Jul 20 2008
The Right to be Wrong
It’s a fine line that gets walked when the subject of the separation of church and state comes to the forefront. Some people claim that the U.S. Constitution protects the citizen from the forced morality of those who might otherwise cram a set of standards down their throat. Some look at the reality that today, many churches find themselves in the position of being unable to take dogmatic stances on the pressing social issues of the day and demand that the state lift it’s hand of oppressive censorship. Though some may disagree with the way I read the Constitution, I see an intention set out by the founding fathers that would prevent the state from interfering with the establishment of a religion or from mandating a forced national religion. But is this really what is happening?
If you were to ask anyone who firmly believes in the faith that they practice, they might express the desire that no religion, (except their’s), should influence the actions of government. Perhaps I fall into that camp as well but I think that it’s more than that. I believe that since God is perfect in His righteousness, without fault in the application of His justice and loving in His care of us, that we should allow, rather demand, the core principles of right, justice and love to be the basis of public policy in America. The problem is that the cry goes up, “Who do we allow to set the standard of right, justice and love to prevail? What makes the God that you believe in any more qualified than mine!” These points are valid but not insurmountable. The obstacle that must be overcome is the notion that everybody can be right at the same time. They can’t.
Truth can not be proven wrong. An ill-conceived idea based in what is thought to be true, may be seen as wrong and therefore amended but truth, God’s absolute perfect rule, this can never be proven wrong. For example, it is impossible to prove that the world is flat. Even though, prior to the 1500’s, people were convinced that to sail off over the horizon was to be lost forever in the expanse of space, it simply isn’t so. All the research in the world could never have proven the status quo, that the earth was flat. Why not? Because the earth is round! The more the issue gets studied, the closer one gets to the truth, and the truth is that God created the earth as an orb. So what changed? The earth did not adjust it’s shape to fit the newly obtained information, it was always round; the mistaken concept put forth by mortal men was made to conform to the evidence that the edge of the earth could not be reached. This is God’s absolute truth in the matter of the shape of the planet.
In similar fashion, God’s truth weaves it’s way through every aspect of our existence. This truth needs to be involved in the actions of government in order for that government to be able to operate and make advances in a manner that can only be realized when the precepts are built on the bedrock of an unalterable foundation. Not only do we not have this type of government, we have instead, one that does interfere with the establishment of religion. This, at the same time it legislates tolerance, and the most outrageous protections for those who promote the most outrageous behaviors including even the desire to defile the sanctity of life. The government can not allow a religion that holds the tenet of polygamy, or one that might practice ritual murder to thrive. If even an animal sacrifice were to be proposed, a host of animal rights protesters would stand in, government supported, outrage. I do not condone multiple spouses, animal sacrifices or murder in any form. The point is that the U.S. government intrudes upon the supposed separation clause by holding certain practices illegal, on moral grounds. Interestingly, some practices like abortion are allowed, even protected, with total disregard for the moral ground that opposes those types of practices.
What is really happening is not that people are upset that religion may influence the machine politico, but that the Christian point of view may intrude on the supposed freedoms that they have come to accept as being rightfully theirs. How can we, who will not allow a group of students to assemble in Christian prayer unopposed, allow Hamtramck, Michigan, just east of Dearborn, to vote to use a loudspeaker system to call their large Muslim population to prayer 5 times a day. What about the rights of the non-Muslim citizens that are forced to be subjected to a blatant endorsement of faith by the city government? It is not a matter of separating church and state, it is only a matter of keeping Christ, the truth of Christ, away from state policy.
In an election year, we hear a lot of people clamoring that the religious viewpoints of the candidates should be put off limits. To do anything else is to violate the artificial barrier that supposedly divides church and state. I assert that this may be the single most important element of the character of our elected officials and not only needs exposure, but should be made the most prominent feature of a candidate’s platform. The decision of a person’s faith affiliation speaks volumes when considering their ability to make an intelligent decision. If the front-runner were a person who believed that we could use all the planet’s resources in any manner we liked because the aliens would replenish our supply before it became critical, or if in the attempt to curb population, they wanted to encourage the abortion of every second child while making the procedure mandatory for all pregnancies in those who already have two children, wouldn’t we want to know about it before they took office and started issuing executive orders? Perhaps we should disband the armed forces because we can always just call down fire from Heaven to consume our enemies the same way it is recorded in the Old Testament of the Bible. Everyone knows that the solution to teen pregnancy is the ready availability of contraception. In fact, lets imprison all parents who do not put their daughters on some form of birth control by the time they reach their 10th birthday. These types of convictions say a lot about the person’s ability to make decisions.
As far fetched as some of this might sound, it is really no different, at least in principal, to some of the things that are proposed by those who diligently seek office. The faith position of a political candidate is crucial. While I agree that the government should be restrained from interfering in the formation of any religion, I adamantly support the necessity of truth in government and the need for that government to prosecute the illegal offenses of the church. But the action that is legislated as illegal needs to be made by elected officials who are firmly grounded in the truth. Since truth, real and absolute truth, originates with God, God should be a major part of the political selection process. If you want to vote for a person that believes that the message sent to be read by one man with magic golden glasses surpasses the entire validity of the Christian Bible, then by all means, do! I choose not to. Neither would I vote for the candidate who professed to worship at the feet of idols. The fact that I believe differently than these that I have mentioned does not mean that I would not defend their right to make a choice that I do not happen to agree with. It may be that the faith claim of any candidate is insufficient to base the entire voting decision on, but the public has the need to know the things that shape the decision making potential of their political representatives and their chief executive. The need of the public to have this type of information should not be viewed as a violation of a principle, but as a necessity that is desperately needed in order to be able to fulfill that principle.
America, for all her problems, has long been thought of as the country that enjoys the highest standard of living in the world. I thank God that He chose to place me here as opposed to the millions of other places that I could have been born. Can I prove that the blessings received by this nation are a direct result of the Christian tenets that were used to help forge the operation of this new nation? Though I believe that they certainly played a large part, I can not conclusively offer that proof. But neither can you prove that they weren’t. We might each conclude that the other is wrong, but we have that right. Even if I think that you are dead wrong, you must vote your conscience. If you are Wiccan, Hindu, Buddhist or Muslim, you might not want to vote for the Christian candidate, but you need this information as much as the Christian does in order to make an informed decision.
We all have the right to be wrong. We also have the obligation to try to be right. Is one faith more true than all the others? I believe the answer is yes, but you may disagree with the religion that I set at the top of the heap. That’s OK. I trust God will move in His providence to place the candidate He wishes to use in the position to fulfill His ends. I can not agree with the radical Muslim who might want a leader to declare open warfare on his population of non-Islamic infidels for the sake of appeasing Allah. I can not support the candidate that wants all our children immersed in homosexual or other deviant lifestyles which are then called normal. Our next generations need to see the world for what it is, tolerate that people maintain differences but that there are limits to the things that are normal, there is truth and there is one Holy God that is in ultimate control. It is possible that God could put another Hitler, Mussolini, or Emperor Hirohito in office as our next president. If that were to happen though, we would have to submit to the God of Heaven, who in His divine omniscience, “…works all things to the good for those who love Him.”
All for the Glory of Christ