Seperation of Church and State

I am a Christian. I suppose I should say that up front. I am and have been an essentially reformed evangelical christian for a long time. Understandably, one of the issues that is constantly coming up for me is the separation of church and state. It has been the excuse of immoral men for immoral behaviour, and the topic of a godly man's grateful prayer before free exercise of worship. It's and issue that is as old in American politics as America itself.

The issue is an issue for which knowledge of history is helpful. Religion has, when mixed with politics, had dynamic effect on the world around it almost every time it is mixed. Some good results, some bad. People often take their right to think as an individual very seriously, even if they never take what it is they actually think with any seriousness at all. The hard things about allowing people to think whatever they want is that the right to believe what you want is necessarily the right to be wrong. It protects the careful thinker who crafts his beliefs about God and the world around him with meticulous care, and ends up with something beautiful and admirable. But it also protects people who think horrible and evil things.

When this country was founded, many of the people here in the States were here to find freedom from a government controlled religion. People were being burned at the stake for their beliefs about baptism and heaven. They worshipped the same God and believed almost the same things. In the government's mind, they were helping people believe what was right. But the right to individual thought, the right be be free in what you believe, is one of those inherent, or "self-evident," rights that the government does not have the right to trample.

This is always hard when you realize that this means that a Christian like myself must stand by and watch people practice evils and immorality under the protection of "seperation of church and state." Some object that to put freedom of religion forward at this kind of cost is asking for religious beliefs to be put aside for political beliefs. Isn't this asking for me to swear allegiance first to the government and then to my religion? No, not at all. 

When you are dealing with the costs of inherent rights being retained by the people instead of surrendered to the government, which is what dictating and regulating behaviour on a purely moral ground is, you must think in principle and not application, and this is why I say no. If we allow the government to dictate moral issues, what happens when Wiccans become the majority of the voting block? Will we stand and say that it would be right for the them to force Wiccan bahaviour on Christians? No! We would stand and cry "Religious Freedom!" Are we about to reset the direction of the country towards burning at the stake everyone who does not hold the same religious beliefs as us? Of course not. We all agree this is wrong. But you see, saying "I know this is a religious issue, but my religion comes first." is this exactly. It is refusing someone the right to be wrong. So unless we are willing to have a contest between the Baptists and the Anglicans about which will be burned at the stake, we must uphold the freedom of religion, and realize that the right that we mourn for allowing what we believe to be immoral behaviour is the same right that we celebrate when we worship freely without government persecution.