Separation of church and state OK to Christians?

you managed to point out the bit i forgot: as christians, it's our DUTY to be compassionate and understanding and accepting of others.but the bit we both left out:doing so is good publicity for our religion.

unless you ask paul. then it's or job to throw them out on their respective bottoms.but yes. who did jesus hang out with? church leaders? even small, quiet church types? angsty teenagers who aren't sure they wanna keep going to sunday school?no. he hung out with prostitutes* and theives and social outcasts. people who most definitely not part of the organized religion of the time.*mary magdelene was not one.This message has been edited by brennakimi, 03-24-2005 08:35 AM

His first miracle was not turning wine into water. But heading back towards the topic, I really believe that the concept of a Theocracy, any theocracy, in this life is basically anti-Christ.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

the anti-christ predictions in revelation, in the traditional end-times reading, doesn't the antichrist basically set up a theocracy?

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So... given that, via the 2nd commandment God demands there be no no freedom of religion, and given that no people are exempt from His law, shouldn't the Christian ideaology include no separation of church and state?

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It's true that God says he's the only God, but you still cannot force people to follow Him. Take a look at stuff about Germany after the Reformation or Calvin's Geneva. By connecting church and state, your essentially forcing people to be Christians, which is a contradiction in terms, because you cannot force someone to believe something that they don't.I lean more towards anabaptist political thought on some of these things though. I believe that Christians should be a visible community in the world and be promoting change in society by BEING the church instead of just going to church.Besides, Christians are held to the same stardard of morality whether they live in a Theocratic, amoral or even anarchist society. We are called to obey the laws of the land so far as they do not contradict scripture, also even if the government legalizes something we don't agree with, we simply don't partcipate. Making something legal doesn't make it moral.In a lot of ways the countries that are least friendly towards Christians principles are the countries in which the church is thriving the most. When church and state mix, it becomes very "comfortable" to be a Christian and the morality within the church tends to become much more lax. We stop BEING the church and start going to church.

i was completely on topic. i was simply demonstrating further my point.but i agree with you (see revelation)

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the anti-christ predictions in revelation, in the traditional end-times reading, doesn't the antichrist basically set up a theocracy?

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yeah, but the main problem with that one is that the anti-christ himself is the god of that theocracy.

that last bit there was beautiful.

shh. leave my gross misinterpretations of the text alone. that is the idea. however, that's probably just the accusation the text is making: in reality it's probably refering to a real historical figure metaphorically, who was not the god of his own religion, just really self-absorbed.also, isn't the idea that he will effectively trick a lot of christians? i dunno, i'm not too clear on revelation anymore. i should read it again.