Church versus State

There is an organization that promotes the separation of church and state (Americans United for the Separation of Church and State). While their avowed purpose appeals to me, I share their desires but for totally different reasons and without banning the church from the market place. The AU believes that the church is a negative force in the social and political culture of the United States. My view, on the other hand, is that the government (state) is too restrictive regarding the church’s role in the society…particularly of the Christian faith. Any faith that attempts to evangelize without the use of force or intimidation should be welcome in the public square.

For Christians who may be fearful about such an open position, please recall the Hare Krishna movement of a few decades ago. My encounters with them were primarily limited to airports, and while I found them a tad annoying, they were harmless. And I never fell under their evil spell. There may be some Krishnas lurking around somewhere, but their movement seems to have lost its impetus and is no longer a visible presence. My view is that a state-enforced religion is inherently more ominous than a religious free-for-all in the marketplace. I have confidence in the truth of my faith, in the power of Almighty God and in the salvation message of Jesus Christ. State intervention is neither needed nor desired. If the state were to “implement” the Christian faith as an “official” government policy, then the distortions would begin immediately. I suspect that politicians and bureaucrats have no more respect for God and his Word than they do for the Constitution of the United States of America.

If the United States is indeed a Christian nation, the evidence will be in the fruits of the people….not in the laws, rules and regulations of Big Brother. The more involved the government becomes in defining the faith and its practices, the more likely it is that the government-approved Christian faith will be an abomination in the eyes of God. Freedom of religion in the United States should include the right to openly profess one’s faith….or no faith. It should allow one to question other belief systems without fear of reprisal or government punishment. Faith and belief are internal contracts with the Supreme Diety that often involve public professing. Public coercion, however, should never be part of the worship because the listeners’ hearts will be hardened and unwilling to hear the truth. In addition when a state endorses or promotes a singular faith, the priests either become politicians or the politicians become clergy as the two power centers are merged.

A state-mandated or state-endorsed faith is detrimental for another reason. Belief, faith and adherence are by their very nature individual matters. To collectivize them under the auspices of the state places another party between the believer and the Lord. We can note that within the evangelical Christian community there are differences or variances regarding doctrine, emphasis, organizational structure and ritual. Will the state mandate Methodism, Catholicism or Pentecostalism as the “official” practice of the state. What about all those independent bodies of believers who do not belong to any formal denominational organization? Will the state insist on pre-tribulation or post-tribulation teaching? Will baptismal immersion be required or forbidden? These are the types of issues that when incorporated into official governmental policy or protection can truly destroy the vibrancy of numerous congregations and their members.

One of the major tenets of the protestant Reformation was that the interpretation of Scripture should not be the sole province of the clergy. Each individual is responsible for reading, understanding and learning the Word. As a result there are many sects within the Christian galaxy who may agree on a few fundamental basics but differ widely on other aspects of the faith. If the government as chief endorser and promoter of the faith were also charged with promulgating the “correct” interpretation of His Word, the dangers of misuse and misapplication rise geometrically as government would twist the Scriptures to satisfy its own purposes. The essence of the Gospel would be undermined by self-serving bureaucrats, and the people could be placed in political or spiritual peril. Our nation would revert to the church states of old where political enemies of the governing class would be charged with heresy and removed from public discourse.

If the church is to survive, it must not be an entrenched arm of the government. The faith, the mercy, the grace and the knowledge of God are enough for the church to withstand any onslaught by private or public entities, but if the church and its teaching were co-opted by the government apparatus, the only true outlet for believers would be the underground. The modern remnant would be relegated to the catacombs just as the first century church was. The state-sponsored church would sink in corruption, true evangelism would be forbidden and the enemies of individual liberty would prevail. In the final analysis the church, any church, should be free to vigorously proclaim the truth, but the state or government should never endorse it or embrace it.

cearlwriting@hotmail.com

www.littlestuff-minoosha.blogspot.com

Them and Us

“They” are wrong. “They” are messing up the nation….or the economy…or the schools….or whatever. Just who on earth are “they?” The progressive/liberal/statists have been very successful with many facets of their subversive agenda, but in one critical area they have won by capturing the language and the national point of view. Our nation was formed and founded on the foundation of individual liberty. The lefties have managed through the decades to transform us from a country of individuals to a gaggle of groups. Our national microscope sees only groups. It is impossible for a government … even one as large as ours … to deal effectively with 310 million people. As a result, we have become through political discourse and government action a collection of groups whose agendas and “needs” suffocate individualism.

