Politics Needs a Divorce from Religion

If President Obama’s recent political support of same-sex marriage has done nothing else, it’s ignited discussion about the relationship between church and government. It annoys me to no end that so many in the Christian community want to equate American freedom with biblical doctrine. It’s so common to hear “America is a Christian Nation,” and “if we don’t go back to following God, we’re going to receive his judgment,” and other such, frankly, frustrating epithets that make for great sound bites, but have little to no real substance. Do we really think about what we’re saying before we say it? It’s no wonder a generation of free-thinkers and activist reject the “talking loud, saying nothing” nature of the Christian American church. So let this be a call to all of us Holy-Ghost-having, cross-bearing, Lord’s-Prayer quoting, little-Jesus’es. Politics has asked for a divorce. And we should acquiesce its request. Quickly!

Entitlement and The Church

It doesn’t matter the subject: prayer in schools, legalizing abortion, same-sex marriage, capital punishment… the Christian church, in large part, has come to expect that its rules for life should also be America’s rules for life. Maybe not down to every detail (after all, we haven’t made fornication illegal yet, and we certainly don’t expect American government to take care of the poor the way Jesus asks his followers to). But for the most part, we expect the Bible to carry some weight in American legislation. For some unsubstantiated reason, we feel we deserve it. We don’t. Well, here’s the unfortunate newsflash: America did not accept Jesus as its personal Lord and Savior.

America’s view on Jesus matches its view for Allah, Buddha, even Satan. As long as your religion is peaceful, who “God” is referring to on our money is up to you. Jesus’ name is nowhere to be found in our Constitution. It is not America’s job to go out to the ends of the world preaching and baptizing in the name of Jesus. It is not the job of the American Congress to teach, or even exemplify, a life of “loving our neighbor as we do ourselves.” We are not entitled to have our religion trump the others just because a few of the values in the Constitution happen to be in the Bible. It’s time we got over it.

America’s job is to nurture freewill and freedom, to protect the innocent from the powerful, and to create an environment of opportunity for all its members in a fair, equal way. If freedom is America’s currency, then the government is merely an employer dolling out freedom checks. As recipients, the church has to cash their own checks and pay their own bills. America’s not going to pay our bills for us.

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