Should Church and state be separate?

[Molly]

George Washington - the Founding Father of our Nation – has been the subject of great confusion and debate about his faith, leading to the misconception that he was a deist. The purpose of "George Washington's Sacred Fire" is to prove definitively that George Washington was indeed a devout, practicing Christian.

Through the 15 years of sound academic and scholarly research that has gone into this book, "George Washington's Sacred Fire" supplies a thorough and historically accurate definition of deism and how it was impossible for Washington to have been a deist. The book addresses and critiques the evidence used by 20th century scholars to "prove" that Washington was a deist and produces extensive primary source documents, illustrations and quotes from Washington's own papers and those of his closest colleagues and family that categorically refute this claim, clarifying why the faith of our founding father matters in 21st century America and beyond.

Most other books published about George Washington's faith argue for Washington's religious convictions based on anecdotal evidence that often either cannot be substantiated, or possess questionable authenticity. "George Washington's Sacred Fire" will leave you awestruck by the faith, values and ideals of this great founder of our nation – the reader will see him as a unique role model for generations of Americans.

Pages: 1208
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"The preservation of the sacred fire of liberty and the destiny of the republican model of government are justly considered... deeply, ...finally, staked on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people."

-- George Washington quotes (American commander in chief of the colonial armies in the American Revolution (1775-83) and subsequently 1st US President (1789-97), 1732-1799)

[micah7:9]

In one way I look at this topic, I don't think it should be - nor that that's what the founders intended - not separate, but perhaps also not forced, as in having a State Religion one must bow to.  I believe "separation of church and state" is a distorted statement that isn't an accurate representation of the origional statement(s) and intent.  (Wasn't that phrase actually taken from a letter Thomas Jefferson wrote at some point, i.e., not in a law or constitution, etc.?)  

I believe God wanted Israel to be a Theocracy - which would be fine if truly ordained and led by God Almighty.  But, I also believe there can really be some dangers with "religion" in government as well, as in potential abuses (see Iraq, Iran, etc.)

So that's one side of my personal looking at it.  However, especially as things develop in the news these days, and I find myself getting caught up in them, frustrated, aggravated, even angry - wondering what it would mean to pay taxes to a government that would fund abortion and perhaps otherwise murder innocents - I really spend time wondering about some things, included in these five statements -

Respect those in authority.

Give unto Caesar what is Caesar's.

You are in the world but not of the world.

In the world you will have trouble but take courage for I have conquered the world.

My Kingdom is not of this world.


It seems it's really something to meditate on and pray about - seeking His will.  I'm afraid I don't have all that completely satisfactorily settled yet .  I do get concerned about what the process may be, what may happen in the meantime, and what I'm supposed to be doing relative to it, but I  believe whatever all this looks like and wherever it goes, God's going to fix it.  Reconciliation.

:thumbsup:

[micah7:9]

I will only add to a topic that is hot, to blistering in the world today. And I have been caught up in the politics, and find shutting off my voice and thoughts as difficult as any bad habit and fighting any bad complusion I can think of. But Paul wrote in Phil.

Php 3:20  For our citizenship is in the heavens, whence also a Saviour we await--the Lord Jesus Christ--

And I tell myself this verse when I find myself going into the fray

Mat 8:22  and Jesus said to him, `Follow me, and suffer the dead to bury their own dead.'

[eaglesway]

   We often blame leaders, but God gives a people the king they deserve. He turns the heart of the king which ever way He wills. If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves and pray and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and heal their land. When we are the salt of the earth the earth rejoices. When we lose our savor, we are no longer good for anything but to be cast out under the feet of men.

"By this will all men know that you are my disciple- by your love for one another." How could anybody possibly know?

[Molly]

Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom.

-- Benjamin Franklin



30 "A horrible and shocking thing
       has happened in the land:

31 The prophets prophesy lies,
       the priests rule by their own authority,
       and my people love it this way.
       But what will you do in the end?

--Jer 5

[Beloved Servant]

For I, through law, died to law, that I should be living to God.

[eaglesway]

Thanks be to God!

[firstborn888]

I will only add to a topic that is hot, to blistering in the world today. And I have been caught up in the politics, and find shutting off my voice and thoughts as difficult as any bad habit and fighting any bad complusion I can think of. But Paul wrote in Phil.

Php 3:20  For our citizenship is in the heavens, whence also a Saviour we await--the Lord Jesus Christ--

And I tell myself this verse when I find myself going into the fray

Mat 8:22  and Jesus said to him, `Follow me, and suffer the dead to bury their own dead.'

