The Necessity of the Separation of Church and State

As a Canadian who is also an American citizen, one of the most puzzling things about American society is how the separation of church and state is understood. The concept has gone well beyond the separation Canadians understand.

In Canada the government is religious neutral. It does not promote or support one religious faith above another. It recognizes that every resident has the right to congregate for worship and worship as they so wish without governmental interference. People are free to hold any religious views a person so wishes. Likewise her residents are free to reject any and all religious believes as conscious so dictates. In return what the government and the country expects is that its faith communities to be respectful of those that hold different beliefs, to carry out religious dialogue in a civil manner and to respect the law of the land.

In return, the government protects the individual’s and group’s right to religious express if that expression is not contrary to the law of the land. Each group’s property is treated the same and allowed certain property tax exemptions and its income is tax exempt if it falls within designated bounds. Gifts to all recognized religious bodies treated the same with no group being favored above the other.

In other words, in Canada not only is government and religion not antagonistic towards one another, they frequently partner together to provide significant good for the overall welfare of the community. In the United States there is an antagonistic edge towards church and state relationships.

When the Unites States was created, it appears that the founders had similar religion neutral practices in mind. In various commentaries penned by them regarding the founding documents are references to religious neutrality and the recognition that other than Judaism other religions such as Islam may well be part of the American milieu. They also recognized that it would be left to subsequent generations to work out religious neutrality in practical terms as the country evolves and changes.

The religious neutrality has been an ongoing challenge, particularly in the last six decades. As the nation became more pluralistic court ruling and other laws were specifically designed to be religion neutral. Unfortunately some the the reaction from the conservative church became anxious that the Lord's Prayer and other Christian expressions were being removed from schools and other government locations. The intent was for neutrality but various elements in the church saw it as a threat to the church and the "dechristianization of the Christian nation." While there was some cause for concern as there was some rulings and legislation that appeared to be an effort to create a religion free environment, the bulk was an effort toward religious neutrality. As with many other conflicts the more conflicted the spirit, the further both parties pushed each other apart so that increasingly a religion free environment seemed to the goal.

Today there is a growing reluctance to see religious communities be involved in any venture that involves public funds. A religion free rather than religion neutral stance appears to have greater force. Some on the left fear that the funds will be used to proselytize while some on the left see the funds as providing an opportunity for the government to dictate religious belief, conduct and employment policies. The church does not have innocent hands.

What I find most interesting is those who are most fearful of governmental interference in her beliefs and practices are frequently the very same groups that are aggressively attempting to force government legislatures to design various laws around their religious teachings. The Roman Catholic bishops and the right to life elements of the church are demanding that government funding for abortion for any cause (including incest, rape and immediate physical health risk to the mother) be explicitly prohibited in the health reform legislation. This is an example of religious views being pushed out upon the country which on the whole does not support such an extreme position.

One bishop has gone as ask a Roman Catholic Congressman not take communion because he is willing to allow for federal funding of abortion. Communion within the Roman Catholic Church is one of the primary sacraments of grace, and the Church is withdrawing that primary vehicle from the Congressman because he will not agree with the Church on this one point. There is no separation of church and state.

Another example of a branch of the church that is attempting to force its views upon the community as a whole is the ballot and other initiatives regarding gay rights and gay marriage. While the initiatives are carefully crafted in their wording, and positioned to be defending “the traditions marriage”, what underlies it all is inflexible religious teachings and homophobia. As an aside, any cursory understanding of western and world history through the course of history shows us that the “traditional marriage” is anything but traditional, but is for the most part a modern North American creation.

Interestingly these groups do not see their political lobbying as being wrong or as entrenching a particular set of views upon the country at large. If the Jehovah Witnesses had greater political clout and were pushing for blood transfusions not be permitted or paid from public funds, would these same groups not take issue with the JWs for imposing their religious views upon the country as a whole? I doubt that they would remain silent.

It is such political activities of the religious right that pushes for people to have a stronger demarcation between church and state within the United States. In the last year I have come to see that the more dogmatic views of the separation of church and state is necessary in the United States whereas it is not in Canada. The separation is necessary to protect the state and the citizens of the country at large from a highly active and forceful religious group from having undo sway and having that brand of religion receiving preferential treatment, or worse tyranny of one religious viewpoint dominating society and how the country is governed.