The nexus of this column was begun by a caller to my radio show (Tue. & Wed., 6-7pm, 1370 WSPD, Toledo www.wspd.com ). A previous caller asked when and why did the Black vote leave the Republican Party and become a reliable voting element for the Democrats. During my response to him and subsequent callers, I frequently referred to the African-American demographic voting bloc as “them.” The caller who inspired this column was an African-American lady who objected to my use of “them” as demeaning and unnecessarily exclusive. In addition she added that she preferred to vote “green” when given the ballot opportunity and resented my assumption that she was a “given” for the Democrats. In essence she rebuked me for failing to acknowledge her capability for making individual choices.

She was right. My tendency when examining voter patterns and preferences is to do so in identifiable and measurable demographic groups. Despite my charming caller’s protestations, 90% to 95% of African-American voters consistently support Democrats. The overwhelming numbers may result from a vast collection of individual decisions or may reflect a “herd mentality” that involves habit and group-think more than personal decision making. African-Americans are not the only sector that assumes an identity superseding individual characteristics. Soccer moms, seniors, Latinos, Evangelicals and farmers are all “thems” that we marshal to attempt to understand the political dynamics…..or purchasing patterns of our citizens. Within each of those groups are individuals or outliers who follow their own reasoning or consciences to different ends than their cohorts. So, even as we justify or rationalize demographic clustering for measuring purposes, we inadvertently ignore or submerge the individualists among them.

It is rather easy to understand why someone would be offended by their automatic inclusion in a group. It is overt stereotyping after all, and denies their uniqueness. As individuals we all seek to establish our own identities. We do not want anyone to speak for us or to presume that we may act in a totally predictable manner. This line of reasoning does beg the question “why do so many people fall into group-think patterns of action if indeed they desire to be acknowledged as individuals?” Although I do not wish to pursue this line in the space that remains, I suspect that we may find ourselves entwined in the “Nature versus Nurture” dispute. While we believe that we think and act independently, we may be strongly influenced by our personal histories and our social milieus. We stand alone with others who are similar to us.

When a hypothetical constitutional government such as ours was intended to be, undertakes responsibilities and tasks beyond its constitutional mandate, its enlarged portfolio necessitates that it cumbersomely engage with groups. Any modicum of effectiveness or efficiency would require the bloated government to broadly identify and define those groups. Thus, for example, one can discover well-educated African-American young people from high-income families reviving preferential treatment and financial benefits when they go off to college because their broadly defined group has been designated as a victim of discrimination or deprivation. Our society and many of its governments have determined that stereotyping certain groups is wrong and should be sanctioned. Yet…government itself is a gross abuser of stereotyping as the example above illustrates. How many harmless patriotic Americans are listed on some government agency “watch list” because they purchased a firearm or witnessed a parade?

It is our nature (or nurture) to view others stereotypically until we get to know them as individuals. Our frames of reference for encountering others who differ from us must rely on anecdotal and incomplete evidence until we can know the others personally. Typically many of our stereotypical assumptions are discarded as our new relationship develops. That is not the case for government. Government NEVER progresses to the personal or individual stage of relationship. As a result, governments utilize, enhance and institutionalize stereotypes. Governments are routinely guilty of hate crimes….stereotypically speaking about “them,” of course.

Comment:  cearlwriting@hotmail.com

www.littlestuff-minoosha.blogspot.com

Tue. & Wed., 6-7pm, 1370 WSPD, Toledo   www.wspd.com

      

Life Choices

Eliminating undesirable people and prickly political minorities has been practiced by despotic governments for a long time. Our human history is replete with governments’ eliminating certain sectors of their own populations or slaughtering opponents in their villages and in their beds. Some people may be uncomfortable with this historical perspective and suggest that in our enlightened times, such butchery is no longer accepted. That attitude, Dear Reader, is what is known as a “pipe dream.” For all of our potential to imagine, create and build functional beauty, many of us allow the beast of sin or inhumanity to rule us. We have so much potential for good, and yet, we are severely flawed. Consider the episodes of genocide and mass murder in recent decades. This list is not exhaustive but there were Cambodians, Rwandans, Serbs, The Nazis, the Kurds, baby girls in China all represent either perpetrators or victims of heinous mass crimes. Progressives should be ecstatic with the continued human destruction of our own.

In 1968 Dr. Paul Ehrlich, a lepidopterist ( a freakin’ butterfly expert), released his legacy work, “The Population Bomb,” a woeful prediction of a planet (ours) overrun by people with inadequate resources to sustain human life. Liberals, who are now Progressives, lauded Ehrlich’s tome and have been dedicated to his themes for the past four decades. In fact, the Supreme Court of the United States was so enamored with Ehrlich’s thesis that shortly thereafter it discovered a formerly non-existent right to legally execute unborn children in the United States ( Roe v. Wade, 1973). With the deadly combination of almost constant warfare and legal abortion, the lefties who are squeamish about excessive population growth should be smugly satisfied. In our various global incursions we are sacrificing young men and women (mostly men) in the prime of their lives, and certainly abortion represents a pre-emptive approach to population limitation by eliminating the child before it reaches breeding age. The government has been complicit in this clumsy attempt at population control by its consistent funding of Planned Parenthood, the largest abortion provider in the United States.

