God & Government.

Yesterday at Boots and Sabers Owen opened the "God and Politics" (multiple blogs) subject. In particular objected to the fact the Churchill protestors at UW-Whitewater used a prayer vigil to protest Churchill's appearance. That has been discussed quite a bit already. Bryan at "Sanity in Mad City", Jib at Jiblog and myself have weighed in on that particular subject.

Previous items where I have talked about God and Politics may be found at:
Why the Religious Voter Tends Republican and Religion and Democracy a attempt at response to Ali at Iraq the Model.

So this is where we stand.

Yesterday Owen stated But I don't really want to discuss the interaction between religion and the government. Instead, I want to discuss the relationship between religion and politics. In my mind, "politics" is that nebulous area of public debate whose end result is the enactment of policy through the government. Politics can be engaged in by anyone who takes an interest.

This note is religion and government.

Again Owen states thusly:
Despite the fact that our government does not derive its power from a divine source, religion has always been, and always will be, a massive component of society.

I dispute this notion. I did not yesterday as that discussion focused on politics the art of convincing others to believe as you do and the art of maneuvering ones opponents into bad situations. This is a deeper set of thoughts.

Our government does derive its power from the Divine and the Divine wants us to be at liberty. The second great story of the Bible is a lesson in freedom. Freedom given and freedom abused. God commands Adam and Eve not to eat of the "forbidden fruit" but God did not place any impediment to prevent forbidden fruit consumption, that is God gave Adam and Eve the choice, the freedom to do as they will. Obviously God hoped Adam and Eve would not choose to eat the forbidden fruit but they did. Now, some may object that it wasn't freedom because they were driven from the garden. Well, that is what we call the cost of choice. Sure, we are advised not to shoot heroin, we have laws against it, but when one shoots heroin there are consequences of that action. A needle mark, possible overdose death, very possible addiction and all that entails. So Adam and Eve learned they were free to do as they will but they were not free from consequences. God wants us at liberty and wants us to love him of our own free will. God is not some sadist trying to coerce our love as some abusive lover.

Now how does this apply to government? If God wants us to be at liberty (really it is liberty, Cain was not free to murder Abel) then this must mean a system of government that promotes and protects liberty must be his preferred choice. This does imply the governance of the Church in the Middle Ages was not God's ideal system, only now are we coming to a fuller understanding of what God wants.

Separation of Church and State does not play into this at all (not yet at least) and the idea of separation of church and state is an idea gone amok. Freedom of belief is being attacked, freedom of association is being attacked, freedom of speech is being attacked, and federalism is being attacked all in the name of separation of church and state. The Separators (the ACLU, People for the separation of Church and State etc) are working to purge our nation of religious belief.

Further discussion of The Separators, their agenda and how to fight them is for another post though.

Cheers & God Bless.