Baptist views of church-state separation

Can you explain what you mean by "...Christianity founded..." since "Christianity" is a description of a religious viewpoint/system, not a force or personality in itself?

Do you mean, adherents of the Christian religion were among the first and most numerous of European settlers who came to the New World, and their presence and influence dramatically shaped the legal and social framework of the American Colonies and eventually the United States of America?

Or do you mean that the American Colonies and the United States of America were founded as theocracies?

Or do you mean that the Constitution which defines and shapes the government of the United States was explicitly written according to biblical principles?

Or something else?

I'm not necessarily trying to challenge you here, I'm trying to clarify your position. (For what it's worth, I believe there are at least partial truths in each of the three positions I identified above.)

 

The point I'm making is that doesn't really matter. Even though founded by people who were mostly (but not all) professing Christians, the United States is still a kingdom of this world and a very poor substitute for the REAL Christian Nation, the Kingdom of God on earth.

 

And who is trying to use it as a substitute?

 

"Separation of church and state" is a shorthand way of quickly identifying a certain position regarding the church-state relationship. The original formulation was given by Roger Williams in his publication, "Mr. Cotton's Letter Lately Printed, Examined and Answered" (1644) which was one of a series of an ongoing public, written debate with John Cotton, a prominent Congregationalist pastor and political leader in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, over the issues of religious freedom and the nature of the church and society. Williams believed that whenever the church exercises the power of the sword to coerce conversions or, at least, or external conformity to religious conventions upon those who do not freely give themselves to God, the church creates hypocrites of unbelievers, hardens rebellion against God in the hearts of those who do not yet believe, and reduces the true power and influence of the church by filling it with those who have no intention of serving God.

Williams wrote:

"First the faithful labors of many Witnesses of Jesus Christ, extant to the world, abundantly proving, that the Church of the Jews under the Old Testament in the type, and the Church of the Christians under the New Testament in the Antitype, were both separate from the world; and that when they have opened a gap in the hedge or wall of Separation between the Garden of the Church and the Wilderness of the world, God hath ever broke down the wall itself, removed the Candlestick, and made his Garden a Wilderness, as at this day. And that therefore if he will ever please to restore his Garden and Paradise again, it must of necessity be walled in peculiarly unto Himself from the world, and that all that shall be saved out of the world are to be transplanted out of the Wilderness of the world, and added unto His Church or Garden."

Williams didn't just write about his convictions, he put them into practice. After fleeing his home when Massachusetts Bay authorities were going to have him shipped back to England in chains because of his religious views, he went to live with the Native Americans in the proximity of present day Rhode Island, eventually purchasing the land from the Native Americans and founding the colony. Rhode Island practiced separation of church and state from the very beginning, which also allowed the first Baptist church in the New World to publicly organize in Providence.

In late 1801, the Danbury Baptist Association in Connecticut wrote to Thomas Jefferson to congratulate him on his election and to remind him that despite the guarantees of the First Amendment of The Bill of Rights, the State of Connecticut (like a number of New England states) still had an established church and Baptists were merely tolerated, not allowed equal religious standing with other religious groups. (The reason why is that, at the time, the Bill of Rights applied only to the federal government. It wasn't until the Civil War decided that the federal government had primacy over the state governments and the passage of the 14th Amendment, that the Bill of Right began being incorporated to citizens of all states -- the 14th Amendment declared that all people born in the United States and who have been legally naturalized are now citizens of the United States (federal), not simply the state where they resided.)

In early 1802, Jefferson responded to their letter, referencing Roger Williams' metaphor:

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for is faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between Church and State.

Now obviously, whether you agree or disagree with Roger Williams, Thomas Jefferson, or Baptists in the early days of the United States is up to you, but that's where the phrase came from.

 

Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.~George Washington

 

I agree.

That's why church and state need to be institutionally separate. The church needs to rely on God and the presentation of truth to the culture instead of being corrupted by politics. The church provides the message and example that both inspires and allows humankind to live morally, while government can only punish immoral behavior.

 

Wrong on two counts.

1.Government as Washington noted cannot maintain morality without biblical principles. Even our government needs morality and that can only be found in scripture.

2. We do not need to reach cultures we need to reach people.

 

You love to tell people they are wrong, don't you?

Yes, I agree. However, church and state do not need to be merged to do this. In my opinion (and, historically, the opinion of Baptists through the ages) is that the gospel can be preached (and lived) more freely and openly in a nation that separates church from state. True morality (that is, morality that springs from within, not imposed from without) can only come through Christ.

