Separation of Church and State is a Myth

It seems to me that those who built this nation had a limited understanding of "separation of Church and state." Perhaps all they meant by "separation" was that there would be no denominational state church, a position developed due to the injustices of religious intolerance in England. Did they really mean that one could totally separate religion/philosophy from the state, thus dividing them into impenetrable hemispheres? None of our founders were so foolish as that.

In our day it seems clear that we now understand "separation of Church and state" to mean the idealogical sort. But surely such a position is mythology.

Essentially, Christians today are asked, by recourse to the separation doctrine, to privately worship their favorite God in their churches and keep their highly exclusivist opinions to themselves. It is often their fellow Christians saying this to them.

And let us be honest. This idea has been repeated so often that now Christians have virtually no influence in the public arena, even ideologically. But has this removed religious/philosophical ideology from influencing the state? Clearly, the answer here is no! What this process has done is to make Christianity impotent and replace it with other ideologies. After all, what is the one philosophical position any comedian or script-writer can get away with mocking publicly and constantly? Make fun of Islam, Judaism, even Buddhism or Scientology and you might find yourself charged with religious discrimination. Make fun of gays, lesbians, transgendered or transsexual individuals and you will be charged with a hate crime and blamed for the blind "heteronormativity" of the homophobic right. Eviscerate Christianity as the sacrificial scapegoat for all the ills of society and literally nothing happens to you, except the sycophantic applause of the rabble, among whom are many self professed "Christians." How is it that those who claim to be Christians have come to identify more with the modern critique of Christianity than with Christianity itself? The answer is, they know the modern critique of Christianity, but they don't know Christianity! They know Jon Stewart, but they don't know Jesus Christ or Paul!

The point is that there is no such thing as state neutrality. To illustrate, let us consider a few scenarios and ask how the state can remain ideologically neutral on them:

1. What should be the moral basis for going to war?

2. How should a teacher answer a question regarding human identity--that is, whether or not we are essentially biological beings, or whether or not we have spirits?

3. How should a senator vote on a bill that would extend unemployment benefits, and why?

4. How should a senator vote on a bill that would increase the debt burden for future generations?

5. How should a congressman address the compromises necessary in public lawmaking?

6. Should voters measure candidates against their own sense of what is right?

7. Should a public school teacher call some people in history evil?

8. How should we define marriage and family?

9. How should we define social responsibility?

10. How should we define normative human sexuality?

We could go on and on with any number of examples. Surely some ideology, some worldview, will inform elected officials regarding their public activities. Is it not simply naive to suggest that there can be any meaningful separation here?

What has happened in American culture is that Christianity, along with its public influence, has been replaced by other ideological influences--namely, secularism, naturalism, postmodernism, even Marxism, anything but Christianity. And Americans blithely accept this state of affairs. They foolishly assume that if a thing does not possess the name "Church," it must then have no philosophical agenda for social change.  Go onto the typical public college or high school campus today and see if you can find anything that would challenge the prevailing naturalism and relativism that reign in those locales. Then come and tell me that there is such a thing as "separation of philosophical ideology and the state."

Broadly conceived, there can only be a few ways of seeing this problem from a Christian point of view:

1. Total ideological separation of Church and state. Of course, this is a myth, as has already been suggested. No thinking Christian can take this seriously. When this model is suggested to the Christian as the right way to understand separation, we ought to ask: If you are a liberal, are you willing to throw off any ideological connections to naturalism, postmodernism, Marxism, etc., when you cast your votes or when you occupy political spheres of influence? One can't have it both ways! Clearly separation of Church and state conceived this way implies that there should be no connection between any philosophical system and the state. But of course this reduces to absurdity! The real reason this view is pushed by so many is so that some other philosophy can be wedded to the state in the place of Christianity.

2. Ingested homogeneity. The basic idea here is that there must be a singular unified governing agenda, and thus no conflict between Church and state can be tolerated. One must adopt a religious and political marriage that works and then enforce it. Rome adopted an ideological marriage to paganism, and thus Christianity was a threat. Anything outside this socio-religious and political marriage was forcefully excluded.

Christianity did this as well. When Christians came to political power in Rome, they came to the same conclusion, but of course paganism was separated and the void was filled with Christianity. The medieval Catholics did the same. Their view was that if God has the right to rule, then he has the right to rule over everything, including state affairs. They literally could not conceive of a separation of Church and state. Even the notion of merely separating from a "state Church," or denomination, in favor of retaining the influence of Christianity in general would have been far too abstract for them. If anyone lived in opposition to a very specific form of Christian rule, then they would be simply over-run by the power of the Christian state.

3. Compromising pluralism. The Christian pluralist is the Christian who initiates discussions of "separation of Church and state" so that his liberal friends will know how cosmopolitan and broad minded he is. He knows politics is an affair of compromise. He went to a state school. He is the sort of puzzling creature who can privately believe that abortion amounts to the destruction of the most innocent and vulnerable of the human species, but also believes the state has the right to proclaim that the destruction of these fragile human beings should be "legal, safe and rare." He has given up the pipe dream of seeing Christian standards of conduct elevated to the position of national law. He won't even argue Christian principles in the public arena, because he knows no one wants to hear it, and secretly suspects that Christians principles are intellectually inferior anyway.

He is content with the "proximate" good. For all intents and purposes, he agrees with the modern liberal sentiment that close association with Christianity would be disastrous for the state. After all, his state school teacher told him how bad it was when Christians came to power... As it turns out, in his discussions of compromise, he is the only one giving up ground to the state and thus the Church continues to be marginalized into obsolescence under his so very enlightened politically compromising watch. He wants separation of Church and state, and that is precisely what he gets. Do we really believe that the likes of Chris Matthews or Joe Biden, as Catholics, are winning any ground with respect to advancing the influence of Christianity in state affairs? Even in matters of social justice, they are as quick to credit liberal secular sentimentality as the compassion of Christ for motivating social advancement. Could either of these men offer a Christian apologetic for the care of the poor? Unlikely. Or at least I'd like to hear the attempt.

In the end, the compromising pluralist is really an ideological separationist who senses that Christianity has lost its influence in the state and can't hope to regain it.

4. Tolerant pluralism. The tolerant pluralist is one who advocates that Christ has the right to rule, but also knows that proclaiming this will not be received well in the world. And thus there exists a reactive separation. This is not a separation that the tolerant pluralist advocates, but it is one he is willing to tolerate. Where the advocate of ingested homogeneity would force alignment in the face of this conflict, the advocate of tolerant pluralism insists on shifting the argument from public policy to the worldviews undergirding public policy. He acknowledges that he has lost the political battle, but that only impels him to win the worldview war! In the meantime, if he lives in a state that invites his votes, he will continue to vote his conscience, motivated by his worldview. And if asked to defend his worldview, he will be prepared.