What About Separation of Church and State?

As we gyrate through the pre-election candidates’ masquerade event, we glimpse bits of the guests’ secret faces and wonder about their closeted pasts.  Shhh-did you hear? Oh, sorry, careful, but anyway her husband councils people queerly, and, yes, I am certain now, the dancer in the cowboy boots sponsored an event with public prayer – Jesus and everything. Of course you’re shocked dear. We all are. Ooof, whose foot did I just step on? It’s those dominionists I tell you, they’re the ones forcing their churchy noses into everybody’s business. Why can’t they just stay in their pews and out of our government? Ouch, watch it jerk! They want to dominate us all. If they had any manners they would stop challenging our way of doing things. Darn dominionists, bossy, just plain want-to-be-in-control bossy is what they are…

The demand for separation of church and state has never been more strident. Yes, I understand the precise meaning of ‘dominionist’ even if the breathless reporters who recently discovered the word do not. Dominionists hold hands in church (and at party caucuses) with the Christian right, Fundamentalists, and various other Christians who actually believe their own religion and vote accordingly. They all are disgustingly intent on bringing their God talk into the hallowed halls of the heretofore safe zones of government forums.

Separation of church and state we are assured is a primal directive. Born again liberal constitutionalists triumphantly exclaim over the phrase being in the Constitution. They are visibly upset when told otherwise (stupid Constitution, what good is it anyway). The sad truth is a whole lot of redeemed church members think the same way. They love Jesus but they do not expect He should botheration over the making of law, voting, town hall doings or the like. So, the dominionists are treading off trail even for some of our own folks’ sensibilities.

Although the question is usually framed as being about church and state, everyone knows this is not the case. Which ‘church’ is it after all that they fear? Is it the Lutheran church? The Baptists?  Maybe the Methodists?  Maybe it is the church universal the humanists aver, and I think this starts to dance a bit closer to the truth. They are not in fear of the Church of England as were our forefathers. They rather despise and fear the entire church universal. And, if we chase this emotion back a little further, it is not just the church they want to be separated from, it is God they really want to divorce. It is a separation of God and state for which they are so adamantly clamoring. In the final end it is God Himself who offends them, not the church. When humanists shriek at the church to shut up and sit down they are actually threatened by the Almighty who may at any moment overturn their will to power. ‘They have not hated you but they have hated Me’ as Jesus phrased the eternal verity.

This is the same Jesus of whom it was written ‘The government shall rest upon His shoulders’. We quote that Scripture at the holidays but is anyone asking ‘of which government is the prophet writing?’. The words have a nice authoritative resonance to them. Is anyone asking what they really mean? When Isaiah talks about the government resting on His shoulders is Isaiah just trying to communicate that Jesus will have an eternal say in history? Or, is he letting us know that the ‘government will rest on His shoulders’ as in civil government, as in the halls and positions of power, as in congress, and the courts, and the White House?

Liberals (theological and political) always push God to the fringes. His followers are discussed as a ‘fringe element’ meaning we are to stand in the corner with God while the humanists run the operation. Dominionists are the current humanist boogeymen because we sincerely accept that our God is the eternal and rightful Dominionist and that His rule extends to law and government as well as everything else. The separation of God and state is the final solution for modern men of ego who view themselves as more fitted to fill the offices of government and Governor. With all their manifest failings their hubris remains unbounded.

As Bible believers we have to acknowledge that our primary source for action is the Bible not the Constitution, and certainly not the fads of our godless enemies. Acting as if God is irrelevant to any of our affairs including civil government is one of the magnificent idiocies of our generation. History will judge it so, but we only sense it dimly in the shadows. Our willingness to press the crown rights of Jesus in current affairs is sawn asunder by our stronger sense that the civil government stands above the demands of our God and His law. With our separation of church and state we have become idolaters and do not even know it. It is an attitude to consider carefully as we plan for the Second Reformation of the church.

For Christian Culture,

Don Schanzenbach