March 21, 2008
It's impossible to separate church and state
This post is a part of a larger "blogswarm" underway this weekend all around the topic of church/state and liberal fears of a theocracy. If you can imagine a few misguided secular progressive zealots have again intentionally picked resurrection weekend to "Blog Against Theocracy." My friend Bob Ellis over at Dakota Voice calls them BATS adding the "S" to stand for silliness. Bob has organized eight or so South Dakota bloggers to return a volly of truth this weekend in something he's calling "Blogging Against Secularism." I'm honored he invited me to participate in the discussion though I'll probably be the least of the contributers (if nothing else because I'm pretty focused on Easter right now). I'll post my contributions here, probably only two. You can follow the rest of the blogswarm this weekend here.
Who are we kidding, it is absolutely relevant what Sen. Barack Obama's church teaches and that his spiritual advisor is black liberationist Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Like gives birth to like. Though many tried to dismiss it several months ago, it was centrally important for the electorate to know the full story behind Mitt Romney's Mormonism. (Mormon salvation is that each man becomes a god of his own planet and spends eternity populating it with spirit babies - Mormon women can look forward to being eternally pregnant.)
Hypothetically, do we really think that electing a candidate with a pacifistic Mennonite or Quaker background would have no bearing on their ability to fulfill the role of Commander and Chief? Who are we kidding? Voting for Mitt Romney or Barack Obama or Senator "Secular" from South Wherever is to vote their worldview into office. It is impossible to separate a person from what they believe.
Even, and especially, those who claim no religious viewpoint… while admitting to being non-religious, they betray the fact that they bow at the altar of secularism and those gods are giving voice and influence in governance. Somebody's moral framework is going to shape society; the only question is whose. The culture war is a war of religious world views, a fight for who will set this nation's moral agenda. And, morality touches every aspect of political and public life - economy, education, law, healthcare, defense, foreign policy, family, science and life. What we believe is central to who we are, how we live, how we think and how we view everything and everyone around us. There is no such thing as a politician who keeps his faith private. He/she may not speak about it, but it daily informs all they do. Voters therefore are not just electing men or women, they are electing what these men and women believe, and we are electing their religious world view.
Our government is "us." It's of the people, by the people, for the people. And we can talk about it all we want but "church" is inseparable from all this because "church" isn't a building or an organization. The "church" is people, as again, is our government. So, I am the church and, I am the government. You'd have to cut somebody in half to separate the two.
Because so many American's erroneously assume "separation of church and state" is written somewhere in the Constitution, secular progressives are able to effectively sideline conservative Christians from participating in the process. In writing the phrase "separation of church and state" in his private letter to the Danbury Baptist's, Thomas Jefferson was saying the founders intention was that one Christian denomination over another should not be adopted as the religion of the state. But Jefferson's wall was never meant to keep religion out. Jefferson believed in the free exercise of religion in all sectors of society, public and private. John Jay, founding father and first Supreme Court Justice clarified the central role the Christian Faith was to play in governance - "Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers. And it is the duty as well as the privilege and interest, of a Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers."
Knowing that no one can approach governance from a moral vacuum, the basis of ones beliefs is an especially critical question. Far more scrutiny should be given those who claim no "religious bias" than those who claim a religious perspective. The reason being those supposedly without religious bias, when elected, expose the country to untested unknowns many of which are counter to moral standards that have proven to be societal stabilizers for centuries.
Comments on It's impossible to separate church and state »
Bob Ellis @ 1:24 pm
Great post, Pastor Steve.
A true Christian cannot separate his faith from what he supports in public policy. Even atheists and secularists do have a form of religion, even if it worships government or the wisdom of man. Whatever we look to for fulfillment, security and meeting our needs is our god.
And evidence abounds in history and the world around us that governments make poor gods.
The work and the glory @ 2:57 pm
Mormons believe that authentic Christianity vanished a century after Jesus and was restored only through Joseph Smith. Considered a prophet by Mormons, Smith revised— and in his view corrected— large sections of the Bible in the 19th century. The Mormon scriptures include the Old and New Testaments, but also include books containing Smith's revelations.
Bruce Barron @ 4:27 pm
It is impossible for the church and state to be inseparable.
Man is a moral being whose actions must be good and virtuous.Animals know nothing of right or wrong because they are not rational.
Virtue makes man good and perfects the goodness of his actions and makes them become easy to perform.
If the state is to survive it can only do so if its citizens are virtuous and, if not virtuous,it can achieve a certain degree through laws, whose purpose is to make men good.Laws are not made for good men for they are good naturally.
If the citizens of the state are not good it will not survive.
Man left to his own devices will not remain good for long.
Hence the need for religion and a belief in God.And this is not just any God but the God of the founders of this country and the Framers of the Constitution.These men all believed and taught the necessity of religion.
Relgion is absolutely necessary for the moral formation of the states citizens.We carry our beliefs with us wherever we go whether we are aware of it or not–by doing what is right,loving the good,walking humbly before God,by setting good example,keeping the ten commandments.
