Separation of church and state OK to Christians?

Jar, I think I did a poor job in my OP. There, I equated moral standards that do not match that prescribed by the Bible / Church with amoral. Poor choice of terms. I'm just trying to find terms to contrast moral standards prescribed by the Bible / Church and those that are NOT prescribed by the Bible / Church.First you say, But then say I kind of understand your view, and I probably hold one similar (although I'm not sure, because I don't put my own thoughts into this kind of terminology at all).My question is, since the Christian God judges people, since people receive punishment or reward from God, doesn't that make "good and bad", "right and wrong" the domain of religion? You already agreed that it's almost by definition, the domain of government.I'll leave the rest of your post untouched for now. Thanks for your response.

"there is one true god... and his name is allah."all monotheistic religions say that. of course it's freedom of religion. what if my one true god is different than yours?

PD,I totally get what you're saying. But you're saying that religion "isn't supposed to" get mixed up in government. You didn't really explain why you think that. That's exactly the question I'm asking here. 'Cause I think Christians, if I understand Christianity right, should be saying "religion IS supposed to get mixed up in government brotha!"Ben

Well, the exact translation varies from version to version. But the concept of GOD and Gods is not as simple as that might lead folk to think. In some other thread we can go over the various ways GOD and GODs are seen and depicted in the Bible.But even if that were true, it is a message to GOD's people. It says the Jews must worship only one diety, or at a minimum, not rank another diety above him.It is certainly not something opposed to freedom of religion, even under the most conservative, most literal (even though most who call themselves Literalists are the least likely to take the Bible Literally), most Evangelical interpretation it wouold not oppose freedom of religion. Others are free to worship however they wish, they're wrong and damned and going to hell and gonna burn baby burn, but they are free to screw up.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

actually, genesis is downright henotheistic. abraham, isaac, and jacob never seem to object to other people's gods or idols.

Sounds interesting; I would definitely be a spectator, and spectator only I hope I've made it clear by now that I'm basing my thoughts on my own understanding as a kid, and not in Bible scholarship. I understand that the two are separate, but I think both represent　something important (real-world religion?　vs. true scholarship and interpretation).With that disclaimer thrown out there again... I always had the sense that Christianity is not a religion based on individuals at all. We are God's people, a family. It's not good enought to "earn salvation" for yourself. It is not OK to turn your back on the wrongs you see, to turn your backs on the people travelling down the wrong path. That's why it's important to "help" those out who do not walk in God's light, and bring the "lost sheep" back to God's way.With that thought in mind, then I would say, yeah, they're free to screw up, but the onus is also on you (figuratively speaking) to do whatever is in your power (whether it's active testifying or simply providing a living example) to show them God's way.I'll leave my statements as is, without providing a conclusion; I'll spend more time thinking about it. Maybe it's hard to understand without specific Bible reference. If so, I'm sorry about that!

Only between you and GOD and most likely only after you're dead.And no, good and bad are not the domain of religion.Let me try to expand on that slightly because in some ways Christianity is quite different from the other two Judaic Religions in that regard.Judaism and Islam are deeply involved in interpersonal relations. One of the funtions of both Rabbi and Imam is in settling disputes. When you read the Koran or Tanakah you find sura after sura, passage after passage, dealing with interpersonal relationships. If your brother dies you gotta bang his widow. You can charge interest to an infidel but not a believer. They go into very great depth on what you can eat, what you can wear, how you treat different classes, who you can or cannot associate with, how you should wear your hair, when and how to pray and on and on.Christianity is quite different. Jesus boiled all the suras, all the passages down to the essence, Love GOD and love others as you love yourself. Christianity makes some basic assumptions.The first is that you must love yourself. Often that last part of the two part commandment gets neglected, but it's important. GOD wants you to love and be happy with yourself.Next, GOD assumes you're an adult and have some idea of what you like,how you like to be treated. Instead of a precise set of rules, good an dbad, right and wrong, he says, "Look, treat other folk the way you'd like to be treated". This is important so we'll come back to it in a second.Finally, GOD says "Love GOD and show your love not by what you say, but how you behave."Now let's head back towards the idea of a Christian supporting a Secular Government. Would the Christian like being forced to deny his Christianity, or pray to some other GOD? If not, if the Christian would not like to be treated that way, then GOD says you cannot treat OTHERS that way. For a Christian to try to force Christianity on others would be to violate the very commandments we were told to obey.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Yeah, and GOD is tied to the land and if he is needed somewhere else you gotta load up an ox cart with Godly soil and haul it to the new location. LOL

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Ben! writes Lam:

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I'm interested in talking about whether Christians should be fighting to live in a country where there is NO separation of church and state.

