God and Government

Over the years I have become more and more concerned with the trend of removing any form of Christianity from our public places. People have gone through great efforts to form organizations that battle to have God, particularly our Christian God, removed from all areas of government, public service, or public property. In some cases we have even seen private property rights attacked in the name of this issue. The charge of these organizations, primarily non-profit in structure, is that there should be a complete absence of God in all public affairs; essentially we should become spiritually sterile. To this mindset I must fully disagree.

I find that Larry Schweikart, author of A Patriot’s History of the United States: From Columbus’ Great Discovery to the War on Terror explained it well when he wrote, “separation of church and state meant freedom to worship, not from worship.” Often it is neglected that in early America the question of God’s existence was not as prevalent as it is in today’s collegiate circles and that the colonists were simply stating that government was not to dictate to the people what their worship was to contain. This train of thought developing at a time in which the people were living in British colonies under British rule that had a particular British church.

Our country was developed under the primary principle of liberty, or freedom. The forefathers did not desire to control the personal choices of any one man or any group of men. In stating that there was to be a separation of church and state they believed they were protecting the inalienable right of liberty. However, in the two centuries since the drafting of our great Declaration we have seen an oppressive counter to religion come forth. In the name of supposed religious freedom opponents of Christianity have instead imposed anti-religious oppression.

These anti-religion groups have spread their oppressive ways by taking legal action in communities in which only a minority desires their services. Any group that walks into a community and thrusts its thoughts and beliefs on that community is stripping the people of their liberty. Wherever a community exists that has a majority that stands in agreement to the worship or acknowledgement of a particular faith system, then that community has the right to represent it in their public spaces and forums. If in this community a small portion of the citizens lies in opposition of the majority, then the minority has the right to petition their neighbors, but they have no right to force an alteration of policy.

In conclusion I will say that I fully agree with the philosophy of separation of church and state, however, I do not believe that the separation should be of such a nature that will cause others to be alienated. We live in a nation of democracy that has as its underlying principle that we decide policy at the polls. When we apply that principle we are compelled in the best interest of liberty to let those communities that choose democratically to promote a Christian faith system to do so and those who choose to remain neutral to also do as they choose. By this course of action we will move closer to the liberty most desire.

As a side note I wish to add that in 2 Corinthians 3:17 it reads, “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” It would do us well to remember this scripture as we move forward and to meditate on this as we seek counsel as to how we are to resolve the issue at hand.