Although it may seem to be a feasible argument to some, large government necessarily must be a major role player when there are vital policy issues that include divisions among the populace. But a constitutionally limited government would not be as actively involved in the social issues that tear the nation apart. True, the states would be facing those issues, and it’s possible that any given life or death issue may have 50 different solutions among all the states. So what? In life affirming issues having one or more states that value life and nurture it is much better than our present-day circumstances wherein the government promotes much that is anti-life and certainly anti-individual. When government becomes too large and unwieldy, the natural inclination is to become more demanding and despotic and to limit resistance or protest. By endorsing the Ehrlich proposition of stressful overpopulation and also by encouraging and funding the radical feminist arguments for abortion, an impersonal monstrosity such as the United States’ Federal Government can treat individual lives indifferently. That ingrained indifference leads to multiple deployments for police actions and conflicts because the individuals are not significant. Their loss and their families’ grief are meaningless blips on the sensibility of an over sized governing apparatus.

This entire discussion springs from my personal mental gymnastics about the proper role for government regarding some of the most critical issues about life. Certainly because of its constitutional mandate to provide for the common defense, the federal government does have the capacity and the duty to order the military, guard, reserves and militia into harm’s way. One would hope that it happens so infrequently that the leaders of government do not rashly pursue military engagements. As in any other aspect of life, frequent repetition of acts that were once novel makes the action more commonplace and ordinary. Our national leadership has treated the U.S. military like a Welcome Wagon bully by dispatching them all over the globe to intervene in disputes that have been raging for decades….even centuries. I suspect that in the highest corridors of government respect and concern for individuals who must serve, fight and perhaps perish has been blunted. The minimization of the value of life leads directly to the diminishment of the worth of the individual which exaggerates the power of groups within the body politic.

Groups merge into democratic factions that value “members,” but carry no brief for life itself or the individual. My final analysis is that a nation that does not celebrate or nourish individualism is not committed to the preservation and protection of life. A country that does not cherish the lives of its individual citizens loses its moral authority to exist. After all, the government is an institution developed to allow the people to work together for common goals without excessive intervention. Cavalier attitudes about individual lives cannot be a universally accepted national policy. Life, individual life, and liberty must be the latchkeys for entering the hall of government’s moral reason for existing. A government that values neither life nor individuals has forfeited its moral foundation and has no right to its own life.

Comment:    cearlwriting@hotmail.com       or        www.littlestuff-minoosha.blogspot.com

One for All

For a community or a government to protect individual freedom it must be based on moral behavior. There are some schools of thought that morality is strictly an individual consideration (e.g. relativism), but in order for a community of individuals to flourish, there should be a consensus regarding what constitutes moral behavior. Any other paradigm leads to anarchy and chaos. It seems apparent to me that in the United States today the moral foundations have crumbled, and we are balancing on the edge of mayhem. Although I believe the culture has become depraved, it is the moral structure of the body politic that I address today.


It is vital for a democratic republic that the citizens and the elected representatives share a moral vision that defines the public good while, at the same time, provides for maximum personal freedom. Clearly, there are elements of national existence that require collective action…national defense, foreign affairs, adjudication of contract disputes plus fair and just criminal codes…to name a few. If a democratically-based society is to survive and thrive, then the individual citizens must embrace a moral code that encourages maximum self expression while allowing for the coalescence of the nation to morally address issues of national concern. The Founders recognized the importance of the two-pronged approach and drafted a document (The Constitution) that provided the framework for its implementation. Sadly, over time the Founders’ vision has become distorted, and the Constitution has been twisted and perverted. Individual freedom, once shouted from the rooftops of the Republic, has been transformed into whimpering pleas from the cellars of the nation.

The Constitution and, theoretically, subsequent laws, rules and regulations represent a body of law that is anchored to a moral basis of individual liberty. Unfortunately, many of the laws (especially those expanding government power) have abandoned the anchor, and the country is adrift. Individual freedom has become a minor consideration in the governance of the Republic. It’s time for citizens who cherish their liberty to rise up and recapture the reins of power. How can this be achieved? By definition ..organizing individualists is akin to herding cats.