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I'm afraid you've got me confused. This question doesn't seem so very different from Lam's, which was: If there is no separation of church and state (I'm going to call it SOCAS for short), would we not have a theocracy? I always thought it was that very SOCAS that for many years (at least until November of the last one) prevented the US from becoming a theocracy.You're in Japan, so maybe it isn't the US you're talking about. If not just say so.For my part, I think the answer to your question depends on the type of christian. Liberal christians understand the importance of SOCAS, right-wing christians loathe SOCAS. The fundies here in jesusland have lately been saying that there is no SOCAS. I suppose they feel that way since there's no mention of SOCAS in their precious fairy-story book.In one of your iterations of this question, you used the phrase "ALL christians". To that, my answer would be no, ALL christians shouldn't be fighting for such a thing. But would that even be possible, since about the only thing that ALL christians are likely to agree about would be the notion that there was once a guy named Jesus?

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Keep America Safe AND Free!

Well, look over message 22 and see if that helps. And please, always feel free to ask any questions. Look, you're already damned, what you got to lose?

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Well... just being familiar with Lam's posts, I read his question as being much more specific and practical than the question I was trying to ask. I tried to respond strongly just because I want to keep this at a more theoretical level. I don't want to talk about any country at all--I'm really only interested in understanding religious views within the umbrella of "Christianity"... Yeah that's a gross error on my part. I agree. I simply don't know enough about the subject to divide up Christianity properly. In order to talk about "bible scholarship" and personal views a.k.a. Arachnophilia & Jar, I think it's unnecessary to divide up (because we rely on the Bible exclusively). But when talking about the views of practical, existing religions, it's necessary, I agree.And I'm glad you took the "practical, existing religions" angle. 'Cause I'm interested in that as well. Would you mind elaborating a little more on these statements? Maybe it's too much work. I understand why people might choose SOCAS based on practical reasoning, or why they might loathe it based on an inability to have their idea of what is "right and wrong" promoted to the law level. But anything beyond those ideas (surely your statement about fundies fits that bill, and maybe the others) I would appreciate if you could elaborate a bit on what you mean, and what makes you think that way.Thanks!
Ben

AP,Thanks for the info. I always enjoy your Bible scholarship. Since I don't do any Bible scholarship of my own, I really don't know if you're on the mark, but I always get the feeling that you're searching for answers from a very honest perspective.With that said, some question / comments... I read the chapter in Matthew, but I still didn't understand your comment. Could you elaborate? Why would separation of religion from politics keep judiasim in tact? You can exclude all other beliefs while showing love and compassion for your enemies. Like when a mom slaps a kid's hand for stealing a lollipop; the mom loves the kid, but enforces the rules.But really, given what you've said above in your post, I don't think this really matters at all in the bigger point. I think I understand you as well as I can, and what you say sounds good to me. I tried to think about this before posting--does a lack of separation of church and state necessarily mean that we have no choice on the matter? A really practical question... but I think it's important.My idea is not that you're supposed to force people to believe in a religion. Rather, the premise I had in mind was, should Christians be demanding, based on the foundations of their religion (Bible, Church), that laws be chosen based on the laws and ethics of their religion.Does this also imply that people would be forced to believe in the same God? I just can't answer that question properly. It could go either way. For the sake of argument, I was postulating that it's possible that the belief wouldn't be mandated.

Ben! writes me:

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I understand why people might choose SOCAS based on practical reasoning, or why they might loathe it based on an inability to have their idea of what is "right and wrong" promoted to the law level.

