Post election interview with Roy Moore. The People did not understand.

What New Testament justification can one give for wanting a human government to provide "the knowledge of God"?

Shouldn't that be the realm of the church?

Why would the Christian God be interested in a human government urging pagans to recite prayers and pledges that they don't believe?

 

50 words or less, Dale: What was he saying?

Joseph Botwinick

 

Just what you posted... But after you responded I decided to go read the interview to see if I was completely out-of-line.

It doesn't get any better.

Here's some quotes from the interview with my comments following:

"All Constitutions of every state at some level recognize God, as does the First Amendment of the United States Constitution..."

There is no mention of God in many state constitutions and certainly not in the First Amendment. While it is true that many groups that fight for religious liberty and pushed for separation of church and state through the passing of the First Amendment based their views on their faith in God and the New Testament, the text itself can't "recognize God".

"And I think that is the basis of the debate going on in our country today. Whether or not we can recognize a sovereign God who grants us our rights and our liberties. And that’s something we need to be awakened to."

That's the realm of the church, not the state.

"We're [that is, those who support separation of church and state are] simply trying to rid the society of the understanding and recognition of the sovereign God."

Nope.

Baptists who support the traditional and biblical understanding of religious liberty are working to spread the knowledge of God and keep the government from interfering with that mission.

"They have been removing the knowledge of God — they’ve called it other things — prayer in school — they called it religious displays — they’ve called it words in the Pledge of Allegiance — but all it is is removing any concept of the knowledge of God."

Again, the role of the government is not to provide knowledge of God, that's the role of the church.

What New Testament justification do we have for wanting the government to promote any religious practice -- even practices we agree with?

"When we understand that all law — you know, in the beginning of our country, the basic legal text for our lawyers was Blackstone’s Commentary and that went up to the late 1800’s and early 1900’s Blackstone’s Commentary was what we turned back to, because it contained the common law, the laws of England, from which our laws were formed. And in those commentaries it said very clearly upon these two foundations the law was founded — the law of nature and law of revelation didn’t depend on human laws. That is to say, no human law should be suffered to contradict these. In other words, they understood the law of nature, and the law of revelation from the Bible, contained all laws, and that no laws could supercede those laws."

Um... the laws of England were developed in a country that has a state church.

There was a little event in 1776 where we declared our independence!

A state church is one of the things we explicitly rejected, and something Baptists have always resisted.

Blackstone's Commentaries are a fine legal reference, but the reader has to understand that the law it describes comes from a political/religious situation our nation rejected.

 

Once again, renegade, ousted Judge Moore gets it wrong. It's not that the people didn't understand. Fortunately, they understood all too well what Moore is all about, and soundly rejected him.

 

How does the state suppress the "knowledge of God" by demanding that the state be religiously neutral?

Let me see if I understand this reasoning...

As Christians, we must demand that the state acknowledge God or somehow we, who do acknowledge God, are personally guilty before God of idolatry?

That's very strange.

Here are some things to think about:

1. The mechanism of a state or federal government is not a living person that can either acknowledge or disavow God.
2. The demons believe and acknowledge God, but that does not relieve them of their guilt of idolatry (rebellion)
3. I think God has very little interest in "official" acknowledgement of his existence (I doubt He is impressed by the kingdoms of this world)
4. Jesus is not interested in those who say, "Lord, Lord" and do not do what He says to do. And that goes for governments, churches, and individuals. (And just where does Jesus teach us to try to get official acknowledgement of Him written into our official government documents and practices?)

 

Not in this country; we are governed by laws specifically agreed upon by men, not dictated by God. The 10 Commandments are not law here and a couple of them are directly contradicted while several more are unenforceable.

Asking for the favor of God is hardly the same as writing the laws of God into the state law books. How many of God's laws can be found there and how many laws that are man's?

How did people between Adam and Abraham manage to have civil governments? Many of the governments of the ancient Chinese were quite complex.

How do you (not Webster) define idolatry?

 

But if the state by removing the 'God' of Christianity is not removing the god of humanism, antheism, witchcraft, materialism, etc...ad naesuem....then we have a conflict of the church/state notion. The state can't be neutral just as we Christians can't be neutral...all of us saved or unsaved are either moving closer to God or further away from God.

