Faith and Politics

 I'm not really a Rick Warren buff or anything. I didn't read "Purpose-Driven Life" -- can't say that I intend to either. But he did say something in that Presidential interview forum recently that was intelligent. "We believe in the separation of church and state, but not religion and politics." These distinctions are important, and he is quite correct about them. 

 A friend of mine was a political science major when he went through college. He recalled to me a conversation in class after George W. Bush was re-elected in 2004, shocking most liberals around the globe. People were talking about how the "religion vote" helped Bush gain his re-election -- some were quite upset by this -- and how foolish they felt people were to vote based upon religion. One man even said that votes based on religion shouldn't count, because of the separation of church and state. And, I suppose, that in this country of free speech, I will support people's right to say and believe things like this, even if the ideas are dumber than the night is dark.

 But Rick Warren was quite right to make a distinction between "church and state" and "religion and politics." There is quite a large difference between the two. "Separation of church and state" refers to a divide between the public law to which people are bound under penalty to follow, and necessarily religious dogma set up by instituted moral authority, or those essentially acting as one. It's a divide that protects people's ability to exercise their own religion in the way that they see fit, within the bounds of not interfering with other people's rights. This does not mean that religious perspective and understanding must be absent from political activity. 

 Webster's Dictionary, under it's second definition of the word "Religion" states : "a personal set or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices" Hardly something that can be removed from one's entire approach to politics. Really, if that man in college had been honest with himself, he would have his own religious beliefs to bring to the table with him, even if it consists entirely of a belief that religion is useless (which would be an attitude, belief and practice of a question that is necessarily religious in nature). Religion, in this sense, is nothing more than a part of the understanding that shapes a person's view of what is important, and how he is to interact with the world around him. In this sense, it is impossible to separate one's religion from one's politics as much as it would be impossible to separate one's self-identity, or one's view of good and bad from his politics.

 In fact, saying separation of church and state means separation of religion and politics is quite a large amount of hypocrisy. Religion, in it's broadest sense, is unavoidable. People who claim to be "without religion" are not really without it at all. Everyone believes something about the ideas of God, good and evil, faith, and truth. These questions are unavoidably religious. To say that God exists is not somehow "more religious" than to say that he does not. To say that "good and evil" are relative as opposed to clearly defined objectively does not change the fact that in order to answer the question, one must, by simple nature, involve one's self in a strictly religious belief. Same as the fact that saying two plus two is four is not somehow "more mathematic" than saying two plus two in not five. 

 And so, to say that the church and the state must be separated actually protects one's right to mix religion with politics. To say that religion must be absent from one's political approach is to really say that one must act politically as an atheist -- and atheism is necessarily a religious perspective.

A Marriage Amendment

People have begun to voice support for a Constitutional amendment on the issue of marraige. I must say that while I am a Christian and believe that marriage is a sacred union between one man and one woman, this is a terrible idea. Why the government has any business defining who can and can't get married is beyond me.

The government currently, however, is taking a blatantly double-standard position on the issue. They say it is wrong for them to discriminate who can and can't be married based on sex. But they have been regulating it based on number for a long time. Since when did I need the government's permission to get married? And remember, if the right to regulate marriage is not granted to the government in the Constitution, doesn't the 10th amendment say that it is either a state or personal issue? How did they get in the business of sneaking into issues not theirs to involve themselves in?

I think that the best way to handle who is married is to handle it the way we handle who is friends. It's up to you, not to the government. I don't think this means that I'm "profaning the sacredness of marriage" at all. I think that it means that it is an issue of private community, not public law. If two people co-habitate and want to say "We're married," I still know what marriage is. And if it's not marriage, I can sorrowfully appeal, or just pray for them. But to regulate it through law is dangerous. After all, if we regulate it based on sex, why not race or class? As with many issues, you must remember that if you work in practice and surrender your principle, the worst possible pratice is right around the corner. Are we really ready for the worst? I don't think so.

I think, frankly, that most of the desire to make marriage legally defined is simply a way to use law as I "I told you I was right and you were full of it" attitude that is neither helpful not healthy. If legal unions are already able to be established by any two people (which they can be), then why would we need a legal recognition of the term "marraige"

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.