MIXING CHURCH AND STATE

“The church must never become a government factory, carrying on a nationalized industry of religion with the people as the bolts and nuts; with God reduced to the role of cramped advocate of current national policy. Surely the pages of history are replete and the examples in many a foreign country convincing that this kind of church-state union — whatever the original motives, or however noble the original purposes — winds up with a state that is less than stable and a church that is less than sanctified, and with the poor still hungry,” wrote Glenn Archer.

The church is the Body of Christ… it is people living out the mandates of Jesus and his Kingdom on earth. The state is the political function of polity and structure for civil living… or at least that was the original design. Political answers for are civil direction and church answers are for spiritual direction. It is catastrophic to mix the two. It is not unlike Jesus before Pilate… when church and state are mixed.

Jesus answered, “Do you say this of your own accord, or did others say it to you about me?” Pilate answered, “Am I a Jew? Your own nation and the chief priests have delivered you over to me. What have you done?” Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.” Then Pilate said to him, “So you are a king?”

“Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world—to bear witness to the truth.” Jesus