MY "PROPHECIES"

Kiffin,
However, as pointed out - it is not in the Constitution. It's in a letter to a Baptist congregation.
From inception of the Constitution until 1947, no Baptist organization or prominent Baptist person tried to validate this concept in a court of law. It was the ACLU and the court's interpretation of one man's private opinion.

Also, where in the Baptist Faith Message does it say the Church is not to be involved in affairs of government. It says the Church should not take civil actions and that the State should protect the Church'c rights. The Church has every right to be involved in State.

[ July 13, 2002, 10:48 AM: Message edited by: Optional ]

 

Optional,

I never said Christians cannot serve in political office or be involved in politics. I encourage that. When the Church however gets involved in politics and that includes not only those in the Religious right (Falwell, Robertson etc...) but also the religious Left (Sharpton, Jackson etc..) we lose sight of our mission to fulfill the Great Commission. Churches endorsing candidates or becoming to closely aligned with a Political party is dangerous. Churches should preach the Gospel an yes preach against the sins of the Government be it Abortion, Gambling and Immorality in hign places.

In the end it is irrelevant what the Consitution says on the subject since the Church is not bound to any nation. The Separation of Church and State is a Baptist distinctive that goes back to our Anabaptist forbears in the 1500's and the Apostolic Churches played no role in politics. It was in the 300's they eventually did and the results were apostasy, heresy until the Reformation. The Gospel changes hearts not legislation.

 

Browsing said,

Highly doubtful. The Church however will continue on regardless. There are 85-140 million Christians in China, a growing Church in Vietnam despite the fact the Government persecutes them. A good government does not insure Godliness in a nation no more than a Bad one. We had 12 years of Reagan-Bush 1980-92 who were both profamily and prolife and I dare say did the culture change?

Our current state of affairs is because Churches have failed to carry out the Great Commission not because of some stupid ruling by the Supreme Court. Also Separation of Church and State is not about us divorcing our Christianity from politics or the removing of Nativity scenes from public places, censoring graduation speeches. I encourage Christian polticians to speak of their faith.

And neither will legislation from Washington. The Holy Spirit alone changes hearts and not the U.S. Constitution.

But which God? A American Generic god? The Deist god of Jefferson and Frankin? Many of the founding Fathers (Washington, Madison) were godly Christians yet others were deists (Jefferson,Franklin) and one was a athiest (Thomas Paine). The USA has never been a Christian country.

Using OT Israel is comparing Apples and Oranges. The OT Law required Israel to be a theocracy. Israel was God's covenant people but America is not. In the Gospel age, the Church is Israel's successor and we are God's covenant people but no nation on earth is.

People in the this nation can only be changed by the Gospel not Washington. Trying to get Washington to run this country on Christian principles is like putting a Band aid over a busted jugglar vein. You cannot moralize a country.

 

Problem with that is what do you do when Islam is running the state? Still think there will be "separation of church and state?" Not likely.</font>[/QUOTE]If Islam is running the state, it is not likely that our Constitution (or the nation with freedom as we know it) would survive. But the Constitution protects all minority religions from the most popular religion or denominations.

No one is talking about "removing God" from anywhere. God is not like a stone idol that can be relocated. Institutional separation of church and state does not do anything to God -- but it does allow everyone the opportunity to worship God according to their conscience without the government butting in.

The people of our nation have many roots. Our nation has also had a long history of persecution (especially against Baptists in the pre-Constitution days). Just because some affirmed the Christian faith does not mean that they would give you the freedom to do the same if you disagreed with their about infant baptism. By the way, if we had a Muslim foundation, we wouldn't be having this conversation -- there wouldn't be any sort of religious freedom -- so I'm at a loss to understand why you bring it us unless you are making some sort of rhetorical point...

As individuals yes, but don't ask the government to favor your religion. And institutional separation of church and state does not ask persons serving in public office to divorce their faith from their politics, unless it violates the Constitution.