An Irresponsible Statement From the Pastoral Office

On August 16, Reverend Steven Anderson, the pastor of Faithful Word Baptist Church, an “old-fashioned, independent, fundamental, King James only, separated Baptist church” in Tempe Arizona informed his congregation that he is praying for the death of President Barack Obama. Anderson stated the he prays that Obama “dies and goes to hell.” He went on to say, “If you want to know how I’d like to see Obama die, I’d like him to die of natural causes. I don’t want him to be a martyr, we don’t need another holiday. I’d like to see him die, like Ted Kennedy, of brain cancer.” He not only mentioned it in his sermon, but has posted that sermon on his web site.

I do not know Anderson, but his statements alarm me on several levels. While I will not judge his spiritual standing, I do judge such statements as lunacy, irresponsible and most unbecoming of a man in his position. While we could be tempted to dismiss Anderson as a very rare case, he is not. Over the course of the last twenty years a good number of fundamentalist and evangelicals leaders, ministers and laity who have and continue to demonize those who do not think like them.

The roots of such thinking stem back to the early 1980s to Jerry Falwell’s defunct and failed “Moral Majority”. Falwell rightly encouraged the faith community to be engaged in the political sphere and to make decisions on voting not by party but by faith measures. It is the latter where the failed legacy of the Moral Majority’s continues to linger. Instead of encouraging people to make decisions in a balanced way on a wide host of issues and values they made at the time four issues exclusive measures, a) reversal of Rowe v. Wade, b) fighting the passage of the ERA – legislation that recognized the equality of women both in the home, law courts and work-place, c) fighting passage civil-rights laws, and d) standing firm against any laws that recognize gays as having and civil protection in the work-place or from prosecution. Since, the religious right has kept to a very narrow agenda and has increasingly become an extension of the right wing of the Republican party.

As for Anderson, let me deal with the cancer statement first. Anderson has implied that brain cancer is a divine judgment and rightly fitting those who are destined to hell. No doubt about it cancer is a curse but it is a curse that falls upon the just and the unjust. To imply that those who have cancer are under some sort of divine judgment is preaching a gospel that is not found in the Bible and but is a false man-made gospel.

Rather than starting with the Word and allowing it to speak and shape his mind, it is clear from these few statements that like all too many other’s on the far right that Anderson starts with a political position and belief system and then uses carefully selected Bible passages to justify his preconceived bias while dismissing others that would not support such a view. In other words he is an extreme Republican who happens to be a Christian and uses the church and the Bible to support his political views.

What is most alarming is not his views, but the context and venue in which they are uttered. As a citizen of the United States he is free to hold any view he so desires whether they are grounded in truth or not. Also he is free to express them freely to the cheers or jeers of the listener.

I take issue with Anderson as these comments are spoken from the office of pastor and in the venue of worship. Credible seminaries carefully remind their students that what one says from the pulpit and in the context of the pastoral office must done thoughtfully. They remind their students that the listener views their words as a divine message more than merely the opinion of a man or woman. Such views are taken seriously by their congregants and some will accept them uncritically. A thoughtless personal opinion the pastor sees as “just my opinion” is viewed as a divine opinion by the listener. The pastor therefore must be guarded in his opinion and is advised to be cautious in uttering them within the contexts of a sermon, prayer, worship, pastoral counseling, or pastoral pronouncements. Anderson either was never taught this wise instruction or he has ignored this fundamental pastoral teaching.

As mentioned, as a citizen he has a right to speak these things. If he said them apart from the pastoral role and worship I would have no issue as such other than to say that I would disagree. But to state these things as part of worship or in the formal context of fulfillign the pastoral role is another issue.

That said, many other evangelical and fundamentalist leaders likewise ignore the wisdom of their thoughtful teachers. Too many start with a political agenda, speak on that agenda while using faith statements to justify their position, without most in their congregations realizing that they minister has misused his office and Scripture to push a political agenda. What is also disturbing is that many pastors do not realize that they are starting with an external manmade agenda and labeling it as God’s agenda.

The response from the religious community at large when a religious leader utters such statements is disappointing. Instead of their supervisors and peers speaking out in various ways against such thinking, they remain silent, and thereby tacitly indicate that such an utterance is acceptable. Since Anderson is an independent fundamentalist separate Baptist, he has no supervisors or peer system to hold him accountable. It is up to the church and individuals at large to speak out against such statements, statements that harm civil discourse as well as the church body as a whole in the eyes of the world at large.

Why the Christian Right Detests Barak Obama

An article by J. Matt Barber entitled “The Gods of Liberalism” on a Republican website represents the mindset that is held by a large number of Fundamentalists and Evangelicals and explains why supporting most Democratic officeholders. To do so is an anathema as it would be the equivalent of idolatry.

