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Introduction: If there is ever an issue that still finds its way into the news on a regular basis - it is the issue of separation of church and state. It is not so much the problem of a state-mandated church that makes the news and gets our attention; it is the way that God is being booted out of anything to do with government or areas of public education. Anything that could be construed to be government sanctioning of religion is attacked immediately by all sorts of groups, but especially the ACLU. The Supreme Court has, over the years, handed out various rulings that have changed the perspective of the issue of separation of church and state. As we will see a little later in the message today, this is a result of not following what our fore-fathers, including many godly, and Bible-believing Baptists, designed in the U.S. Constitution. Now, if a child wears a cross to school, in some school districts, it is said to be wrong. Prayers cannot be offered at school graduations, and football games. The Ten Commandments cannot be displayed in a public building in many places today. The implication: you have government and you have church and you had better keep them separated or you will be going to court! Sadly, our country has swayed a long ways away from where we started from over 200 years ago.
Baptist believers were at the forefront of the drive for the Constitution to say that no state religion will be set up. They had suffered under such unbiblical arrangements and wanted, like others, the freedom of religion in this country.
I. What Is Separation of Church and State?
Baptists believe the Bible teaches that:
(1) There should be no union between the church and the state as there is in a state-church relationship.
(2) The state should not control the religious affairs of churches.
(3) No denomination or church should control the affairs of the government.
Baptists do believe that they should submit to government regulations that are meant to provide protection and safety of all. But on the other hand, the government should not control or interfere with the beliefs and practices of a church or its ministries. God created both the church and human government, and He has also given each its own respective areas of function and responsibility. What are those respective functions and responsibilities? God’s Word gives us the answer.
1. The State’s purpose--Romans 13:1-7 (and the Christian’s response to government). The State’s purpose is to govern men.
There are three areas that this passage in Romans emphasizes:
a. Be subject to governing authorities . Why? Because God has placed them in that position and to disobey them is to disobey God. Only exception is when they demand the Christian to disobey God.
b. Pay what is due in taxes and respect
c. Pray for all those in positions of authority
2. The Church’s purpose--Matthew 28:19,20
a. Go and preach the Gospel
b. Baptize all that believe
c. Teach them the Word of God so they can duplicate themselves.
II. Scriptural Teaching About Separation of Church and State
A. Caesar versus God--Matthew 22:15-22 (esp. vs. 21); Romans 13:7
B. Earthly kingdom versus Heavenly kingdom--John 18:36
Christ’s realm of rule for this age is separate from the political realm; they are two distinct spheres. God intends that the Church and State be kept separate until the King, the Lord Jesus Christ, comes to earth to establish His kingdom on earth.
C. Man’s authority versus God’s authority--Acts 5:17-29 (esp. vs. 29)
When a human authority makes demands that require disobedience to God’s demands, we must obey God rather than man. We need to realize though, that if we disobey the human authority that God has put in place, we will suffer the consequences of doing so. Don’t forget what it says in Romans 13!
III. The First Amendment to the United States Constitution and Separation of Church and State
The Biblical concept of separation of church and state became part of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, partly as a result of the influence of Baptists. One such Baptist was a preacher by the name of John Leland, who lived from 1754-1841. He knew and had some influence with Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. He was a champion all his life for the separation of church and state. Here is a quote from a speech he gave on July 5, 1802 on the subject of choosing representatives for government:
"Never promote men who seek after a state-established religion; it is spiritual tyranny--the worst of despotism. It is turnpiking the way to heaven by human law, in order to establish ministerial gates to collect toll. It converts religion into a principle of state policy, and the gospel into merchandise. Heaven forbids the bans of marriage between church and state; their embraces therefore, must be unlawful."
The first Amendment of the U.S. Constitution says this: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."
The original intent of the framers of the Constitution was to prevent the federal government from establishing any denomination as an officially sanctioned religion or forbidding any denomination the right of free worship (both of which had happened in England). It is seldom understood today that the 1st Amendment originally applied only to the federal government (notice that the amendment reads: "Congress shall..."). When the 1st Amendment was adopted, several of the thirteen states had an established religion, a state church. Since these states did not want to change the status quo, the 1st Amendment was designed to prevent the newly formed federal government from meddling in the religious affairs of the individual states.