Honestly I don't think an ideal world consists of people acting like robots... And if there are people biased against Christianity, they are prevented from acting against us by institutional separation of church and state. I've lived 38 years and have very closely followed this issue (to the point of reading most of the Supreme Court decisions involving the First Amendment protections of religious liberty) for the last decade and have noticed how well it works.

Really? Care to give a few examples?

Institutional separation of church and state protects us from the sin nature of others in regard to religious liberty, but it can't change the heart. (I think that's what you're talking about here.)

Well, Solomon didn't know who Jesus was either... Things are quite a bit different from the theocracy of Israel. God established Israel to build a culture ready to present the Messiah to the world. When Jesus came, the emphasis moved away from a nation of God in political Israel to a spiritual Israel made us of believers from every tongue and tribe.

We have a calling to take the gospel to all people so that they can turn to God... not to try to make government laws to compel people to pretend to have religious faith. As you said before, institutional separation of church and state cannot change the nature of a human being. Why would we think that laws will have any effect moving people to true Christian faith?

I'm not sure if Solomon believed in the Trinity either, but that doesn't make the doctrine of the Trinity invalid. I'm not a fan of godless secularists running the country either, but that has little to do with institutional separation of church and state. Institutional separation of church and state does not keep Christian men and women from serving in public office according to their conscience.

You are entitled to your opinion, that's another benefit of institutional separation of church and state that you enjoy. But I want you to read something about Obadiah Holmes, a Baptist who was persecuted by Massachusetts Bay Colony. This may make things more clear for you:

http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~sam/obadiah.html

 

"Separation of church and state" is a shorthand phrase that does a very good job of describing the intent of the First Amendment. The First Amendment's religious section has two clauses:

1.)Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion
2.)or prohibiting the free exercise thereof

The first clause insists that the federal government not legislate any sort of establishment of religion, whether that would be a state church, a state creed, a religious test or the promotion of religion over non-religion. In it's day, it also meant that the federal government could not undermine the state churches established in some colonies like Massachusetts with its Congregational church establishment. (People were a little nervous about the power of a national government so soon after the Revolution.)

The second clause is a little easier for us to understand -- government should not prohibit the *free* exercise of religion according to the individual conscience. Did you notice the word "free"? It's not in there just to look nice. It states two things: first, that individuals have the right to exercise religion without the supervision of government (as long as it doesn't break any laws or violate someone else's rights) and second. by implication, that there should not be any government compulsion to practice religion. (It is freedom *of* religion and freedom *from* religion at the same time.)

Thomas Jefferson and James Madison worked with Baptists in Virginia to dis-establish the state church with the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom (1786). Note that it occured between the passage of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution:

http://www.worldpolicy.org/americas/religion/va-religiousfreedom.html

A look at the rest of the history preceding the passage of the First Amendment only affirms what I have said here. Religious people, Baptists especially, agitated to have separation of church and state included in the Constitution.

That's quite an assertion...

The reason that the First Amendment did not come to the forefront in the Supreme Court is that the Bill of Rights technically only protected citizens from the power of the FEDERAL governement. The state governments did not have that restriction, but Congress insisted on religious liberty and separation of church and state for all new states before they could become part of the Union.

But the issue of state's rights came to a head in the Civil War. After the Southern States were defeated, the federal government wanted to do something to provide the protection of the Bill of Rights to all Americans, whether they be black, brown, yellow or white and passed the 14th Amendment (1868) which made everyone born in this country a citizen of the United States. (Previously, persons were citizens of a state and then through their state's membership in the Union, citizens of the United States.) Now the power of the First Amendment was the law for even the original colonies who had not passed their own legislation. This event is often called by legal scholars as the "incorperation" of the Bill of Rights to the states.

Through the next 70 years, the religious liberty cases were mostly handled by lower courts, but many state judges were not very well versed in the First Amendment. Many still used "Blackstone's Commentaries" on law as an important guide to making decisions. (Blackstone's Commentaries were written in according to English law that still includes a state-controlled and sponsored church.)

