Saturday, December 18, 2010

The Establishment Clause: Christianity and Islam

This blog post explores the implications of the “establishment clause” of the US Constitution on the practice of Christianity and Islam in America.
Especially at issue are these two prevailing attitudes toward these two religions by their respective adherents.
Islam: Religious, cultural, political, and military activity are inseparable from the practice of Islam.  Islam is no longer Islam without its political and military components.  The Islamic ideology is a fairly recent phenomenon in America.  It originates from non-Western cultures with radically different

 standards of morality and law from that practiced in the US.  Islam must reign supreme and dominate!
Christianity:  The prevailing Christian attitude in the US has been acceptance of the so-called “separation of church and state.”  By that is meant that it is accepted practice by the majority of Christians that Christianity shall not be taught or promoted in publicly funded spaces such as town halls, public schools, parks, or other public places.  There is only a minority of Christian thought in the US that Christianity requires broader influence in the public square than has been generally accepted.  Christianity must remain “tolerant” and submit!
These are self-imposed value systems of each religion.  Where do you think this will lead?
It seems obvious that these two very opposite cultures are headed for a clash.  On the one hand Muslims believe they need to impose their Sharia law in lieu of our Constitutional law.  While their immediate demands will be for the supplanting of our laws with Sharia only in predominantly Muslim enclaves such as Detroit, the end game of their ideology is to impose Sharia nationwide.
On the other hand, Christians are becoming increasingly complacent, conciliatory, and malleable, virtually tripping over themselves to accommodate Islamic interests out of a sense of “tolerance” and the outsized imperative against “judging.”
As a recent Barna study indicated, Christians abstain from judging less out of compassionate tolerance and more out of a gross ignorance of their own belief system.
Where do you think these differences will logically lead?  Islam is actively pursuing involvement and influence while Christianity has accepted the cultural mandate to separate and exclude itself.
There are several ways this situation can evolve.
If the status quo attitudes continue, our nation will succumb to the predominant momentum, which at the moment favors Islam.  While the number of Muslims and their influence is presently small, our immigration policies and birth rates of Islamic and non-Islamic populations in the US will cause the proportion of Muslims to substantially increase in the coming decades.  Their influence will increase even more than their population due to the enthusiasm and energy behind their ideology compared to the lukewarmness of their Christian counterparts.
Alternatively, Christians may become inspired by Islamic devoutness and energy.  Given enough offenses created in the name of Islam, whether via additional atrocities and acts of terror or demonstrations and court cases promoting Sharia, Christians may realize that their passive attitudes toward involvement in government and politics is not really what their Bible teaches. 
Christianity has 1,800 years of political activism, and 100 years or less of submission to secularism.  Despite what atheists, agnostics, liberals, progressives, secularists, and Islamic-inspired presidents proclaim, the United States was founded by Christians based on Christian ideals.  It’s culture and governance has been based on Christian principles pretty much until the past 50 years or so.  It took 100 years of secular influence in the US for Christianity to devolve to the point of accepting no prayer in public schools, killing unborn infants, and allowing blaspheming displays of “art” with taxpayer dollars.
Christians will either finally conclude that the “establishment clause” of the Constitution does indeed allow more Christian influence in governmental matters than the “see, hear, speak no evil” trance Christians have been under for too long and that their faith demands it.

What exactly does “the establishment clause” say and require?