It is the state that owes a great debt of gratitude to religion. The states primary obligation is to render homage to God and it must encourage religion and not just any religion. The citizens are prior to the state and once formed if its citizens insist that homage be rendered to God then the state follows suit. The state promotes and supports religion because its citizens insist on it because they are the state. It did this once upon a time as evidenced by school prayer and we know what happened to that.
The Church takes over where the state leaves off by teaching Christian principles and morality whereby our citizens become morally good and virtuous without which the state cannot survive.
Religion makes man supremely free.He is free to do what he ought to do and he is not free to do evil.
Religion reinforces man's utter dependence on God. It teaches man what is required of him and if he obeys God's laws the chief beneficiary after himself is the state.Failure to acknowledge God wrecks havoc. Religion ensures that men become virtuous citizens by leading morally good lives. The state cannot do this.
A good citizen carries his beliefs wherever he goes by setting good example.This is not to deny that there are bad citezens,criminals,and just plain evil men.But without religion we would soon find ourselves in this sorry state as well.If man only knew his capacity for evil he would be insane,It is only because of God that we can be good at all.
The states are not only sovereignly free to have school prayer and hang the ten commandments but have an obligation to do so.They are not bound by unconstitutional laws made by unelected officials who have become legislators and have usurped the legislative powers,that is, the judges.
If the people of a state have established a Christian religion within the state then it has the authority to state that the religion of the state is Christian and will act accordingly.
All it takes is courage.I have intentionally left the so called first and fourteenth amendments out of this because they do not even apply.
Bruce Barron
Bruce Barron @ 11:12 am
I wasn't going to say anything about the first and fourteenth amendments but it's just too tempting.
Tne first amendment applied to the federal government.The states were and still are sovereignly free to determine for themselves how they would go about establishing the relationship between the church and state within their own borders.They were so sovereignly free as to be able to name their own state religion.
Under the fourteenth amendment the federal judciary decided that the first amendment applied to the states as well.The Constitution is the supreme law of the land and laws made in pursuance thereof.Laws not made in pursuance of the Constitution are unconstitutional.Men like Chief Justice Marshall have said that the court's constitutional law is the supreme law of the land and attempts to circumvent it are attempts to circumvent the Constitution itself. As if this isn't false and bad enough Chief Justice Earl Warren regards the Court's role as a continuing constitutional convention. Alexander Hamilton said that judges that legislate should be impeached and they should be.
Congress has made no laws regarding the establishment of religion and consequently the courts have no law to act on.
The courts have attempted to incorporate the first ten amendments using the 14th amendment to apply the first ten amendments to the states. The 10th amendment prohibits this.The first ten amendments were meant solely to apply to the federal government.Incorporation was a ruse to get around the fact that The Bill of Rights was ratified to limit the powers of the federal government as was affirmed by the Marshall court in the" Barron vs Baltimore" decision. Marshall finally got one right.
Now since the Bill of Rights was applied to the states this left the door wide open to meddle with the first amendment at the first opportunity that arose. Because the first amendment was said to mean "separation of Church and State", which is found no where in the Constitution, this gave the courts fertile ground, once the occasion arose, to apply the first amendment to the states insisting that there must be separation of church and state within the states.
The most notorious case invoved school prayer in 1962- "The School Prayer Case". This was an unconstitutional ruling. To insure that what is achieved in the Preamble to the Constitution requires a belief in God since these are unobtainable without His assistance. This effectively was the beginning of eviscerating God from the public life of the public schools.There was widespread outrage at this decision.The Constitution was amended without an amendment.And Congress played right along.
What should have been done was for the states to declare this unconstitutional,it was within their sovereign right and power to do so,and to ignore this ruling. Now it is far to late it would seem to do anything about it.
And the ACLU at every opportunity is there to insure that God has no place in the public life of schools and if left up to them God would have no role anywhere in His own creation.
How does one reverse this.The state just simply ignores it if it has the courage. It reminds one of how to reverse the
"all persons born and naturalized in the US are citizens etc". The debates and transactions of Congress during the 14th amendment development stated that all persons born and naturalized in the US and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens means subject to the "complete jurisdiction thereof" meaning "not owing allegiance to anyone else".This is not the case with immigrants who owe their allegiance to some other country and I speak here of the Mexican immigrants particularly.And to add to this Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee,James F.Wilson[39Congress] added on March1,1866 that every person born in the US is a natural born citizen of such states….except children born on our soil to temporary sojourners or representatives of foreign Governments.This was overturned in a case in the late 19th century Supreme Court ruling.
Supreme Court Justices have over and over again stressed the absolute necessity of following the law makers intent where it is explicitly clear. They and most of the judiciary continue to ignore their owen admonition.And the states should ignore their unconstitutional decisions. It just takes courage.
Perhaps all our leaders are brainwashed or brain dead. If they are not ignorant then they either lack courage, are part of the pack,or malignant since to allow these things to continue,if not ignorant,speaks of a kind of evil.
Bruce Barron