Church and Civil Government, Part III

I was reading a blog from Pastor Doug Wilson and he wrote an excellent piece on the separation of church and state in a post. The post is in response to an atheist he has debated in the past, who is railing against the Christmas season. Here is an excerpt from the blog regarding the church and the civil government...

The United States Constitution does not mandate separation of church and state. The phrase "wall of separation" comes from a letter that Jefferson wrote to the Danbury Baptists, and that phrase has no constitutional authority or ground. It was Jefferson's opinion, which, when he was alive, he had a right to. What the Constitution actually mandates with regard to religion is two-fold -- one, the non-establishment of a national church by act of Congress, and two, non-interference with the free exercise of religion by Congress. Got that? No Church of the United States, comparable to the Church of Denmark, or the Church of England. When the Constitution was ratified, nine of the thirteen colonies had established state churches at the state level. There is no conflict if the national bird is different from the various state birds, or the national flower from the state flowers, and so on. But if one Christian denomination were privileged at the national level, this could and would lead to conflicts with the established churches at the state level. Prior to the War Between the States, the country was governed on true federalist principles, and all this made sense. But get this down. The Constitution prohibits establishing a national denomination and supporting it with tax money. It does not require every branch of civil government, down to the smallest municipalities, to ignore the nature and will of the triune God. Still less does it require them to pretend that Jesus Christ, by His birth in Bethlehem, did not actually come to establish a new humanity in His own person and work.

Church and Civil Government, Part II

To continue from my last blog, church and state 'overlap' too much when a pastor becomes a mayor. If the argument is that pastors should not preach about politics, nations and the world we live in, I disagree. Reverend Jeremiah Wright is a kook. However that does not mean all pastors are kooks and that they all lead their flock astray. If a pastor does not lead his congregation in a certain area, who does? CNN, Newsweek? Yikes!! To expand on my earlier point...is Wright only a kook when he talks about the 'state'? Safe to say no. No matter what he is preaching on, he could be leading the flock astray. That is for the people who attended his church to decide and judge…we are commanded to…

19Do not put out the Spirit's fire; 20do not treat prophecies with contempt. 21Test everything. Hold on to the good. 22Avoid every kind of evil. 1 Thessalonians 5 (New International Version)

The biblical references for the type of pastors I am talking about are the prophets Amos and Jeremiah. They spoke against the political establishment of their day. Their message was "knock off the sin, thus sayeth the Lord. God's judgment with fall on all of us!" We need pastors who speak the truth and declare the need for repentance to our political leaders. After all, who else will?

Church and Civil Government

I believe in the separation of Church and state…after all God ordained it. He created three governments. The Family Government, the Church Government and the Civil Government. Each one has responsibilities and duties. The civil should be separate from the church. In other words a pastor should not be the mayor of a township or the governor of a state. However the governments do overlap. Here is an illustration…lets say a math teacher goes to a diner for breakfast. He orders three eggs over-easy. Fifteen minutes later two eggs appear in front of him. He tells the cook…”Hey I ordered three eggs!” The cooks replies…”Do not tell me how to cook!” The math teacher responds with…”I’m not…I telling you how to count.” Their professions overlap. The same is true with the church and politics. When our government leaders meddle in sin we need pastors to stand up and declare God’s law and truth. When babies are slaughtered on a daily basis and marriage is redefined in this nation we need pastors to say…”Knock it off…thus sayeth the Lord!”