institution, she has been drawn every time into a betrayal, either of revealed truth or of the incarnate love. She has become involved every time in apostasy. … Politics is the Church’s worst problem. It is her constant temptation, the occasion of her greatest disasters, the trap continually set for her by the Prince of this world.

Jacques Ellul (1912-1994) French philosopher, law professor, sociologist, theologian

The Presence of the Kingdom [Présence au monde moderne] (1948) [tr. Wyon (1951)]