In scanning my Facebook account, I ran across a post from a friend … “Should Christians be involved in politics?” Well that got my heart pumping! There were several comments, such as, “No! Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s.” “Yes! Christians should be salt and light to a decaying world.” “No, remember separation of church and state.” Well, here’s my take on what I consider the most critical issue of the modern church; however, there’s a lot to say, so I am breaking this into a series of comments.
American History Lesson
When this country was founded the pulpits were one of the primary sources for information. Education was guided by a Christian perspective. Churches were at the center of the political community, not on the periphery. Christians, of all types, exercised political and social leadership. Schools were established for the primary purpose of teaching children to read their Bibles. We would do well to look back upon these earlier days, reflecting upon the role Christians assumed in creating our American form of government. Is it not ironic that we question the political involvement of Christians in a system predominantly established by Christians?
The First Amendment of the Constitution clearly forbids the creation of a national denomination; it also says nothing about the so-called “separation of church and state.” The First Amendment states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion; or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.” No mention is made of a “wall between church and state.”
The term “separation of church and state” was first used by Thomas Jefferson in a letter to the Danbury Baptists in 1801 when he responded to their concerns about state involvement in religion. Jefferson’s letter had nothing to say about limiting public religious expression, but dealt with government’s interference in the public expression of faith.
It was U.S. Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black in 1947 who first inserted the term “separation of church and state” into American jurisprudence in his majority opinion of Everson v. Board of Education. He wrote: “The First Amendment has erected a wall between church and state. The wall must be kept high and impregnable. We could not approve the slightest breach.” Unfortunately, Black’s opinion was based on a previous misreading of Jefferson’s 1801 letter in the U.S. Supreme Court decision Reynolds v. United States (1878). Black also confused his history in the opinion. He wrote that the Danbury letter was “almost as an authoritative declaration of the scope and effect of the First Amendment.”
The true purpose of the First Amendment was to prohibit the federal government from establishing a national church, like the Church of England, or require that sectarian policy be forced on an individual state or on the federal government. While the amendment does recognize a “differentiation between church and the government,” it does not mean that they could not cooperate with each other.
In 2001, Daniel Dreisbach, Associate Professor of Justice, Law and Society at American University, wrote that Black was wrong to apply the term “separation of church and state” to the First Amendment. The danger of Black’s argument, according to Dreisbach, is that it gives constitutional reasons to “separate religion, religious values, and religious organizations from public life.” He continues: “If we can’t talk about religion in any meaningful way in public schools, religious citizens can’t communicate their faith in public life. [The public square] must be ‘sanitized’ of religious messages, and we are left with a strictly secular public life.”
In 2005, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, in ruling in favor of a public display of the Ten Commandments, wrote: “The ACLU’s argument contains…fundamental flaws… [It] makes repeated reference to ‘the separation of church and state.’ This extra-constitutional construct has grown tiresome. The First Amendment does not demand a wall of separation between church and state.”
Through government legislation, to name a few instances, school prayer has been eliminated (1962); abortion on demand has been legalized resulting in the death of over 55 million babies with incalculable potential (1973). Today Churches are being denied the right to rent public school facilities for Sunday worship services. Communities are being denied public displays of the Ten Commandments from public buildings. Students are being prohibited from praying at graduation ceremonies or football games. Fixed income housing projects are being threatened with eviction for displaying signs about prayer in their apartment windows. An eight-year-old girl is prohibited from passing out handmade Valentines that read “Jesus loves you.” Pastors are being denied the right to speak freely from their pulpits applying Scripture and church teaching to candidates and elections. The one public domain where Bible study is encouraged is in our prisons, whose population has grown exponentially since 1962. If the influence of Christian values is absent from the political realm and the very lawmakers who make the laws we have to live under, the outcome will get worse.
Someone once told me that if you listen to lies or half truths long enough, you start believing they are truth. I wonder what would happen if we all studied God’s Word instead of listening to the TV?
Stay tuned for the next post. In the meantime, please keep these verses in mind as I discuss what I believe what God expects from Christians and Government:
A wicked ruler is as dangerous to the poor as a lion or bear attacking them. (Proverbs 28:15)
With good men in authority people rejoice, but with the wicked in power, they groan. (Proverbs 29:2)
When rulers are wicked their people are too, but good men will live to see the tyrants downfall. (Proverbs 29:16)
Where there is ignorance of God, the people run wild, but what a wonderful thing it is for a nation to know and keep His laws. (Proverbs 29:18)
Evil men don’t understand the importance of justice, but those who follow the Lord are much concerned about it. (Proverbs 28:5)
A good man knows the poor man’s rights, the godless don’t care. (Proverbs 29:7)
Tagged: American history, Christians in culture, church, prayer, scripture
