Archive for the ‘church and state’ tag
John Piper on the Church and the State
In 2005, during his slow crawl through Romans, John Piper preached four messages on Romans 13:1-7 entitled “Subjection to God and Subjection to the State.” I listened to them initially not long after they were preached, but I decided to go through them again these past few days. They are, all things considered, a frank treatment of the passage. I appreciate that Piper, who is in the thick of the Evangelical movement in the United States, honestly examines the contradiction between Paul’s teaching here and the Declaration of Independence, on which the US (a “Christian nation”) is founded. I think his ideas on this topic warrant a closer examination, so here are the links to the audio, if you have 3.5 hours to spare:
Part 2 has a favorite line of mine (paraphrased): “Nobody ever went to hell because they didn’t get their civil rights.” Regardless of whether people agree with Piper, he is right when he says that Romans 13 is brimming with implications for our everyday lives.
Establishment clause: Religious liberty or federalism?
The topic on Fresh Air today was religion in the formative years of the United States. The guest Steven Waldman brought up something I did not realize: Until the fourteenth amendment to the US constitution after the Civil War, the establishment clause of the first amendment only applied to the federal government. That is, states apparently had to option to have an established religion. So is the establishment clause more motivated by religious freedom or states’ rights?
The Church and the state
I was listening today to an NPR podcast called Intelligence Squared, which is a debate program (and a rather nice one at that). Today’s proposition is “Is America too damn religious?” I found myself heartily agreeing with arguments on both sides.
However, an interesting point was raised that I had never considered. The separation of church and state is an important tenant of American society. In fact it was a key distinction between the US and England and the rest of Europe at the time of the country’s founding. The US has never had a state church while many nations in Europe have. Yet Europe is well known for being post-Christian and secular, while Christianity is still prominent in American society.
So it seems that a state-church connection is poisonous to that religion. Knowing this historical precedent, it is ironic that some Christians seek to increase the religiosity of our society by merging church with government.
