Christian Tyranny

The Dec. 9th, 2007 issue of the Washington Post Magazine features an article entitled "The Trials and Tribulations of Hashmel Turner." The byline: "An unassuming small-town preacher and his unconventional lawyer are trying to win the right to pray to Jesus at city council meetings." At issue is the alleged right of a city council member to pray in Jesus' name. The case, Hashmel C. Turner Jr. v. The City Council of the City of Fredericksburg, may advance to the Supreme Court where the "right to pray" in city council meetings will either be enshrined into federal law or prohibited.

What is the purpose of the State in this world? Is it to function as a religious organization? Many would like to think so. The Religious Right speaks with wistful nostalgia of the golden age of a Christian America, and many speak of America as the modern day Israel, representing the cause of Christ before a fallen world. Socialists also believe the State to be a religious entity. Sin is defined as social injustice in this scheme, and redemption is found through the power of State to remedy social evils.

The traditional political dichotomy of liberal v. conservative proves itself to be unhelpful when it comes to Church-State tensions. Both ideological groups tend to view Christianity as a means to an end. Liberals have typically viewed the Church and the State as cooperative entities, working together for social justice. Conservatives have typically view the Church and State as competitive entities, in which the Church must harness the power of the State in order to promote and enforce a code of civic virtues.

What is the Christian position? Christ said that His Kingdom was not of this world. Instead of riding into Jerusalem on a mighty military steed and implementing a theocratic state, He rode into Jerusalem on a lowly donkey and bore a Roman cross, instituting the theocracy of the Church in the process. He instructed people to render unto Caesar what belonged to him and to God what belongs to Him. The Kingdom advances on this earth when the Church proclaims the redemptive message of the Gospel.

What results have past intermingling of Church and State borne in history? One needs only look at the Crusades for a clear example of the Church inappropriately wielding the sword of the State. Roman-Catholic tyranny and its usurpation of the throne of Christ with a mere man may likewise be tied to its political interests. In fact, every authoritarian regime in world history has by definition taken upon itself religious properties in order to exact its power.

Was America ever a Christian nation? Never. It was founded upon such religious principles as natural law and an awareness of sin, liberty and the need of the government to preserve the integrity of the family and Church to attend to religious matters. Christian? No. It could best be labeled as a blessed period in which God, in His common grace, imbued the American consciousness with an extraordinary sense of civic righteousness.

Is there such a thing as a Christian nation? There is no such thing. The State is a God-ordained insitution (Gen. 4), which is specifically areligious. Ideally, the State preserves the right of the Church to maintain its redemptive prerogatives. The usurpation of religious functions by the State necessarily comes at the expense of the Church and the family. Likewise, the Church, by aiding and abetting this diabolical usurpation, becomes a tool in the hand of idolatrous man rather than Almighty God.

The Twentieth Century has seen an unwarranted transfer of religious power from the Church to the State. As a result, the Church often finds itself corrupt and spiritually impotent and the State has become a bureaucratic monstrosity that competes with the Christian remnant for the spiritual vitality of human souls.

In the aforementioned article, Turner is described as living "through bad times: segregation, bomb shelters, the Vietnam War. But something was different. 'Before, it seems like things came from somewhere outside. Now it seems like America is eroding from within.'" Within that statement, one finds the modernist quest to put the Church and State in bed together and make pseudo-spiritualized pagan babies. Something was different in the twentieth century: evil had come to be viewed as an exterior force, such as segregation, Hitler's Germany, or Tojo's Japan. In the 21st century, such absurd simplifications are discarded and the the disturbing realities of every human heart are coming to light.

At least Turner's lawyer is consistent--he appeals for the same rights to sectarian prayer for Muslims and Wiccans as he does for Christians. Conservatives are right to stress that the Church-State separation is intended more as a buffer for the Church's right to free expression than as a wall with which to exclude religious voices from public venues (the latter opinion was voiced by the bigot, Thomas Jefferson, years after the Constitution). They are not right, however, in assuming that religious disciplines, such as prayer, are appropriate and beneficial for the State. The battle for public prayer should not be between sectarian and non-sectarian prayer, but between prayer generally and an absence of prayer. The latter should be preferred.

"Teacher's can't control kids anymore because the government took God out of all these places," said one member of Turner's church. Really? Perhaps kids are uncontrollable because the government took upon itself the responsibility of raising children--a responsibility entirely unsuitable for an areligious entity. Two other members of Turner's church said that it didn't matter whether one prayed to God or Allah because "Everyone is praying to the same God." That is what happens when the Church submits her prerogatives to the State. The Enlightenment figures had their goddess of reason; Americans have their goddess of non-sectarian spiritual virtue.

In the West, the Church has largely prostituted herself to the nations, much as Israel did in the Old Testament. Is it any surprise then that the vital centers of the Church are developing in third-world countries? America has not failed--the Church failed by handing the keys of the Kingdom to an entity which knows not the door.