With Mike Johnson’s selection as the new Speaker of the House, the attacks were instantaneous.
One criticism directed at the new Speaker was that he routinely violates the “separation of church and state.” If the accusers had any knowledge of American history, they would not quickly raise such an issue against a Baptist.
Colonial Baptists wrote the book on the “separation of church and state.” Therefore, lecturing a knowledgeable Baptist, such as Congressman Johnson, on that topic is like a non-golfer giving putting tips to Jack Nicklaus!
Yes, Speaker Johnson’s Christianity informs his politics, but that is not at all a violation of the separation of church and state. The politics of every single citizen in America is informed by his or her religion!
It cannot be otherwise.
Those who wrote America’s founding documents, in particular, the Constitution, never imagined the nation functioning in a religious vacuum. In truth, it is impossible to live peaceably without religious principles of some kind guiding one’s conduct.
Atheists and anarchists, operating in a time of national ignorance (which they have largely fostered), have convinced many that freedom of religion somehow translates into freedom from religion, and that a nation needs no commonly held moral and spiritual principles in order to prosper. Even now, with their philosophy only partially implemented, we find ourselves suffering from societal breakdown, confusion, and rapidly increasing violence. It is precisely as John Adams wrote,
“Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
The Founders envisioned a nation with a majority holding a common moral philosophy and having the character and self-discipline to live it out. Imagine what the country will be like if we do not change course soon!
The Founders had no intention of creating a religion-free, or secular society. Anyone who promotes such a thing is not only wrong, but evil. We can no longer afford to soft-pedal our response to the wickedness that is destabilizing and destroying America.
The notion that the Constitution demands a separation of religious principles from the government is an insidious lie. When Thomas Jefferson spoke of a wall separating the church and state in a letter to the Danbury Baptists in 1802, he referred to the government being restricted from hindering churches or Christians from freely exercising their religious beliefs.
In simple terms, the First Amendment to the Constitution created a one-way barrier prohibiting the government from controlling religious activities, but in no way limiting the influence of religious principles over government. To do such would infringe on the citizens’ consciences and the free exercise of their religion, contrary to the First Amendment of the Constitution, because we have a government by and for the people!
The principles the Framers came to understand regarding the relationship of faith and government and then implemented in the Constitution were largely derived from the little Baptist colony of Rhode Island. The Rhode Island founders understood that at the center of the debate over religious liberty was whether there should be an established state church, in other words, an organic tie between the government and a particular church.
In Europe and most of the colonies such a coupling had been the norm. The government and a particular church were united in such a way that tax dollars were used to support the church, and the church wielded influence destructive to other churches or religions. This union was ultimately inimical to a free conscience. Citizens were forced to support religious ideologies with which they disagreed.
This was anathema to Baptists.
Yet, because it is impossible to govern free people without a common moral and religious framework, the question for us becomes: If we are not to be governed by Christian principles, by what religion’s principles will we be governed?
Tragically, the present circumstance is that secularists and atheists have insinuated themselves into places of influence, especially within the educational system, to the degree that America’s political and educational establishments are now largely dominated by the religion of atheism and humanism. And therefore, contrary to popular opinion, we have a state church, howbeit a humanistic, secular one. (US courts, including the Supreme Court have ruled that humanism is a religion).
Public schools are the local “churches,” and the teachers are the “priests.” Thus, America’s children are being indoctrinated into the religion of atheism, contrary to what their parents believe yet at their parents’ and our expense! We have gone full circle to where we again force Americans to financially support a religious ideology that is contrary to their own!
If that is not enough to get parents to remove their children from public schools and universities, I cannot imagine what it will take!
My point is simple: we must reject America’s present state church, Secular Humanism, as the national religion, and must readopt the general principles upon which the Constitution and other laws of the country are based, which were derived from Christianity.
It is clearly possible to live by the principles of Christianity without establishing Baptist churches, Catholicism, Lutheranism, or any other church as THE “State Church.” We had a well-established separation of church and state until humanists came along!
In spite of secularists’ denial, their “religion” is America’s state church, and their oft repeated assertion that the separation of church and state is violated whenever an elected official or a teacher advocate for principles found in the Bible is fallacious and wildly hypocritical. Behind their smokescreen of concern for good governance, they manipulate public policy to precipitate anarchy.
Atheism and humanism demand the elimination of objective authorities, such as God and the Bible, from public forums, and will lead the nation into lawlessness and ultimately, tyranny. Power-hungry leaders, at this very moment, promote morality-free humanism to gain support (there is a desire within all of us to live free of restraint); but once anarchy prevails, the tyrants, having obtained sufficient control, carry out their true objective and take total control.
The notion of a government free existence is a fantasy perpetuated by ignorant people (Marx’s useful idiots), and tyrants. Marxism’s demand that all societal structures be dismantled has only the tyrant’s benefit in mind. It is reckless regarding the good of the citizens. Mankind will be governed either by the fear of God (eventual judgment), or by the fear of men capable of exerting their will via force.
Our Constitution was written with the former in mind and has little ability to deal with overwhelming numbers of men untethered from objective morality.
The vicious attacks against Mike Johnson have no basis. They are simply elements of a values-free mindset that permeates the Left and that despises any standard of right and wrong, and even that of excellence. It is unapologetic nihilism.
It is not Speaker Johnson who violates the principle of separation of church and state, but rather the Leftists who are neck deep in its practice.
While there have always been some who rejected the mores of a Christianized culture, popular culture no longer demands anything approximating self-control of its youth; and the percentage of American parents who are shirking their responsibility as parents is staggering. If God does not intervene in a big way, the future of the country is bleak, indeed!
In the end there are two options available to America: continue the path we are on of eliminating Christianity’s influence thus leading to more chaos and violence, and tyranny, or yield to the call of Scriptures to repent of our sins, trust in Jesus Christ, and promote the liberating principles of Christianity.
