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Christian Network

If you tune in to the Christian media in America in 2003 you come away with the impression that the vast majority of Evangelicals here are in favor of doing away with the separation of church and state. As our government appears to become ever more secularized we spend a lot of time decrying a policy which many assume to be a conjuration of the dreaded "Secular Humanists". The fact of the matter is that many of the men who advocated it long ago in our nation’s history were Christians who saw the line drawn between secular government and spiritual bodies more as a protection for the latter than the former. The idea, at least for some, was to safeguard the purity of the Church, not the State.

The articles that made up the charter for American government, documents like the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, were principally written by individuals whose immediate forefathers had fled Europe to avoid religious persecution during the 17^th and 18^th centuries. At that time in European history "state churches", churches intertwined with national governments, often suppressed Christians whose doctrine disagreed with there own. There were also frequent wars fought between nations for religious reasons. While the classic example may have been the clash between Protestant and Catholic countries, Protestant fought Protestant as well. A great number of people died in these religiously motivated conflicts which, at one time or another, affected most, if not all, of the Continent.

The reason many of the early settlers in America came here was to find a place where they could worship God in there own way, without fear of persecution. With such a recent corporate memory of how secular power could corrupt religious bodies it is no surprise that the sons and grandsons of these first settlers were leery of any one denomination becoming allied with the State. This is why freedom of religion was such a cornerstone of the young American nation. To insure that freedom our republic specifically shunned the naming of any denomination as the official church of the United States. It was this "separation" that ensured that all could worship without coercion, according to conscience.

It is no doubt true that this did not mean the absolute removal of any vestige of religion from the public square. It is today’s aggressive secularization of every aspect of civil authority that so disturbs Christians, and rightfully so. This kind of radical separation is most likely not what our founding fathers had in mind. The prohibition of a government-sanctioned domination of one sect over another was their aim, not the complete eradication of God from government. It is not inaccurate to say that the vast majority of the Founders were Christians, even if only nominal ones. A Judeo-Christian worldview influenced every aspect of these men’s lives, including their political thinking, and it is probably safe to say that most of them would not have blanched at the use of the term "Christian nation" to describe America. For this reason it can be well argued that the God of the Bible does have a place in the halls of American government. He was no doubt present in our early days and there is no reason why He should not be so now.

That said it does behoove Evangelicals in America to realize that not every motivation behind the separation of church and state was wicked. Today most European nations have a state church. Europe also has the lowest percentage of Bible-believing Christians of any continent on Earth. It seems accurate to say that the decision to safeguard the purity and potency of true Christianity by not intertwining it with political power was a wise one. For all our warts the United States remains one of the most religious nations in the world. Tens of millions of people are active Christians here today. This is no doubt at least partially true because we are free to choose the denomination we desire to express our faith in without fear of government reprisal. The rich tapestry of American Christianity would not exist if a state-sponsored church was the "only game in town". For this we can thank the principle of separation of church and state.