Please have patience as I identify those citizens most likely to successfully band together to seize the power and reassert the principles of personal liberty in the United States. First, let me state that I believe that people who cherish liberty are people of faith. In my view they represent three distinct points-of-view who share a burning passion for liberty. For the purposes of this discussion I’ll define them as believers, non-believers and anti-believers. Although these descriptions appear to be overly broad, I place them all in the context of faith…they’ve thought about faith, they’ve considered faith, and they’ve made decisions regarding faith. The believers have embraced supernatural faith. The non-believers have rationally chosen to ignore supernatural faith, and the anti-believers have determined that human capacity and human intellect are the sole determinants of human existence. In other words we have the believers, the rationalists and the humanists. Next I will describe how these various constituencies for freedom can successfully interact to restore individual liberty in the United States.

Because I am most familiar with the community of believers, I’ll begin with them. The Judeo-Christian tradition is one of a personal relationship with G_d. Although the Lord identified the Nation of Israel as His chosen people, He communicated through the Patriarchs and the prophets. Tradition Christian doctrine has emphasized the personal relationship via the act of salvation. The individual, recognizing that he/she is lost and depraved, accepts Christ (the Messiah) as Savior and is restored through Christ to a personal relationship with God. There have been some strains of thought within the church that have suggested universal salvation (everyone goes to heaven), but most traditional systematic theologies emphasize the personal nature of salvation and redemption. Anecdotally, one can note that in many societies across the globe, Christians are often persecuted or executed. The personal, individualistic elements of the faith make their allegiance and independence a threat to an autocratic society. In the United States today committed Christians are alarmed by governmental restrictions on the practicing of their faith. They see themselves as increasingly constrained. With good reason, many recognize that the Founders relied upon a Judeo-Christian foundation in the formation of the nation. It is understandable, therefore, that they equate the loss of personal liberty with the possibility of encroaching religious persecution. Because of their tragic history, the Jews have generally been apprehensive even to the point of fearing the motives of the Christians.

The non-believing rationalists just want to be left alone. They don’t want government dictating every little facet of their lives, and they don’t want the “church people” telling them how to live. They understand that there are instances that demand cooperation but do not want to be forced into unceasing alliances. Whether they know it or not, their guiding principle is Descartes “I think, therefore I am.” They examine the state of the nation and their personal position within it through the prism of ‘what makes sense.’ Rationalists are wary of believers…suspecting that their ultimate goal is the establishment of a theocratic state. Sometimes Rationalists suspect that believers are so heavenly focused that they’re no earthly good. To a lesser degree Rationalists view the humanists with some skepticism. Rationalists are aware of a universe beyond them. They choose to approach it rationally. The humanists, in their, view are too inner-directed…relying on feelings and perceptions.

True humanists as suggested above believe that all reality is based on the perception of the observer. The reason that anti-believing humanists would struggle to preserve individual freedom is that they resent any effort, by government or any ecclesiastical authority, to impose a definition of reality. They subscribe to the “to each his own” point of view. They yearn for …and demand that they have the freedom to maneuver within reality as they find it. An anecdotal example (an extreme one, I concede) of a dedicated humanist would be Cindy Sheehan. Her perception of the nation and its leadership seems extreme to many, but she endures…seeking to be heard.

So, how can we forge these disparate approaches into a coherent and effective force for freedom. Clearly, there is mistrust and distrust among them. Obviously, their goals and ends are at odds with one another. They share one overwhelming attribute: they have a burning passion for personal freedom. Each must yield some biases and reservations in order to achieve a common goal. The Believers, the community of faith, must be willing to forgo judgment, condemnation and proselytizing and allow the “fruits of the spirit” to be the evidence of faith while working in unity towards personal political freedom. The rationalists and humanists must refrain from minimizing and belittling the validity of faith-based commitment. Rationalists and people of faith must recognize that each human is either: a) created from the breath of God, or; b) rationality is projected from the internal to the other. Humanists must accept that recognition of a reality and source of Truth outside of the individual is not wild-eyed and bizarre, but is a means for understanding the unknowable. Total agreement and acceptance is not likely, but if these liberty loving individuals can put aside their vast differences, then perhaps this coalition can succeed.

None of these can restore freedom in the United States alone. For example, if evangelical Christians assume the mantle of restoration by themselves, the society-at-large fearing a movement to theocracy would vigorously fight them. The same is true for the other types of liberty restores. Everyone, whatever the theological or philosophical justification, who cherishes personal freedom must shed their biases and fight together…or individual liberty will ultimately perish in the United States of America.

Comments are encouraged: cnpearl@woh.rr.com

Part I: Alone in the Crowd  PartII: All for One  Part III: One for All