Separation of Church and State
09/17/2007
Ref: Hierarchical Systems – Part 2Fellow Democrats
From time to time I read The Rochester Democrat to get a picture of how mid-westerners view the world around us. I go to Boston College and I am a grad student who is taught by Jesuits.
I am touched by the need to talk about a need for Separation of Church and State as an operative principle of government. It is not because we hate God or do not want to follow the principles of Jesus. It is because we are a pluralistic nation and if we are going to have freedom of religion then we must not force our religion down other people’s throats by casting religious dogma into laws that favor one sect or group over another. Pluralism requires tolerance.
We have seen what happens to a nation when sectarianism is unleashed. In Iraq it has destroyed their efforts at running a government and history is full of more such examples where governments have fallen once they become sectarian. One need only look at Spain for an immediate example of a western nation dragged down by General Franco’s use of religion to justify Fascism and thus to oppress the people of Spain.
Whenever people want to practice tyranny they call upon God for their justification. In so doing they blaspheme God and insult His messengers. The minute we hear of immoral acts being justified by calling upon God we need to be very suspicious of the intention behind the invocation. Ethnic cleansing is a subject area where God is called upon for justification to rid the world of an opposition group. Today the Iraq government is involved in ethnic cleansing of Sunnis and the US is an accomplice. It is not right.
Why would God want America to invade Iraq? To rid the world of WMD that the UN said their inspectors could not find? We did that and found there were no WMD’s. The justification for war was to prevent the West from being attacked. It was really a war of defense said the Bush Administration. The number of times I read about the Iraq war being moral, just, and necessary, was amazing yet that war was not about God or morality – it was and still is about Iraqi oil.
For the most part, governments deal with secular matters of investment, law, trade, commerce, and other such and the principle of Separation is not a problem. God is dragged into the conversation when an Army is let loose to conquer others to kill other humans and that is is so un-civilized that somehow God must be called upon to say its okay, its moral, it’s in God’s plan, etc.
That is patently false. God calls upon us to be ordered, disciplined, understanding, forgiving, and loving. Defense is one thing while offense is another matter entirely. Even in offense there are degrees of offense and war must always be the very last resort. Bush is saying that diplomacy is too slow and that bombs are faster. He is so wrong. He made more progress with North Korea at the bargaining table then he could ever make in war with one million North Koreans and in combat. Hopefully that lesson is not lost when it comes to dealing with Iran.
In the case of Iraq we went on the offensive in a morally wrong war and we haven’t had a moment’s peace since we waved the flag, called upon God as our witness for the slaughter, and let loose a civil sectarian war in Iraq that has crippled our economy, divided our nation, and decimated our Army.
It is time for men to take responsibility for the things that men let loose and stop involving God in these matters. Truly God is innocent and does not call upon the dogs of war to be let loose.
God made oil and he expects men to decide on how to use it for the good of all mankind. God created men with brains to make goods and he expects us to figure out how to conduct fair trade.
Dogma, theology, and even to some degree moral teaching does not belong in government law-making as a matter for all to follow or else to be imprisoned. These should be used by individuals to guide us in our thinking, decision making, and in forming judgments.
As for the law, some of it is based upon the Ten Commandments, while other parts are based upon influence peddling and political manipulation. Notice that the Ten Commandments are universal to all religion and thus nobody is shoving them down other people’s throat, they are accepted as a civilizing set of principles. Law-making today in America is used for everything from ear-marks, to road funding, to budget making. Most of the felony laws were long ago a matter of agreement among the States and new felony law comes along quite infrequently.
Religion is meant to civilize us and to force us to use the thinking part of our brains over the feeling part and to the degree that it does that it’s welcome. When religion is used to deny freedom, liberty, equality, and civil-rights, it is evil because it’s then being used to justify something that is fundamentally wrong.
John Flynn
Boston, Massachusetts