Phoenix Affirmations #7

The next on our list of affirmations is a controversial one, but is absolutely vital.

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7. Preserving religious freedom and the Church’s ability to speak prophetically to government by resisting the commingling of Church and State;

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The idea of separation of church and state in North America grew out of some bad experiences in Europe. My denomination, the United Church of Christ, is directly descended from one of these groups. The Pilgrims had a rough time in England because they had their own ideas about worship. That doesn't sound so sinister, except that their non-conformist approach came at a time when Queen Elizabeth I was consolidating her power as both Queen of the Realm, and leader of the Church of England. In her view, active membership in the national church was a necessary sign of political loyalty. People who wanted to worship in a different form were considered disloyal citizens.

The Pilgrims had a rough time in England because of this. They ended fleeing to Leiden in the Netherlands, and eventually chartered a ship called the Mayflower to bring them to North America. Unfortunately, the theocracy they set up in the Massachusetts Bay Colony was also intolerant of religious dissent, but we often move forward with baby steps.

The first principle we can see in this is pretty simple: The government has no business telling it's citizens how they should worship.

That one is fairly simple, and is a familiar argument. If faith is a decision of personal conscience and choice then it makes no sense for the government to tell people that they have to belong to a specific religion or denomination. As a rule every one agrees with this... with the exception of people who are pretty sure that their religion or denomination would be the one to come out on top. :)

The second principle is that one of the primary roles of religion (my religion anyway, I won't presume to speak for everyone) is to speak out when the state does something cruel or unjust.

In the Hebrew scriptures, the priests were supposed to be the servants of God, and to help the common people. The King of Israel was also supposed to be a servant-leader rather than an authoritarian despot. Unfortunately there's a lot of truth in the old saying about power corrupting. It wasn't long before the King and the Priests were a privileged class who exploited the common people and ignored their needs. You can see this starting to take shape in 2 Samuel 7 when King David announced his plan to build a grand Temple for God so that God will have a home as grand as the king's palace. No longer would God be worshiped in the glorified tent that was the Tabernacle. Now people would have to come to the big city to worship.

Lifestyles of the rich and famous.

The thing was, this wasn't what God wanted. God preferred being out among the people and had no use for a house of cedar wood. God stopped David's plans, and if the king had really been listening he would have given up his grand lifestyle and come back out among the people where God was.

Unfortunately, he didn't, and each generation of kings and priests got a little more removed from the concerns of God's people and a little more concerned about protecting their own power and privilege. That's what always happens with a state religion, it becomes all about power and privilege, and drifts far away from the valies of God.

That's where the prophets This was the case with the prophets in ancient Israel. God called them to go and speak out against the abuses they saw. As you might guess, they weren't popular. In fact, many of them were killed for what they had to say. Looking back, we can see that they were the ones speaking out for their faith while the blended religious/political leadership was not.

If you blend religion and government, then the church becomes so enmeshed in politics that it loses its soul. There have been many times that government and religion have come together like this in the history of the world, and I can't think of a single time when this hasn't happened. To remain true to itself, religion has to avoid this entanglement.