From Wikipedia:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion". Together with the Free Exercise Clause ("... or prohibiting the free exercise thereof"), these two clauses make up what are called the "religion clauses" of the First Amendment.
The establishment clause has generally been interpreted to prohibit 1) the establishment of a national religion by Congress, or 2) the preference by the U.S. government of one religion over another. The first approach is called the "separation" or "no aid" interpretation, while the second approach is called the "non-preferential" or "accommodation" interpretation. The accommodation interpretation prohibits Congress from preferring one religion over another, but does not prohibit the government's entry into religious domain to make accommodations in order to achieve the purposes of the Free Exercise Clause.
The clause itself was seen as a reaction to the Church of England, established as the official church of England and some of the colonies, during the colonial era. It possibly could have been thought up … as a consensus to the diversity of religions in the U.S. at the time of the Constitution's creation.
From “American-conservativevalues.com
The establishment clause in the U.S. Constitution is that passage which forbids Congress from establishing any state religion. This same clause also prohibits the prohibition of any non-violent religious expression. In the United States, you can be a Christian, a Jew, a Buddhist, even a Satanist, or belong to any other religion. You can belong to any denomination or sect of any religion, too, as well as having the freedom to completely ignore all religious observance or belief. You just cannot use your religion as an excuse to violate any American's Constitutional rights or to break the law.
But, there is something very important about the establishment clause needs to get established in the minds of Americans today: the Constitution doesn't say that America is a secular nation. In fact, America's founders wanted this to be the most spiritual, perhaps even the most religious, nation in the world.
Christians will eventually learn that they prematurely caved into a radical and unintended interpretation of the establishment clause.  Christians are likely to realize that they have receded too far into the closet, hiding from the secularist and now the Islamic home invaders.  It is odd that gays are more out of the closet and into the favorable media spotlight than Christians are.  And the mis-named “moderate Muslims” are revered as savior of tolerant sanity.
Christians lack knowledge and faith in their own belief system.  They have succumbed to everything secular.  They have lost their devoutness, energy and enthusiasm toward their faith.  The consequence is a vacuum of Christian influence, knowledge, and defense of our nation’s Christian founding principles.
Is it time to give up this great Christian experiment, our Christian America?  Is it time for Christians get out of the way and let those who are more devout and enthusiastic about their beliefs, secular or Islamic, so they can run the show?
Or are Christians merely sleeping – in need of a splash of cold water to revive and energize their spirit?  Even secularists, deep down inside, must realize that Christianity and Christian principles are what founded and built our nation.  They, as much as Christians, need to reconsider the radical interpretation of the establishment clause so the playing field of ideas and ideals can be leveled – so reason and Christian/western morality can be reestablished.

3 comments:

Doug Indeap said...

Omitted from your speculation of the several ways "this situation" can evolve is that the principle of separation of church and state will continue to serve its purpose and protect everyone--Christians, Muslims, atheists, etc.--from government actions to promote or oppose any particular religion, and thus leave every religion free to flourish or founder in the marketplace of ideas.

Separation of church and state does not prevent citizens from making decisions based on principles derived from their religions. Moreover, the religious beliefs of government officials naturally may inform their decisions on policies. The principle of separation of church and state merely constrains government officials not to make decisions with the predominant purpose or primary effect of advancing religion; in other words, the predominant purpose and primary purpose must be nonreligious or secular in nature. A decision coinciding with religious views is not invalid for that reason as long as it has a secular purpose and effect.

By founding a secular government and assuring it would remain separate, in some measure at least, from religion, the founders basically established government neutrality in matters of religion, allowing Christianity (and other religions) to flourish or founder as they will. It is to be expected that the values and views of the people, shaped in part by their religion, will be reflected in the laws adopted by their government. There is nothing in the Constitution that requires or calls for this; it is simply a natural outgrowth of the people's expression of political will. To the extent that the people's values and views change over time, it is to be expected that those changes will come to be reflected in the laws adopted by their government. There is nothing in the Constitution to prevent this; indeed, just the opposite--the Constitution establishes a government designed to be responsive to the political will of the people. It is conceivable, therefore, that if Christianity's influence in our society wanes relative to other influences, that may lead to changes in our laws. Nothing in the Constitution would prevent that--and moreover the establishment clause would preclude Christians from using the government to somehow "lock in" (aka establish) Christianity in an effort to stave off such an eventuality.

