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Seeing through their duplicity...
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By Terry Dashner
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He saw through their duplicity...
A continuing series on the separation of Judeo-Christianreligion and American civil government.
Faith Fellowship Church...PO Box 1586 Broken Arrow, OK 74013;Terry Dashner
In Luke's gospel, chapter 20 and beginning with verse 20, thereis an interesting story recorded.
The NIV Bible reads, "Keeping a close watch on him, they sentspies, who pretended to be honest. They hoped to catch Jesus insomething he said so that they might hand him over to the powerand authority of the governor. So the spies questioned him:"Teacher, we know that you speak and teach what is right, andthat you do not show partiality but teach the way of God inaccordance with the truth. Is it right for us to pay taxes toCaesar or not?"
"He saw through their duplicity and said to them, "Show me adenarius. Whose portrait and inscription is on it?"
"Caesar's," they replied. He said to them, "Then give to Caesarwhat is Caesar's, and to God what is God's."
The key to understanding this story is stated in the followingverse. "They were unable to trap him in what he had said therein public. And astonished by his answer, they became silent."(Verse 26, NIV)
Although this story has been used by some to support the notionthat religion and civil government should be separate, I don'tthink the spies who were sent to trap Jesus were interested in"separation of church and state." As a matter of fact to the Jewof the first century, the thought of the Jewish civil governmentseparating from the Law of Moses was anathema.
The spies wanted to trick Jesus into saying something by whichthey could condemn him publicly. The joke was on them, however.Jesus' answer astonished them and moved them to silence.
When I here statements by groups such as the ACLU wanting toseparate religion from the civil government, I'm suspicious. Ithink, based upon their history, they aren't really concernedfor the good of our Constitution and civil government. I thinkthey have a hidden agenda. My prayer is that other Americanswill see through their duplicity.
I think their real intentions are to elevate the civilgovernment of municipalities, counties, states, and the nationabove the Judeo-Christian heritage of this nation. I don't thinkthey want separation, I think they want to abolish religionperiod. Although the First Amendment clearly says that thegovernment shall not abolish the free exercise of religion, theystill try desperately to purge American civil government fromany semblance of the Judeo-Christian religion.
The nineteenth century philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegelonce said, "History teaches us that man learns nothing fromhistory." Have we forgotten our world history? Each civilizationthat chose to forget God came to its end abruptly. What aboutAmerica's history? Noah Webster said, "The moral principles andprecepts contained in the scriptures ought to form the basis ofall our civil constitutions and laws. All the miseries and evilswhich men suffer from vice, crime, ambition, injustice,oppression, slavery, and war, proceed from their despising orneglecting the precepts contained in the Bible."
Again, Joseph Story (1779-1845), Associate Justice of the UnitedStates Supreme Court said, "The real object of the FirstAmendment was not to countenance, much less to advance,Mahomedanism, or Judaism, or infidelity, by prostratingChristianity; but to exclude all rivalry among Christian sects,and to prevent any national ecclesiastical establishment whichshould give to a hierarchy the exclusive patronage of thenational government. It thus cut off the means of religiouspersecution (the vice and pest of former ages), and of thesubversion of the rights of conscience in matters of religionwhich had been trampled upon almost from the days of theApostles to the present age..."
The argument by Thomas Jefferson who coined the phrase"separation of church and state," was not meant to separatecivil government from the Christian philosophy but to keep thenational government from endorsing one "sect" or one Christiandenomination over another. That would have established a statesponsored church such as England had and would have createdrebellion in the young nation; therefore, Jefferson--and rightlyso--concerned himself with the power of one influentialdenomination overshadowing the civic affairs of the nation andnot with separating American civic government from Biblicalstandards of righteousness. Why would anyone be againstrighteousness and justice?
To be continued...
Keep the faith. Stay the course, America. Jesus' governmentshall never end (Isaiah 9:6-7).
Pastor T.
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