Should religion have a place in politics?

I once heard someone say that you shouldn’t mix religion and politics. So, I set my mind to observe and to ponder the subject, and then to study the facts of the matter. Since I am a Christian, I have a certain perspective on such things, and I believe the subject warrants discussion and commentary.

First, let me address the historical facts, as I attempt to build a foundation for the answer to the dilemma. In the late1400’s, when this “new” land was discovered, it became a safe haven for the religious zealots of the time, in an escape from the Church of England. These people were searching for, and found, a place where they could worship God according to the dictates of their own conscience. As the colonies grew, the need for self governance became evident, so the law that ruled their church became the law that ruled the land. When the Declaration of independence was being written, these men, who had been reared on the strict principals of the Church, wrote the laws of God into the heart of the documents, and the principals of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, became the basis for that law. The Declaration of independence states the purpose of the creation of the nation, the Constitution being no more than a continuation of that declaration, and every law to come after was to be guided by its principals. Now fast forward several decades, to 1804, and you can see the beginning of the corruption of those documents. The first principal to be dissolved was the Government of the people, by the people, and for the people, making way for the elitists rise to the absolute rule they lusted for. This came in the form of taking the vote away from the people and giving it to the upper class by way of the Electoral College. The common people were, as they believed, of course, mostly uneducated and had no understanding of such things as politics, so how could they be trusted to elect proper leadership of their nation, and since there were flaws in the constitution anyway, it was their God given right and responsibility to take a stand and correct the system which gave them their elite status, into one that demanded they keep it.

Since the Declaration of independence and Constitution has, in my opinion, been so raped, as to provide little reference to God, it confounds me to think it has any relevance at all in the present day in which we need it. It was created as a document with which to provide all citizens the right to freedom, but has been converted into a simple piece of paper displayed in the Library of Congress, having little use except as historical reference with which to make legal arguments. It obviously has little to no bearing on the direction this country is facing, and has been deemed, by many, as a living document destined for change according to the current opinion of whoever reads it, and to whatever end they deem it should be applied.

But the truth of the matter is that the aforementioned concept of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness draws it’s only existence from the principals spelled out in the founding and sustaining documents of the Church, and has as its basis, the morality that God clearly spelled out in those documents.

So where do you think we would be today, had the Declaration and Constitution been used for their intended purpose, and had been maintained in their original form? Today we have a judicial system that has little to do with justice and more to do with the rights of criminals, and where victims are less important than those that prey on them. We have Senators and Representatives that base every decision on how they can keep their office, rather than what is right for the individual and country. We have a public education system more concerned with political correctness than teaching children the truth, and where theories are taught rigorously as fact without one single shred of concrete evidence. We have a government that perceives that our money is theirs to spend, without concern for its future ramifications, and politicians so corrupt that they have no will or ability to hold each other accountable for blatantly and openly breaking the laws they themselves create, as if the law only applies to those who they exercise rule over. The crime rate rises each year, and in the most escalatingly heinous ways, and what was once the most prosperous nation in the world is now the laughing stock due to its so called leaderships own lack of a moral compass. Just to name a few examples.

You see, without a moral compass to point the way, you end up having no direction at all. Morality based on your own beliefs has no foundation, and results in the condition this nation currently finds itself in. The only morality worthy of guidance is that which directed the Church, and that which the Declaration and Constitution was based. In it you find principals like “borrow from no man”. If that principal was to be followed, we would have no national debt, or personal debt for that matter. And, “if you don’t work you don’t eat”. If that was adhered to, the people would be more productive due to not having the mentality of an entitlement program with which to base their personal finances. And this one, “render unto Caesar what is Caesars”. That one would keep our taxes low, as no one could cheat the government, including those occupying the seats of authority. But what we have now, without religion to guide the politicians, is an irresponsible, power hungry, money gluttonous, self serving, corrupt, tyrannical body of elitists with no sense of who it is they truly work for, and an oppressed civilian population without the proper knowledge, freedom, and backbone to hold them accountable.

Which begs the question, what about the separation of church and state? Remember that the main reason the colonies were started was to escape the Church of England, not to escape their religion, or their God, as the church did not permit freedom in worshiping God as they themselves saw fit. The Bible was still outlawed, and the Church of England was intolerant of reformist beliefs, forcing their pilgrimage to a far away land where the Church of England could not reach. The Declaration and Constitution was not written to exclude the government’s reliance on, and participation in, religious activities, but rather that the Church would never have authority to rule men as the Church of Rome, and England for that matter, had usurped for so long. Separation is not synonymous with exclusion. Exclusion has brought us to the brink of disaster, as there resides no morals to base their so called ethics, and no one in office who understands the relationship between the two. Ethics is not a simple philosophical perspective, but a determined set of morals designed to guide ones actions. The idea of political ethics apart from Christian morals is akin to building a mansion on the dirt. It has no foundation to anchor it down and to keep it together, and little is required to make it fall. Or, as in our case, after building the mansion, you dismantle the foundation, causing its very destruction.

But the most important concept that eludes those that lack morals, since they were given the freedom to make the decision on how to live their own lives, is that everyone was given the right to the same liberties. Instead, they make it their place to deny others of that privilege. The freedom to be Godless in their own homes has translated to the mentality that drives them to deprive everyone else of any ability to do otherwise, currently by public display, but eventually, in private. This compromise by the masses, whereby the few are coddled and pacified for the reason of government mandated nonconfrontationalism, only permits further usurpation for the cause of eroding our liberties. But where does this compromise end? Does it end when those that support the oppressive ideals, by any measure, takes total control of everyone’s lives to the point of ending freedom altogether? The path that started with the support of a few being so offended, leads to no other end. If the oppression, by the few, goes without bridle from the start, no restraint can be added later. Try saddling a horse in full gallop.

So the end result to all the pondering and study is this; Politics, and politicians, have a responsibility to embrace religion, if for no other reason than as a moral imperative with which to guide their conduct, in the activities of the offices we give them for the benefit of all citizens. And if those who seek public office find it difficult to separate the moral foundation this nation was based on, from their duty to govern free from the influence of the church leadership, by virtue of the constitution, that alone would disqualify them from the post. That is the separation of church and state described by our founding documents.