The First Amendment embodies the simple, just idea that each of us should be free to exercise his or her religious views without expecting that the government will endorse or promote those views and without fearing that the government will endorse or promote the religious views of others. By keeping government and religion separate, the establishment clause serves to protect the freedom of all to exercise their religion. Reasonable people may differ, of course, on how these principles should be applied in particular situations, but the principles are hardly to be doubted. Moreover, they are good, sound principles that should be nurtured and defended, not attacked. Efforts to transform our secular government into some form of religion-government partnership should be resisted by every patriot.

Wake Forest University recently published a short, objective Q&A primer on the current law of separation of church and state–as applied by the courts rather than as caricatured in the blogosphere. I commend it to you. http://tiny.cc/6nnnx

Gerardo Moochie said...

Doug:

I omitted speculation about the continued efficacy of “separation of church and state” because such separation is a gross distortion of the establishment clause and destructive of the founding principles of our nation. You and I are apparently coming from two different positions: you from a secular world view; I from a Christian world view. My Christian world view embraces the correct historical record of this nation being founded predominantly by Christians applying Christian principles of morality, liberty, governance and laws. With the erosion of these Christian principles that undergird the reason for our existence as a nation, our liberties are being turned into mandated secularism – the new religion of the state.

It is obvious that our perverted “separation doctrine” has expunged much of the Judeo-Christian ideals from our culture: school prayer, sanctity of life, celebration of Christmas in public places (even in majority Christian areas), and several other previously sacred doctrines of morality. This has all occured only in the last several decades.

Yes, these changes celebrate diversity. But they don’t celebrate goodness. I don’t blame government or the courts for this. I blame our people, our churches, our pastors, our voters, our preoccupation with things that are less important than our spiritual values.

Separation of church and state is a compelling catch phrase. But when the rules of the game favor state over church, we have problems. And we do. The state has all the advantage, and the church has become the ugly step child in the shadows. The founders did not desire this for our nation. The spiritual vacuum that has been created, with now even our government as an adversary, will be filled with ideologies that are foreign and an anathema to our founding principles. Anticipate chaos in the coming decades. Perhaps we deserve what we get.

Anonymous said...

OBAMA FULFILLING THE BIBLE

Pres. Lincoln stated: "I believe the Bible is the best gift God has ever given to man." But several Bible verses are embarrassing to Pres. Obama:
Proverbs 19:10 (NIV): "It is not fitting for a fool to live in luxury - how much worse for a slave to rule over princes!"
Also Proverbs 30:22 (NIV) which says that the earth cannot bear up under "a servant who becomes king."
And Ecclesiastes 5:2-3 (KJV) advises: "let thy words be few...a fool's voice is known by multitude of words."
Although Obama is not descended from slaves, he may feel that he's destined to become a black-slavery avenger.
Or maybe an enslaver of all free citizens!
For some stunning info on Pres. Obama and his fellow subversives, Google "Michelle Obama's Allah-day," "Obama Supports Public Depravity," "David Letterman's Hate Etc.," "Un-Americans Fight Franklin Graham" and also "Sandra Bernhard, Larry David, Kathy Griffin, Bill Maher, Sarah Silverman."
PS - Since Christians are commanded to ask God to send severe judgment on persons who commit and support the worst forms of evil (see I Cor. 5 and note "taken away"), Christians everywhere should constantly pray that the Lord will soon "take away" or at least overthrow all US leaders, including Obama, who continue to sear their conscience and arrogantly trample the God-given rights of the majority including the rights of the unborn. Do we need a second American Revolution?
(Theologically radioactive Harold Camping prophesied that Christ would return during Sep. 1994. Undaunted, con man Camping now predicts it will occur in May of 2011. Since Deut. 18:20-22 requires the death penalty for false prophets, Camping and his deluded groupies deserve inclusion in the above "take away" prayers. False prophets in the OT were stoned to death. Today they are just stoned!)
PPS - For a rare look at the 180-year-old, imported-from-British-crazies endtime escapist belief which has long neutralized millions by promising them an "imminent rapture" off earth - which has diverted them away from being prepared to stand against all enemies, domestic as well as foreign - Google "Pretrib Rapture Dishonesty" and "Pretrib Rapture - Hidden Facts."