Does a chat in church erode U.S. principles?
Unless there are two columnists of the same name, Kathleen Parker is normally a conservative commentator. A recent column by her about the Obama/McCain "debate" in pastor Rick Warren's "Saddleback" church seems something of a departure from that however. She seems to think that it violated the Leftist doctrine of the "separation of church and state".
There seems to have been a lot of reaction -- both for and against -- to the column so here's an excerpt:
"At the risk of heresy, let it be said that setting up the two presidential candidates for religious interrogation by an evangelical minister-no matter how beloved-is supremely wrong. It is also un-American....
The winner, of course, was Warren, who has managed to position himself as political arbiter in a nation founded on the separation of church and state. The loser was America...
This is about higher principles that are compromised every time we pretend we're not applying a religious test when we're really applying a religious test.
There have been various objections to her claims but one that does not so far seem to have arisen is what I think is the most basic. There is NO separation of church and State mandated in the U.S. constitution. Try to find it if you think there is.
All that is mandated is: ""Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion". When that was written its meaning was perfectly clear. It was a reference to the fact that in England, the Church of England was at the time the "established" church. And that meant that the government paid its priests and supported it as the "right" or official religion.
So it is clear that the U.S. government must not pay clergy or sponsor any particular denomination but that is a long way from a complete separation of church and State. It is certainly clear that there is no prohibition on any clergy getting involved in politics. Clergy can talk themselves blue in the face but that won't make their church "established". So the government cannot support a particular church but a particular church can support the government -- if it chooses to.
10 comments:
The reason you cannot find "separation of church and state" in the Constitution of the US, is because you cannot see the clear, explicit, black and white, no bones about it, "Penumbra of emanations" clause in the document, which upholds the equally vivid, "right to privacy," right to health care, right to kill one's unborn child, right not to EVER be offended, right to shout down conservative speakers, etc etc. These are Constitutional mandates that we on the right would never have found without the insights of the left.
Now. if only the left could imagine a clause in the Constitution that says, "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." For some reaon, they just cannot find anything in the Constitution that remotely suggests that.
Separation of Church and State was first written by Thomas Jefferson in 1802. In that letter Jefferson wrote to a man from a Baptist Church that a wall existed between Church and State and that the State would never ever tell a man how he could pray, nor where he could pray. And now 206 years later, that has changed totally, where the state has the right to stop a man where he can pray and how he can pray
Mobius
She is not only 100% wrong she has exactly the wrong idea about who ought to be moderating such debates.
Both men claim religious ties so it makes perfect sense to have them questioned on a religious level by a religious person.
It would be better if the REST of the debates were moderated by subject matter experts instead of all-too-full-of-themselves-media-entities. Imagine an economics expert questioning them on economic issues and a foreign policy expert on foreign policy. What a difference it would make if the candidates were questioned where it matters!
It's amazing that John, an Australian has a better grasp of our constitution than most Americans.
This buckethead is groping for some justification to claim that it doesn't really matter that the Obamessiah got his clock cleaned because "it was a flawed exercise anyway, against the constitution so who cares who won"
Dunno who said this but it also applies to things that "don't really matter anyway (Nyaaa, nyaaa)" ....
"I wonder if the OB1 camp has figured out that they are, in essence, admitting that McCain mopped the floor with their Save-Yer at the Saddleback Telefloorum. Anytime one screams “cheated”, that means that somebody won and it wasn’t you! Accusations are the sincerest form of flattery."
While i think the basic premise was a good one, i don't think having a pastor (or whatever he is) conduct it was a good idea. Perhaps the idea was to convince the voters that the debate was fair and honest because it was moderated by a pastor, an idea i don't buy. I think the only one who benefited from it was, the pastor.
As for the imaginary separation of church and state issue, we all know that no such thing exists in the Constitution. But when did that ever stop the leftists from seeing it (and a right to privacy, and a right to an abortion, etc.) there. That's exactly what they mean when they say the Constitution should be a "living, breathing document". By "living" they mean able to be "manipulated, tweeked, and adjusted"!
The idea of a wall of seperation comes from a letter Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptist Chruch, to ensure them that no one version of Christianity would become the church of the United States, that everyone could practice their beliefs.
If you are a believer in End Times prophesy, you will recognize that current political and societal thinking is simply bringing us closer to fulfilled prophesy. While I certainly don't like the direction in which we are headed, I understand that we must travel this path before we will see Jesus' return.
The "prophecies" of 'Revelations' was not about our times or our future but the Roman Empire, as the "second coming" of Christ was expected in the lifetime of the early christians. Every age and generation thinks its own to have the worst portents of the "End", but of course some kind of end will come to every person, civilization and "life as we know it" - eventually!!
Must be a full moon.
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