Yes, I said and meant even the unsaved have a relationship with God. Because Christ died for them and he offers them a gift of eternal life; they just don't accept and each rejection is movement further from God's cajoling and hardens their heart just a little bit more until they are turned over to their own destruction. But there are some unsaved who are curious and still open to the tugging of the Holy Spirit leading them towards accepting this gift and towards eternal life.

So back on point the State has to replace the "God-less" void with something...and can never be neutral! I think the article was speaking accurately when it implied that it is a concerted effort to remove God from our everyday lives and our institutions...but you guys knew this. Because this effort to remove/replace God has been going on throughout the ages through physical persecution or through religious perversion and even through compromise (much like nowadays).

Regarding the government...you are wrong...the government is not meant to be a secular institution. God historically chose the rulers of His people and they were not always prophets or preachers some were warriors, kings, kids, and women. But the Lord always expected them to be followers of Him. Now all of a sudden over the last 100 yrs or so we want to have this big separation of one God-established institute from another? Scary and I personally think unbiblical! I think more Christians and churches need to be involved in the political process...because the devil's people sure are! If, as someone said earlier, it is the churches responsibility to keep God first and foremost in our Christian nation then we are doing a poor job of it! God is to be involved and leading in the 3 institutions that He established...the family, the government, and the church!! So leave Him in all of them and stop letting the politicians get rid of Him!!

While I don't know what Judge Moore's religious affliation or practice is; I can agree with the fact that we need to be more aware of this attack on God and all things referencing God...because if they can do it with the government then the church will be next and finally the home...study communism in a number of countries...read biographies about Russian Christians...and learn of the danger we maybe in, if we continue to allow it and sit idly by.

It is so sad that we allow our convictions, beliefs, and practices to be sacrificed on the altar of political correctness and allow Satan's forces to gain the upper hand through tolerance of homosexuality, abortion, divorce, etc. So my brother and sisters I urge you to be on guard!!

 

You are confusing the institution of the state – a mechanism of laws and organizational structures – with persons.
A state can easily be religiously neutral by showing no preference or animosity toward any religion or no religion.

There is no void since the state can’t be inhabited by God or the lack of God.

Just how does a government “remove God” from our everyday lives? Do you still remember to pray, even when the government doesn’t prompt you? Do you still go to church, even though the government doesn’t suggest it? Does God still speak to you, even though the government has not expressly given Him permission?

Only idols can be displaced by a government.

And where is the church? Shouldn’t the church be bringing the awareness of God to our culture? Didn’t Jesus commission the church to go and make disciples that will do all the things that He taught?

One of the surest ways, demonstrated over and over again in history, to get perversion and compromise into the church is to tie human politics (the art of compromise) to the church.

But the United States is not the spiritual nation of Israel, and we have been given no New Testament mandate to organize a theocracy that has the power of the sword. The church is the only God-mandated theocracy in existence today.

If you’ll check your Baptist history, you’ll find that Baptists have been advocating separation of church and state for centuries.

Historically, Baptists have always promoted religious liberty and separation of church and state because of a biblical conviction. You may disagree with the interpretation, but this viewpoint has a long and widely-held basis in the Old and New Testament.

 

Using Alabama's constitution to support any position is a really, really bad idea.

The same preamble tha "invokes the favor of Almighty God" also invokes the rightness of segregation and the supremacy of whites.

I voted with joy against Roy Moore.

 

It is not possible to be neutral. Iether you are for God or against him. Neutrality belongs to Satan.

Luke 11:23 He that is not with me is against me:

Jesus Christ

 

If you're going to make jokes ike that, you may want to put a smiling emoticon in there somehwere.

 

I am a bit confused by your sentence structure... Are you implying that there are people on this board who are atheists, or are you saying that there are people here who are siding with atheists?

 

As I mentioned previously, you are mixing categories of things. You are confusing the mechanisms of government with persons.

Where did you get the idea that satan is neutral?

Jesus is dealing with people who have seen great evidence of the Kingdom of God in their midst and will not commit to Him. He is not talking about the mechanism of government. He had plenty of opportunities to talk about the government of the Roman Empire, but chose to limit His discussion to tell His followers to “render to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and render to God what is God’s” – clearly demonstrating how one of His disciples should approach the separate realms of church and state.

Luke 9:50 "...he who is not against you is for you." – Jesus Christ