I see your point but yet AISI - establishing equity and justice for the oppressed through agape love is the only thing that really matters on earth - that's why we are here on the earth.

My problem with the Christian right in the U.S. is that they seek to establish dogma and doctrinal beliefs which have nothing to do with the real Jesus.

Of course - since I don't believe that Jesus came to set up the thing we call "Christianity" in the first place - many have trouble seeing my point.  

A government which stays neutral on spiritual issues and does it's job to protect basic freedoms is the best possible scenario (as far as earthly government goes). I think since most of us in the U.S. have never lived under an iron heel we may not appreciate what we have.    

[Molly]

...establishing equity and justice for the oppressed through agape love is the only thing that really matters on earth - that's why we are here on the earth.

The Great Appeal
What did Christianity offer its believers that made it worth social estrangement, hostility from neighbors, and possible persecution?


Helmut Koester:

John H. Morison Professor of New Testament Studies and Winn Professor of Ecclesiastical History Harvard Divinity School
A NEW COMMUNITY

Why was the Christian community something that people wanted to join? I think that only because at least certain parts of the early Christian mission were intent in creating new community, that only for that reason this movement was successful. Now what does it mean "new community?" Let me talk about this in two different levels. One was certainly that the message that was preached here promised gifts, spiritual gifts, to people that went beyond the everyday life experience and promised also immortality, a future life which would be liberation from sickness and from disease and from poverty, and individual isolation. There is a future for the individual. And the message of the possibility for a human being to be related to something that is beyond the powers of this world was certainly one great attraction. But that alone would not have been enough. I think it's a very important spiritual-religious factor. But it would not have been enough, because, in spite of all the glories of the Roman Empire, people lived in the world in which there was inequality, there was great poverty on the one hand and immense wealth in the hands of a very few people. There were sickness and disease and there were no public health services, and doctors were expensive.

Now here's also the question of the inequality which Rome really reinforced through the Augustan system. Rome is a very strict hierarchical system, in which the emperor is at the pinnacle, all the way up and then all the blessings in the world that come to people come down from above. The emperor is the conduit to the divine world. And if you're at the bottom of that social pyramid, not a whole lot of things are coming down to you anymore. Slavery slowly diminished, but continued to exist.

Now the Christian community, as we have it particularly in the letters of Paul, begins with a formula that is a baptismal formula, which says in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, neither male nor female, neither slave nor free. This is a sociological formula that defines a new community. Here is a community that invites you, which makes you an equal with all other members of that community. Which does not give you any disadvantages. On the contrary, it gives even the lowliest slave personal dignity and status. Moreover, the commandment of love is decisive. That is, the care for each other becomes very important. People are taken out of an isolation. If they are hungry, they know where to go. If they are sick, there is an elder who will lay on hands to them to heal them.

WELFARE INSTITUTIONS

Now we have increasingly in the Christian churches, in the time up to Constantine, the establishment of hospitals, of some kind of health service, we have a clear establishment of social service - everything from soup kitchens to money for the poor if they need it. We have the very important establishment of the institution of widows, because a widow in the Roman society who had lost her husband and did not have money of her own was at the very bottom of the social ladder. One of the first welfare institutions we find in the church was all the widows who were recognized as virgins of the church, considered particularly precious possessions of the church; they were paid by the church and therefore were rescued from utter poverty in most instances.

Christianity really established a realm of mutual social support for the members that joined the church. And I think that this was probably in the long run an enormously important factor for the success of the Christian mission. And it was for that very reason that Constantine saw that the only thing that would rescue the empire is to take over the institutions that the Christians had already built up, [including], by that time, institutions of education in reading and writing, because Christians wanted to have their members knowledgeable and capable of reading the Bible.... We find that in administration of the last pagan emperors, before Constantine, at the very end of the third century, a large number of the people in the imperial administration are Christians, because they could read and write. Which constituted a big problem with the persecution of the Christians because they were thrown out of their office first when the persecution began, and suddenly the government didn't work anymore.

One should not see the success of Christianity simply on the level of a great religious message; one has to see it also in the consistent and very well thought out establishment of institutions to serve the needs of the community.

more at...

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/why/appeal.html



We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,...

[eaglesway]

 :thumbsup:

[Molly]

http://www.breitbart.tv/former-marine-stuns-crowd-at-georgia-tea-party-event/

Last verse of Star Spangled Banner

Oh, thus be it ever when free men shall stand
Between their loved homes and the war's desolation!
Blest with vict'ry and peace, may the heav'n rescued land
Praise the Pow'r that hath made and preserved us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto, "In God is our trust"
And the Star-Spangled Banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!