Church and State

[falklands]

Church and State: how much of a separation must there be, if any? What role must the church have in the state, and what role must the state have in the church?

Let the games begin...

[falklands]

Ok, I'll go first. I believe that the church should not have temporal power (unlike what happened with the Vatican having a little empire - oh, and throughout this post I'm not actually criticizing the Catholic church in general - just the "messed up" version in the Middle Ages). It is interesting to see that even in those days, back in the middle ages, there were outspoken critics of this policy. Read Dante's Divine Comedy and you will find that he continually attacks the then-Catholic temporal power. He says it breeds greed, and I tend to agree with him on his position. Another thing that happened was that those old Popes (and patriarchs of Constantinople) would flaunt their ecclesiastical authority, excommunicating the entire populace of a king unless that monarch complied with his wishes - abuse of church power. So I don't think the "official" church should have any power in the state. As for the state itself, I think people can have power through purely political means while excercising policy changes stemming from their faith. The government, however, should never take upon itself any ecclesiastical power. A person who lives by faith is perfectly justified in making decisions in politics because of their faith. So, a separation of church and state is what I believe in. However, that in no way means for the government to completely isolate itself from the church. It can endorse it and go along with it. People in government-funded organizations are wrong in saying that they have freedom from religion - the state simply cannot have any power in ecclesiastical matters.

Falklands

[Teckor]

... From what I understand the original context of the Separation of Church and State in the American Constitution was to prevent similar events mentioned by Falklands (ie: a gov't ruled by a particular religion) or even to prevent what happened with England (creation of the Church of England, which mind you is almost an exact duplicate of the Catholic Church). As far as I understand, it was meant to keep the gov't from supporting any one particular religion, unlike the context many evolutionists seem to use it as, which if used their way should also kick evolution out of the science room (since evolution is closely related to atheism).

[awaz]

teckor said:

... From what I understand the original context of the Separation of Church and State in the American Constitution

Separation of Church and State isn't in the constitution. The only thing even remotely associated with the Separation of Church and State in the constitution is

Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or
of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition
the Government for a redress of grievances.

No separation of Church and State.

I think this has been addressed before, but Thomas Jefferson wrote a letter to the Danbury Baptist Association in 1802 to answer a letter from them written in October 1801. A copy of the Danbury letter is available here. The Danbury Baptists were a religious minority in Connecticut, and they complained that in their state, the religious liberties they enjoyed were not seen as immutable rights, but as privileges granted by the legislature - as "favors granted." Jefferson's reply did not address their concerns about problems with state establishment of religion - only that on the national level. The letter contains the phrase "wall of separation between church and state," which led to the short-hand for the Establishment Clause that we use today: "Separation of church and state."

The letter was the subject of intense scrutiny by Jefferson, and he consulted a couple of New England politicians to assure that his words would not offend while still conveying his message: it was not the place of the Congress or the Executive to do anything that might be misconstrued as the establishment of religion.

No I didn't type all that.

[Aslan the Great Lion]

exactly. i think people suing because someone said Jesus is totally pointless.

[Frisianland]

In my Opinion with England (and Europe) with all the different cultures, the Church now needs to be separate as it would cause uprisings and could lead to new religious states forming!!


I would love to see the church having a bigger part of the political affairs, or even a type of christian theocratic government