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GOD AND POLITICS ... DON'T MIX (?)

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Alex Wallenwein
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That’s a true statement – at least depending on your definition of "politics."

If you define politics as the jockeying of political factions for advantage and power, God surely has nothing to do with it, but if you define it as the process by which people govern the affairs of their country, he begs to differ. He’s all over that one.

The problem is really one of perspective on life, rather than of political ideology.

 

If you see things from a human perspective, and if you happen to like your current lifestyle (that you know includes doing some of the things the Bible would label as 'sins') and you don't necessarily want to be reminded of that fact, then it’s of course more than understandable if you want to keep God out of your life period – and not just out of politics. The attempt to keep him out of politics is just an extension of that.

If, on the other hand, you were looking at it from God's perspective (yes, it’s possible), you'd very quickly figure out that neither you nor anyone else can really keep him out of anything. It simply isn't up to you. It's up to him.

The thing is that God is always a gentleman. He's very gracious.

 

If you personally decide you don’t want him in your life, he’ll stay out. Not a problem. There may be some consequences attached to that decision, but he’ll definitely indulge your preference.

 

If a sufficiently large number of people in a country decide that they don't want him around, he'll stay away from the entire country, too. The problem then becomes that - as the history of biblical Israel shows - when too many people decide that way and that situation persists for too long, they’ll soon be out of a country.

What many of those who are so adamant about keeping God out of American public life don't realize is that they are in fact exercising a freedom they received – courtesy of none other than God himself. They have the absolute right to make up their own minds about him. That right is enshrined in the Constitution, and the Constitution prohibits government from passing laws that would deny that right to you or anyone else.

 

But that fact doesn’t demand the conclusion that God has no place in public life. Much the opposite. Without him, you wouldn't have that right. It doesn't even matter whether you believe in him or not. Certainly, Congress didn't give you the ability to decide what to believe or not to believe, nor did any other government or human institution - so what's so wrong with being reminded of the source of that right, every now and then?

 

Naturally, people who believe that God should stay out of public life undoubtedly have a right to think so, as they have a right to say so. If you’re among them, more power to you! However, when they use the courts to get rulings banning religious speech or symbols from public life by declaring their presence “unconstitutional”, what they are really doing is denying to those people who do prefer to have God around their right to think so and to express their thinking publicly. That right is guaranteed by the Constitution as well. It has two names: “freedom of conscience” and “freedom of expression” – and those freedoms don’t stop at your door mat.

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Alex Wallenwein, is a grass-roots activist for the rule of law and American liberty.

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