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As I understand it, the idea of SOCAS came from the Anabaptists, and through them, into this country, by the Baptists. The concern was that there were so many people coming to the New World to flee religious persecution, and that those people came from such a wide range of unorthodox religions, that the only way to preserve peace and order was to separate government from religion while insuring that everyone would be free to practice their religion as they themselves wished.Over time, opposition to SOCAS grew, mostly in response to social changes that had been opposed by most conservative churches - changes like the end of slavery, recognition of women's rights and minority rights, the outlawing of child labor, etc. Now we've reached the point that, for the first time in American history (at least so far as I'm aware) significant numbers of christians are claiming that SOCAS never existed.You could write a 20-volume series of books about how this change came about and perhaps only scratch the surface, but I think the biggest reason is political expediency. Fundies have very strict notions of what the bible says, and they consider the bible to be above any of man's laws. Therefore, if they can use the constitution or our system of laws or courts to further their aims then they will do so, but if they can't they are perfectly willing to ignore the constitution and our system of laws and courts. Constitutions, laws and courts are man-made. The bible is god-made. God is higher than man, therefore ignoring the constitution or any man-made system is perfectly acceptable so long as it's "god's will". I'm tempted to point out the gay marriage controversy since the fundie view on it so clearly ignores the 14th amendment, but the best example of what I'm talking about that you can find in any newpaper today is the Terri Schiavo case.

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Keep America Safe AND Free!

i try. i'm more interested in knowing the truth than a biase perspective. i'm also accepting of the fact that the bible is occasionally wrong. well, i was suggesting one possible motivation for jesus to tell people to be subordinate to caesar. you see, judea at that point was roman colony so to speak. wrong word, i know. but look at who ran the show. caiphas passes jesus on to herod. herod even admits he has no authority, he has to send jesus to pilate. pilate was roman, under caesar. any authority herod (a jew) had under pilate was allowed to him strictly because he play along.it turns out that romans and jews got along reasonably civilized. the romans respected the jewish faith to a degree. they would allow jews to abstain from mandatory roman god worship, because they knew they'd have a situation on their hands otherwise. nobody wanted a rebellion. the romans just wanted to sit on the top of everything, and generally didn't care how the everyday people went about their lives, as long their allegiance was to rome.well, ok, not everybody wanted to avoid a rebellion. there were groups of messianic jews to who thought their messiah was come to lead them in a war against rome, and that god would punish their oppressors. this is what some looked for in jesus. and technically he did it, but it ook him 300 years and a very persuasive roman emporer. but jesus was not the only messiah of his day. there are a few others whom history remembers. one was apollonius. another apparently waged actual war on the city of jerusalem and failed.but jesus was not that kind of messiah. he was more interested in making people think the right way, and treat each other with love and compassion, than killing a bunch of romans. so to him, reforming judaism was probably the goal, and NOT upsetting rome.so basically, what he said was: put up with the people in power. give them what they want. god's put them there, and god will remove them in due time. for now, worry about giving god what he wants, and the government what they want, and everyone will be happy.the society jesus lived in basically mandated separation of religion and government, since the jews could not morally engage in the religion of the ruling empire. and that empire basically only excercised their secular powers over the jews in exchange for compliance. and jesus did not have a problem with that. you can, but that's not really the best analogy. how would you feel if the government kept slapping your hand for what you believed in? these are "i want a lollipop!" kind of issues, really. imagine if your faith came under LEGAL attack. how would you like it? put yourself in another's shoes for a moment -- it's the christian way. no, but it means that SOMEONE has no choice on the matter. and that's all that matters. remember -- schools are government run. and i think manipulating children in that matter is morally abhorent, even if you do in the right direction. no. i've demonstrated before that this could mean just about anything. for instance, i can defend execution of divorced couples with the bible. simply put: the part of the bible containing the societal laws were for THAT society to set up their theocracy. unless you want to live under enforced levitcal standards. and the part of the bible contain the christian principles are humanistic, internal moral truths, not governable laws.neither set is a good model for government. no, but infringing on belief educationally, or by saturating the society (news, etc) is also equally unacceptable.

jesus said there are two commanments that are of import. that you love the lord with all your heart, soul, mind, strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.i don't know about you, but loving my neighbor sounds like allowing him the same freedom i owe myself.the old testament requires that we make strangers feel at home when among us. this means you don't abandon them to live in the streets just as much as it means that you allow them their own practices.besides the whole judge not thing. which simply stated means that it's god's place and not mine to determine what is moral and what is right and who should be punished and to punish them. guess when that's gonna happen? not because i pass a law and put a bunch of people in jail or worse, execute them.temperence my friend.