[TruthTalk] The Secular versus the Religious

[David Miller]

Some of the conflict recently has involved the ideology of whether or not a list like TruthTalk should be a secular list or a Christian list.  There is a more general topic involved here that concerns our Bill of Rights and the concept of separation of church and State.  I would like for us to discuss this topic.   The First Amendment of our U.S. Constitution says, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..."  The historical backdrop for how this law came to be written partly concerns how the Anglican church became the national religion of England since the time of King Henry the VIII.  There is this history that when Roman Catholicism was the official religion, Protestants were put to death, and when the Anglicans came into power, a blood bath ensued against the Roman Catholics.  Many came to be against the idea of theocracy because of these abuses.  The idea that men should have freedom of religion came to mean that government should not favor one religion over another, nor should religious _expression_ be infringed upon.  Hence, our U.S. Constitution adopted this First Amendment.   The interesting question is whether or not true believers can work within a secular system, or indeed, whether they can themselves establish and maintain secular systems.  For example, how does a Bible believing Christian function in public office, whether as a Judge in the court system, as Mayor or Governor, or as President?  Our public educational system involves this same secular philosophy.  The idea is that no religious body or philosophy should control it.  Can Christians participate effectively in such?  Can Christians be school teachers, principals, or even establish schools of education based upon secularism?    Let me put forth the questions this way in order to give us a start.  If you were in the position of being able to establish a school, would you make it a Christian school or would you make it a secular school?  If you would make it a Christian school, why would you do that?  If secular, why?    Also, if you were to make it a Christian school, would you think that a fellow Christian who established a secular school was wrong to do so?  If you were to make it a secular school, do you think the fellow Christian who established a Christian school would be unwise to do that?  How much freedom do we have as Christians to choose one over the other?   David Miller.