Separation of Church and state is a heresy.
The two can be distinguished, but never separated.
Man is made in the image and likeness of God. For this reason, man will always try to replicate his relationship to God in his dealings with other men. Thus, no man can actually succeed in separating his theology from his politics. It isn't possible.
In a democracy, where politicians are selected and elected, politics is necessarily a reflection of the theology that dominates the electorate. When a Protestant Congress outlawed contraceptives, that political body was merely reflecting 2000 years of Christian tradition. From the 1930s onward, when judges began to overturn the Comstock laws, we saw the United States move away from its Christian roots towards a eugenically-minded agnosticism.
Today, with Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump as the representatives of our major political parties, we see an inchoate paganism. It is not the paganism of the Norse, the ancient Greeks or the ancient Romans, all societies which celebrated martial values and delighted in constant war. Rather, it is a paganism that denigrates warfare but delights in sensuality.
Our desires have become our god, and now that god drives our politics.
Our theology will always be reflected in our politics - it cannot be avoided.
With this election, many of us are shocked to discover that Obama is correct - we are no longer a Christian nation.
I wouldn't say "Church" so much, because "Protestantism" is by its nature fractious, and so there is no one who can actually speak for "the Church."
ReplyDeleteBut there has been religious consensus in American society, and a government is to serve its society, not dictate or destroy it as is the current trajectory. Can a nation survive stripped of its soul??
Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. ...And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.--GWash, Farewell Address, 1796
Many churches carry on without a coherent theology.
ReplyDeleteHard to blame statists too much for carrying on a theocracy without a theology.