Many things have changed in the past two centuries since the Constitution was written and ratified. Today, the left-wing social liberals have everyone believing that the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution is there to keep God entirely out of our government. The 1st Amendment was not meant to keep God out of government; the influence of God is clearly revealed in the speeches and actions of our national leaders and by the inscriptions on many of the public building in Washington, D.C. The First Amendment was meant to keep the government from controlling religion.
So where did this phrase "wall of separation between church and state" come from? It is a phrase that the liberals with their anti-god agenda having been throwing around for some time now. In fact, most Americans would assume that the phrase is found in the Constitution of the United States, but it is not to be found there. That phrase was first recorded in a letter that President Thomas Jefferson wrote to a group of Baptists in Connecticut called the Danbury Baptist Association. They had written a congratulatory letter to Jefferson after he became President, and they also expressed great concern that the Congregationalist church in Connecticut would become the state-sponsored church. Jefferson wrote them back, after changing the draft of his letter several times, and wrote the following statement in the midst of his letter:
"Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and 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 and 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."
It was not Jefferson’s intentions nor that of the other framers of the Constitution that religion and government be totally separated. Without the moral effect of spiritually changed lives, our fore-fathers knew that trouble could arise. The change came in 1947 with the United States Supreme Court's decision in Everson v. Board of Education, Justice Hugo Black construed the First Amendment in a more restrictive fashion, giving an absolute definition of the First Amendment Establishment Clause which went well beyond the original intent of the framers of the United States Constitution and paved the way for future cases that would further restrict religious expression in American public life. This ruling declares that any aid or benefit to religion from governmental actions is unconstitutional. As Justice Black said: "The First Amendment has erected a wall between church and state. That wall must be kept high and impregnable. We could not approve the slightest breach."
Where have the liberal courts led us as a nation in this issue? Consider the following example:
Consider the case in which public high school students held their own two-step election, first, to decide whether a student address, possibly containing a prayer, could be delivered at a football game, and second, which student would deliver it. The Supreme Court ruled, in effect, that just by permitting such an election the state was violating the Establishment Clause.
Now seriously, just how far do we have to suspend our disbelief to conclude that the Framers intended to prohibit such an election merely facilitated -- not initiated -- by a public school?
Well, first we have to ignore that the First Amendment restricted the federal Congress only.
Second, we have to disregard that it also prohibited Congress from intruding on the states' right to establish religion if they so chose.
Third, we have to assume that a local school, which happens to receive funding from both the state and federal governments, is deemed to be an extension of those governments, keeping in mind that there were no such government funded and controlled schools at the time of the nation's founding.
Fourth, we have to find that the students' voluntary action to elect a speaker to deliver a statement that might or might not contain a prayer, with no involvement from the school beyond permitting the election, should be imputed to the state or federal governments -- as if they are the ones choosing to say the prayer.
Fifth, we have to conclude that the reading of the prayer itself is tantamount to establishing a federal or state religion -- notwithstanding that there are thousands of other government-run schools throughout the United States that would be completely unaffected by the prayer and no other part of the nation would be affected by it. (How can we conclude that a single public school in a single community in a single state, by merely permitting and not encouraging its students to choose, on their own, to read a prayer at a football game, constitutes the establishment of a particular denomination as the national or state religion?)
Sixth, we have to assume that you can ignore all these obstacles, even though in the very process you are emasculating that other critically important religion clause of the First Amendment, the Free Exercise Clause, which also guarantees our religious liberty.
By precluding the student-led prayer through these outrageous legal fictions and convoluted reasoning, the Court sanctioned the school's encroachment on the freedom of students to worship as they pleased -- thwarting the very purpose of both First Amendment religion clauses.
The point here is not that it is desirable for the government to endorse religious activities. Rather it is that courts have made the law up as they've gone along, completing mucking up Establishment Clause jurisprudence, and, in the name of protecting religious freedom, have greatly suppressed it.
There is so much more that could be said on this area, but I’m sure you have or can look into it more.
IV. Applications of Separation of Church and State to Current Believers
Many believers are intimidated by all that is going on around them in the continuing debate of separation of church and state. As a result, many Christians feel that they cannot stand up and be heard. This message is to remind every believer in the Lord Jesus Christ that is here that we have a God-given right to influence our government. We each need to understand that this is not the same as a church controlling the government. It is nowhere close to that.
We need to remember that we are Christians first and American’s second, but we are still Americans and we must obey our government. We need to stand up and be heard on those issues where the government or the courts are attempting to encroach on what is God’s, the church, and defend and preserve the separation of church and state in our beloved country. We have a Biblical position from which to take our stand.
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