Yes, that's the "humankind" I was talking about.

When I used the world culture, I was speaking of the church's relationship to our political culture (where people live).

 

There's lots of people "politically" who advocate complete merging of church and state, look into Dominion Theology. I have personally known a few people with this viewpoint.

Regarding this board, those who oppose separation of church and state (and are not advocating persecution against all religious expression), by default, are advocating some degree of merging or preference towards religion. By no means does it necessarily mean they are advocating a full-blown theocracy, but there are points where they want the state and the church to join forces (legally, financially, or through influence).

If you "insist" on "moral and biblical principles in our government" through the channels of voting, petitioning, and advocacy that are available to all citizens, I agree. If you are seeking preferential treatment or insisting that the government not be neutral in regarding to religious belief and expression, then I disagree.

I do not believe it is a false claim, as stated above.

I'm not running around denying things, and I don't know what you happen to mean by "Judeo Christian principles", so I can't comment on this particular assertion. It seems to me that you have a strong pre-conception of what you think I believe that does not relate to any sort of reality... or else you're just accusing me of various things hoping that something will stick.

However, I can make some affirmations that might help you understand my view:

I affirm that adherents of the Christian religion were among the first and most numerous of European settlers who came to the New World, and their presence and influence dramatically shaped the legal and social framework of the American Colonies and eventually the United States of America.

I affirm that the religious (and sometimes anti-religious) convictions of the majority of the American populace inspired and affirmed the writing, ratification, and support of the First Amendment (and the subsequent disestablishment of the churches in some of the New England states) in order to separate church from state.

I affirm that the separation of church and state is inspired by scripture, and is a civil expression of God-revealed religious freedom.

 

Right here, this is at the core of this debate. The government cannot be neutral or it is immoral. You are either for God or against Him there is no middle ground. That fact is what drives conservatives. No other agenda is involved in our drive. Just that one fact.

We either want a moral government or we want to justify an immoral one. A government based on anything other than biblical principles is immoral. When you oppose that then you are immoral as well. That is what drives conservative. No such monster as a neutral government or a neutral anything. That is the foundation of our drive.

 

Good, I'm glad that I was able to express it and you were able to identify it. I agree this is one of the fundamental issues at the core of the discussion. :thumbsup:

Now we can have a real discussion instead of just dealing with foolish and unfounded accusations!

In the realm of individual persons, that is absolutely true. In terms of socio-political-legal constructs, it is not necessarily true.

It doesn't matter (for the purpose of getting my automobile maintained) whether my mechanic is a Christian or not as long as he does a good job on my vehicles and deals with me honestly. In the same way, a government can officially take a neutral legal stance (a hands-off position) toward religion and still govern efficiently and morally.

That being said, in an absolute monarchy or dictatorship, one person is the government, and that person's position toward God makes a big difference in how the monarch will rule. If the ruler is neutral toward God (a position, as you noted, is impossible), then they are, at best, not going to lead as morally as they should.

However in a representative democracy, the citizens and the people they elect are the government, and their varying positions toward God makes the difference in how they collectively rule.

Unless we are to deny the vote to those who are not Christians (and who gets to define "Christian"?), then we end up with a mixture of allegiances (some toward God, many toward self and hedonism). And then, of course, we have completely thrown away true religious liberty and whoever can get the most votes gets to suppress or persecute religious minorities.

Our Baptist forebearers (long before any Europeans came to the New World) recognized this and started advocating separation of church and state long before it first came to political reality at the founding of the Rhode Island colony by Roger Williams.

Then the "conservative" movement (as you have defined it) is opposed to the historic Baptist principle of separation of church and state. However, I know plenty of political conservatives who respect and appreciate separation of church and state, so I think you're claiming too much consensus for your position.

I would assume everyone here on Baptistboard wants a moral government.

Yes, and religious freedom is a biblical principle.

So a government that does not provide equal protection under the law for minority religionists (including those who profess no religion) is immoral.

And history (including American history) is full of examples of immoral governments that persecuted Baptists for their beliefs. For example, Obadiah Holmes.

Fortunately, I know the "conservative" movement is not monolithic and you do not represent the entire conservative movement. And I do not think the conservative movement is inherently immoral.

Nor do I think that those who oppose institutional separation of church and state are necessarily immoral. I do believe they either have not thought it through all the way, have been given bad information, or don't have a wide-ranging biblical understanding of the ramifications of true faith in Christ.

There are all kinds of neutral things!

