My faith is a very personal thing and I do not want any
government telling me how to worship or what to believe. Recently I have
received hundreds of emails from well meaning friends telling me [note not
asking but telling] to write President Obama and congress telling them that
this is a “Christian Nation.” They also want me to pass the message on to all
my friends. It would seem that there is a campaign afoot.
I do not think that they understand the term “Christian
Nation” or they would not send those emails. While we are a country whose
citizens are predominately members of the Christian faith, we are not now nor
have we ever been a “Christian Nation” and as a Christian Pastor I do not want
us to be so.
The term “Christian Nation” denotes a country that has
established an official relationship with a Christian .denomination.
England
is a “Christian Nation” because it has established an official Church/State
relationship with the Church of England. Queen Elizabeth is officially the head
of the Church of England. Spain
is a “Christian Nation” because it has established an official Church/State
relationship with the Roman Catholic Church.
Our founding fathers established this country as one that
provides its citizens with total freedom of
religion with a clear separation of church and state. One of those founding
fathers, Thomas Jefferson, wrote, “It
does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no god. It
neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.” We are a country that is in
fact very religious. Almost every religion in the world has believers living
here. Even though our money states, “In God We Trust”, we leave it to each
religion to define the term ‘god’. It does not say Christian God, Jewish god,
Muslim god, Hindu gods or Mormon god. Those who don’t believe in any god are
free to ignore the term altogether.
As a Christian Pastor, I believe that the separation of
church and state has been a major blessing for the Christian faith in America .
The church is stronger because it has not relied on the government for support
or recognition. With great wisdom the founding fathers placed in our
constitution the first amendment:
“Congress shall make no law
respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise
thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of
the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress
of grievances.”
We have always had other faiths than Christian in our
country and their rights to freedom of religion have been respected here. They
too are better off because of our great freedom of religion. All of our more
than three hundred denominations of the Christian faith in the USA have been
blessed and their rights of freedom of expression in the practice of their
faith are respected. That would not be true in a country where a particular religion
has been established as a state religion and it is the only one allowed. Think
about it folks we do not want the government telling us what church to belong
to, not even my church. Nor do we want the government collecting a “church tax”
from everyone and giving it to some “established” church that is state
approved. Religion is very personal, let’s leave the state out of it
altogether.
So, what about President Obama forcing the Catholic church to provide abortions and birth control, although these concepts are both against the teachings of the Church? Isn't that an intrusion of the state upon the church?
ReplyDeleteGood question with two points of view!
ReplyDelete1. I think it would be wrong for the government to force a church to actually provide abortions or force a believer to have them.
2. It is a different thing to provide equal health insurance coverage to everyone. If a non-church member working for a church related organization desires this coverage it should be available.
NOTE: this brings up other non related issues such as government mandatory national health insurance which I disagree with.
I think it is wrong to force a church to provide something with which they disagree. In this case, abortion and contraceptives should not be forced upon Catholic hospitals. It defeats the very purpose of the hospital's existence.
ReplyDelete