My interests in the realm of the Church and State relationship is both sparked by modern issues and heritage. With candidates like Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney using their religious faith as a political issue, it seems relevant to address the issue via history and personal perspective.

My religious background is diverse, but is dominated by the Southern Baptist mindset. I was baptised by immersion in a Southern Baptist church as a young adult, and I have attended worship services in churches of that denomination most of my adult life. I’m no longer a part of that denomination. Many of the reasons for my leaving are personal and doctrinal. There are, however, political aspects as well.

Baptists are congregational, so I don’t presume to speak about all Baptists, but of the popularity of certain ideas in that church. Baptists and many others of old were adherents to the doctrine of the separation of church and state. That doctrine was, of course, subject to various interpretations. I agree that individuals may of right influence government toward righteous ends, but I take issue when a church body assumes a collectivist mentality in the realm of politics being seen by strategists as “a block vote”.

This is more dangerous for the church than it is for the state. Through things like the “Faith Based Initiative,” you’ve permitted the federal government in your church. I can’t think of any government program that has been run efficiently and without intrusion. This is only a symptom of the disease that is plaguing the churches in America.

Thomas Jefferson wrote to the Danbury Baptists:

“Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” thus building a wall of separation between Church & State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.”

Jefferson saw liberty of conscience as a valuable asset to both church and state. As a Christian my primary concern is for the church first.

The very Christian principles of liberty are our heritage as Americans and Christians. Coercion has never saved one soul. Tyranny has never established righteousness. If we stand for the Kingdom of Righteousness, then we stand for liberty.

Note: This is not intended in any way to be an attack on Baptists, but a call to consideration of these principles by the whole Christian community in general.