[GCFL-discuss] Nations

[Discussion of the Good, Clean Funnies List]

The United States is not a "Christian nation."

The majority of our citizens are Christian, Christianity had a great deal
to do with the foundations of how we define our principles. In fact, the
very idea of voting to decide the best course of action came from the
dissenting Protestant churches, before it reached civil government. But
our founders made a deliberate decision that the nation, the state, the
government, would not endorse any faith, or make any faith its own
official foundation. That was a decision made by men (women were not
formally permitted to be part, although many made themselves a part
anyway) who were for the most part Christians, and among other things
concluded that this was best for their faith as well as for good civil
governance.

At the time we decided that, Canada, England, the entire British Empire,
had an official church, the Anglican Church, with the King (or Queen) of
England as its head (rather than the Pope, and, as some dissenting
Protestants used to say, rather than the Lord Jesus Christ).

If Canada is classified by the United Nations as "not a Christian
nation," it is probably because Canada has disestablished the Anglican
Church as the official church of the government. Without an established
church, there is no way to define a nation as being of one specific
faith. In Saudi Arabia, by contrast, the House of Saud are botht he
ruling family and the official guardians of the holy shrines of Mecca and
Medina.

Nations which once had, or still technically have, an official
state-supported church now have overwhelming majorities that don't bother
to go to church at all. Inthe United States, where church attendance has
never been enforced or encouraged by the state, we have the highest level
of church participation. 

You can see this difference in how ours laws treat a subject like gay
marriage. In Canada, and Europe, having got rid of the power of the
official church, there is an attitude of "why not?" In the U.S., where
the churches are independent (and plural) every church feels free to
advance what it believes to be best. In Canada, some church people wonder
whether the simple statement Quama made, that homosexuality is against
the Bible, could be legally defined as "hate speech" and subject to
prosecution. In the U.S., our courts simply have no jurisdiction at all
over matters of faith and doctrine. That is so well established that no
court is going to reconsider it.

That is a good trade-off. Someone entrusted with government authority may
not USE that authority to advance their own faith, beyond what they could
do as an individual citizen in any case, but the government -- no matter
what is the current cultural fad -- cannot interfere in citizens
practicing their own faith.

I agree with Quama's prayer request, with one picky little point of
clarification: we are praying that those who have authority will have the
wisdom to use it well, not praying blindly that God will bless their work
with success, no matter how misguided, or increase their power, not
matter how misused.

Siarlys

P.S. The whole gay question raises an interesting contrast: since it is a
biological side-show at best, and there is a norm to human emotions and
behavior which is not gay, for the majority of us who are not tempted, it
is the only sin we don't have to worry about.
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