The first time the "free exercise" clause was incorperated in a Supreme Court decision was in Cantwell v. Connecticut (1940) -- Jehovah's Witnesses wanted the right to evangelize door to door. The first time the "establishment clause" was incorperated in a Supreme Court decision was in Everson v. Board of Education (1947) -- there was a question whether a New Jersey school board should provided bus services to children attending a Roman Catholic school.

It seems the ACLU has only been brought in to this conversation to demonize the separation of church and state view. Just because the ACLU happens to support it doesn't mean it is evil. As far as separation of church and state being "one man's private opinion' (Jefferson, I assume), that point of view demonstrates a lack of understand of the historical backdrop of the First Amendment.

Yes. Quite true, but I don't think you've misunderstood what Kiffin meant...

[ July 13, 2002, 01:10 PM: Message edited by: Baptist Believer ]

 

BB;

Amen, brother.

 

Ernie;

Do you suppose it would be more honest if they started with a Black Mass?

 

I don't find such wording in the First Amendment. Historically, the First Amendment was to prevent the federal government from favoring one denomination over another, as the practice in Europe was. The founders expected this to be a nation that followed the Ten Commandments. Don't all of our laws flow from these?

Ken

 

I don't find such wording in the First Amendment. </font>[/QUOTE]Did you even read my post and investigate the links?

You won’t find the word "Trinity" in the Bible either, but I hope you don’t think it’s not a biblical doctrine just because you don’t see the word… You won’t find "innocent until proven guilty" in the Constitution either, but the principle is there. I know you’re smarter than to have to see the exact wording to recognize that it is true. "Separation of church and state" is a shorthand way of explaining the two clauses of the religious freedom portion of the First Amendment .

Sound like an exact quote for the so-called "Christian historian" David Barton or something D. James Kennedy said in a sermon… In short, that’s nonsense. You need to get some good information.

The best thing you can do when you hear things like this is to actually go read the documents for themselves… not the parts that "Christian" historians quote/misquote you, but look up the documents in the library on online. (If you *are* getting that from David Barton, try spending a day looking up his footnotes and checking him for accuracy… you won’t believe a word he says when you finish!)

Also remember that the idea of institutional separation of church and state was not a unanimous decision. Many historians trying to disprove the concept or say it is a modern invention only quote from one side of the argument and claim it to be the universal sentiment. Try reading the Virginia Bill for Religious Liberty to see that separation of church and state was supported by Jefferson and Madison:

http://www.worldpolicy.org/americas/religion/va-religiousfreedom.html

Try reading James Madison’s "A Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments" (a polemic against taxing citizens for the purpose of supporting religion):

http://religiousfreedom.lib.virginia.edu/sacred/madison_m&r_1785.html

Yes, some of our founders did expect our country to follow the moral teachings of Christianity, but most of them did not think that enforcing commands to worship God alone (1st commandment), not make idols (2nd commandment) or use God’s name lightly (3rd commandment) were things the government should enforce.

[ July 15, 2002, 12:44 AM: Message edited by: Baptist Believer ]

 

BB,
You seem to really have a burr under your saddle for David Barton ( didn't know who he was until we started this) and Kennedy (who I've only seen a couple of times).
I don't listen to guys like this for my politics.
I patiently read your links and have to say - what a streeeetcch! To get separation of Church and State from 1st amendment takes a lot of manipulating.
I suppose we'll just have to agree to disagree on this one.

 

Yep. David Barton is actually a local guy who has had nation-wide influence and has deceived many people. His materials are used by many Christian teachers as authoritative guides to American history so you may not know if you have actually been affected by his teachings.

If you check David Barton’s work you will discover he actively misquotes, misuses and misrepresents founding documents and twists them to his own views. He has been discredited by many reputable Christian and secular historians, but he still has a hold on people because he sounds so convincing when he presents his lies.

I’ve been butting up against him for at least a decade.

Good for you!

Well okay. Let me see if I can locate some better reading materials for you.

Thanks!

 

Baptist Believer -

All I have to say is preach on ! I only very recently came to understand the freedom that separation of church and state (1st Amendment) actually provides for us. I have been reading these posts and can see that you really have a grasp on the issue. Thanks for sharing