In government:
You certainly hope that a judge will be unbiased (especially if they have personal reasons why they would normally side with your opponent) and the "rule of law" is designed to promote neutrality, not the whims of the governing authorities. Furthermore, the entire Bill of Rights is designed to help minorities of all sorts (freedom of speech, press, religion, assembly, gun ownership, etc.) get a fair (neutral) deal when the socio-political climate is hostile to them!

In regular life:
Here's a really crude example of something that's neutral:

The transmission lever on my car has a neutral setting. When my transmission is in neutral, the automobile only moves due to external forces brought to bear on it.

In a similar way, when the if we legally restrict the engine of government to a neutral position, religious life is affected only by forces external to the government. Any other position (either Drive or Reverse) will crush the religious rights of others under its wheels.

Only Jesus has the right and ability to separate the wheat from the chaff for punishment.

You need a better foundation.

 

I stopped reading your post right here because there is a fundamental disagreement involved here which is at the core of the issue. I do not care what dominionists say because I am not one. And neither are the majority here on this board that are accused of conflating church and state (when in fact we are not) Government and a mechanic are two issues that make it impossible for one to be an example of the other. The comparison fails.

Government deals with laws. Laws are in fact morality. There is no morality outside of God. Now I believe you just (possibly unintentionally) talked right past me in that you mentioned government being hands off toward religion. No one has suggested they be hands on. What conservatives are saying is that we maintain the Judeo Christian biblical principles this country was founded on. Two completely different things.

 

That is exactly right. This is not a complex issue as the thread suggests. First of all, for those who stated we are a democracy, no, we are not. We are a republic.

Freedom of religion in our Constitution is quite clear. The government will make no state religion, nor interfere with private citizens as we worship as we choose. On the other side, the government side, their powers are quite clear in the Constitution. The problem that causes this debate is that both parties that govern our nation (subject of many other threads) have so perverted the way we are governed, they completely ignore the Constitution and its intent. If we followed the Constitution, this subject would not need to be discussed.

Our founding fathers were not diests, or some cult. Each and every one of them expressed faith in Jesus Christ at some point during the Revolution. Trying to debase out Christian-Judeo founding or take it away from Biblical principles is a lie liberals (dems and reps) born in the pits of hell. These same leaders that have perverted the way we are governed try to remove Washington, Adams, Jefferson, et al from Christianity to justify their social and worldly agenda.

Life, liberty and pursuit of happiness is our God given right. We lend power to the government. They work for us. Back to the democracy question. When we were founded, we did not elect senators, state legislators did. We do not elect the President, we elect the electoral college to choose the President. That is because we are a republic, and the founders saw danger of mob rule in a pure democracy just as much as a monarchy on the other extreme.

Another falsehood expressed in some of these posts is equating the government staying out of our right to worship with our right to petition and vote in order to maintain a Godly inflluence in government. This comes in the form of no prayer in school, or ten commandments on the courthouse lawn. This is not a quid pro quo situation. It is the Constitution, and our leaders have used smoke and mirrors to make official the lie that we must not mix our faith and our government. It is not the state establishing a religion.

The example of the car mechanic is ridiculous.

 

Anyone who emphasizes that America is a Christian nation more than that the Kingdom of God is separate and unlike any kingdoms of this world. Issues like putting the Ten Commandments in our court rooms or a manger scene on the court house lawn have nothing whatsoever to do with the Kingdom of God. They have everything to do with the civil government supported religion of America. In fact, emphasizing these things rather than the salvation of individuals or the need for the church to help the poor and sick does great harm to the church and to Christ's Kingdom.

 

You are mixing apples and oranges. The work of the Lord, that is, spreading the Gospel, helping those in need, etc has nothing to do with the subject of this thread. No one in this thread has said America is more a Chrisitan nation than the Kingdom of God. This thread is about the relationship between government and religion. The proper answer to that question is the US Constitution. Putting the Ten Commandments in a courtroom or a manger in the city square does not violate the Constitution in any manner. On top of that, I fail to see the logic in your statement that putting such objects in our institutions of government have nothing to do with the Kingdom of God.

 

No, those who emphasize calling America a Christian nation are mixing apples and oranges. Christians are and must be always separate from the country they happen to live in in this world.

 

Read the posts. No one said this is a Christian nation. They said it was founded on Christian principles. The Constitution says we are not any state religion. That does not stop Christians from trying to exercise their Constitutional rights to have Godly people running government. You need to rethink your understanding of history, the Constitution, government and the Bible.