Following in red are quotes from Barber’s article, followed by an observation:

Modern-day liberals – or "progressives" as they more discreetly prefer – labor under an awkward misconception; namely, that there is anything remotely "progressive" about the fundamental canons of their blind, secular-humanist faith. Holding humanism is a religion is a typical Fundamentalist and Evangelical mindset. Barber’s dismissive stance of humanism is prototypical of the Christian right. It affirms the dignity of each human being and that humanity needs to work together in a cooperative manner to seek truth. Though humanism does not accept the existence of supernatural, it does accept that there are profound truths and inspirational stories in religious literature.

In fact, today's liberalism is largely a sanitized retread of an antiquated mythology – one that significantly predates the only truly progressive movement: biblical Christianity. Barber takes the view that Christianity has a superior point of few not just on issues of faith but at every point. His dismissive position holds that Christians can learn little from other belief systems and philosophies. Some adherents of his position hold that Humanists and other faiths are demonic. Such an argument is undermined by a host of examples where the Christianity over the centuries has held widely divergent views, has been blatantly and egregious wrong while affirming that it was correct in its position, and has been deeply involved in committing atrocities in the name of God, or has looked the other way while atrocity was being committed. Those who hold such views steadfastly hold that the invasion of Iraq and torture of prisoners and life-time detainment of “enemy combatants” are righteous acts.

Baal worship….its present-day progeny: liberalism. Barber clearly holds that liberal thinking is the same as Baal worship. In a sermon comparisons like those that follow sound good and true but a critical thinker realizes the comparisons are superficial.

Baal, the half-bull, half-man god of fertility, was the focal point of pagan idolatry in Semitic Israel until God revealed His monotheistic nature to Judaism's forebears…..The principal pillars of Baalism were child sacrifice, sexual immorality (both heterosexual and homosexual) and pantheism (reverence of creation over the Creator)……congregants – men and women alike – would engage in bisexual orgies. The ritual of convenience was intended to produce economic prosperity by prompting Baal to bring rain for the fertility of "mother earth." Barber overlooks that in the Bible a baby is the womb is not deemed to be a child and as having rights until it is born. The argument of the fetus having legal standing and rights that trump the legal standing and rights of all others is a legal argument that has emerged only in the last century. I have been puzzled why the Christian right has been so resistant to clean water and air, efforts to protect and maintain a healthy animal world, and protecting the environment. Though I think they are grossly wrong, viewing environmentalism as pantheism helps me to end my puzzlement.

The worship of "fertility" has been replaced with worship of "reproductive freedom" or "choice." Child sacrifice via burnt offering has been updated, ever so slightly, to become child sacrifice by way of abortion. The ritualistic promotion, practice and celebration of both heterosexual and homosexual immorality and promiscuity have been carefully whitewashed – yet wholeheartedly embraced – by the cults of radical feminism, militant "gay rights" and "comprehensive sex education." And the pantheistic worship of "mother earth" has been substituted – in name only – for radical environmentalism. Barber has oversimplified Canaanite and other ancient religions and their annual fertility rights. Child sacrifice was not as dominant an element as Barber makes it out to be. What Barber overlooks is that the Israelite sacrificial system was similar, albeit simplified, to the Baal sacrificial system.

In these postmodern times, we've also been graced, regrettably, by the advent of counter-biblical "emergent Christianity" or "quasi-Christianity," as I prefer to call it. The emergent church is much more conservative than the mainstream and Catholic churches. Hence, evangelicals like Barber view the bulk of the Church (those are not Fundamentalists or Evangelical) are false Christians.

Emergent Christianity fails the authenticity test whenever subjected to even the most perfunctory biblical scrutiny…. It's not a matter of right versus left; it's a matter of right versus wrong – of biblical versus non-biblical. Here it is clear that the emergent churches are not authentic Christians. If they are not authentic, then there is little hope for the mainstream churches.

The gods of liberalism have a new high priest in Barack Obama. With such viewpoints we can understand why many Evangelicals and Fundamentalists describe Obama in anti-Christ language.

The post is not from a religious site. Barber's article is found on "Renew America", a Republican political web site that commingles politics with conservative Protestant Christianity. It is articles such a Barber's that provides the basis for secular liberals and liberal Christians to believe that if the evangelical church had its way it would transform the United States into a conservative evangelical state, and have America become the Christian equivalent of Iran or worse, the Christian equivalent of Afghanistan under the Taliban.