LOOKING AT THE BIG PICTURE
REGARDING CHURCH AND STATE
Some Thoughts By
Gary Ray Branscome
At the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven,
and on earth, and under the earth (Philippians
There are those who say that the church should not get involved in politics;
that its job is to spread the gospel and call sinners to repentance, not to
influence legislation or try to make people righteous through the law. And,
that is perfectly true, at least in regard to the “church” as an institution.
However, those who think that rank and file Christians should not get involved
in government, or that all Christian influence should be separated from
government, have missed the big picture and fail to understand the will of God.
What they fail to see is that the “church” does not
exist in a vacuum but is a vital part of the community and nation. And, as a
part of the nation the role that God intends for the church to carry out
(including its relationship to the state) can be seen in His plan for ancient
Furthermore, because works can never make men
righteous in the sight of God, it should be obvious that the job of government
is not to make men righteous but to amplify the voice of conscience in a way
that will both discourage sin and encourage repentance (Ecclesiastes 8:11).
Therefore, because the role of the church is to call men to repentance while
pointing them to Christ, the role of the church and the role of the state
should compliment each other. God never intended for them to be at odds! The
job of the state is to condemn and punish criminal behavior. And, the job of
the church is to call men to repentance while pointing them to Christ as the
one and only source of true righteousness (Romans 10:4). For that reason,
governments that condone and promote evil behavior (such as homosexuality) are
in rebellion against God and harden the hearts of those who are guilty. And,
churches that condone such behavior not only do the same, but by giving the
unrepentant a false assurance of salvation they preach a false gospel.
Taking a Deeper Look
Looking deeper, I would like to call your attention to the parallel between
In saying that I by no means wish to deny the rivalry
that later developed, or the problems that resulted when the
institutionalized church began to take on the role of the state, raise armies,
sentence people to death, and persecute Christians. That confusion of church
and state was contrary to the will of God. Yet today we have gone to the opposite
extreme. Nevertheless, the problems I mentioned were not caused by church and
state being in harmony, but by a rivalry which resulted from the state trying
to control the church, and the church trying to control the state. Both
extremes are a departure from the will of God. God does not want the church
trying to raise armies or sentencing people to death, nor does He want the
state to deny believers the right to preach, spread the gospel, or choose their
own pastors (2Corinthians 10:4, Acts 5:29).
What we have allowed our American government to do is to totally redefine
“separation of church and state” in order to exclude Christianity from the
public forum, while establishing atheism [i.e. naturalism, secularism,
humanism] as the religion of the state. And, that is totally unbiblical. The
American secular religion does not have many churches (although there are
some), but every tax supported school is a temple of that religion and every
tax supported teacher or professor who indoctrinates students in naturalism is
a priest or priestess of that religion.
While the priesthood of ancient
Making the Word of God of No Effect
One reason that the Pharisees did not accept Christ is
that they had made the Law of “no effect” by rationalizing sin and explaining
away anything in the Law that condemned them (Mark
In ancient
In 1946 the great evangelist, Dr. Walter A. Maier
raised his voice against this attack on our faith, saying: “In your own community
speak out bravely against everyone who publicly ridicules the Lord Jesus,
against schoolteachers who, violating the constitutionally guaranteed
separation of Church and State, misuse their tax-paid positions to inculcate
unbelief and contradiction of Scripture. The reason denial of Bible truth has
grown so alarmingly in the
At the time Dr. Maier spoke those words schools were
controlled by the community they served, and parents could have some influence.
However, since that time the federal government has usurped control, and even
mandates the indoctrination of children in the satanic doctrines of secular
religion. An indoctrination, which, as Dr. Maier points out is contrary to the
original understanding of separation of church and state. And, that
indoctrination serves to make the Word of God of no effect.
By teaching evolution, the message being given to our
children is that if we are descended from cats and dogs then we are no more
bound by rules of morality than are cats and dogs, and if homosexuality is
normal then there is nothing wrong with it. And, that indoctrination makes the
Word of God of no effect (Mark
Some Final Thoughts
To a great extent American Christians fail to see the problem because they are
blinded to it by cultural paradigms. Let me clarify that by saying that: if a
Christian parent sent his child to a Moslem school and that child wound up
becoming a Moslem, we might say that it was his own fault for not training up
the child “in the way he should go” (Proverbs 22:6). However, when a Christian
parent sends his child to an atheist school and that child winds up becoming an
atheist, we often do not see the connection. Often we just dismiss it by saying
“You can’t ever know how a child will turn out”. And, that is cultural
blindness!
God expects more of Christians than that. And, because He gives us His own
promise that if we, “Train a child up in the way he should go… when he is old,
he will not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6), we need to claim that promise
through faith in Christ (2Corinthians
Even though the Bible warns us time and again about the danger of false
prophets, people seem blind to the false prophets in our tax supported schools
and universities. They seem to think that someone has to lead a cult in order
to be a false prophet, when nothing could be further from the truth. The false
prophets that Jeremiah and Ezekiel warned against were not church leaders. They
were teachers, teachers who were leading people away from God’s Word, thus
making the Word of God of no effect.
Conclusion
We no longer have Biblical separation of church and state in this country. If
we did, a Christian congressman could stand up in congress and say, “I am
introducing this bill to outlaw abortion because as a Christian I believe that
abortion is murder”; and everyone there would say, “Put it to a vote, he has
just as much right to his opinion as anyone else”. At the same time, no tax
supported teacher or professor would be allowed, as Dr. Walter A. Maier put it,
to “misuse their tax-paid positions to inculcate unbelief and contradiction of
Scripture”.
We need to wake up to the fact that the job of the church involves more than
just meeting for worship once a week and having potlucks, the job of the church
is to nurture Christians and build them up in the faith while calling people to
repentance and pointing them to Christ.
We also need to wake up to the fact that we do not have to build huge
buildings, or charge high tuitions in order to have a school. Any church that
can afford to hire an assistant pastor can afford to hire a teacher, and it
only takes one teacher to have a one-room school. Moreover, if we do not need
to charge tuition when we hire an assistant pastor, we do not need to charge
tuition when we hire a teacher. Let’s stop playing at church and get serious!