Politics and Faith

Since the days of Thomas Jefferson, the united states has recognized a division between Church and State.  This came out of the founders' distrust of many of the creeds of their day, many of which were state mandated; yet they all wrote of and believed in Christian principles. 


In the First of the Bill of Rights  the Founders wrote: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;

Somewhere along the way, the courts have interpreted away the intent of the Founding Fathers and have created not freedom of religion, but freedom from religion. God has been legislated out of America in the name of political correctness.  We cannot have nativity scenes or monuments with the 10 commandments in any public space for fear of "offending" someone.

This is tragic as we are engaged in a serious crisis of spiritual warfare and we have removed the Only One who can help us withstand the onslaught of the adversary from our public life. This is a war we cannot win politically.  It must be won spiritually.  If we in America have deluded ourselves into thinking the spiritual realm doesn't exist, we will be rudely awakened. We will suffer the fate of Israel and Judah, proud and stiffnecked people who also refused to acknowledge the spiritual within the political.

If you remember the geography of the near east, you will recall that the kingdom of Judah was immediately in the path between Egypt and the Empires of Mesopotamia.  Their spiritual wells were, for the most part, bankrupt.  Thus they tried to rely on the "arm of flesh" instead of on the Lord.

Prophets such as Isaiah, Jeremiah, Habbakuk, and Lehi warned them repeatedly to avoid alliances with hostile nations.  If they would repent and turn again to the Lord, He would encircle with the walls of His divine protection.  They didn't listen.  Even King Josiah, who was one of Judah's most righteous kings, gave in to fear and entered into an alliance with Babylon, although it was a secret alliance at first.  Pharoah Necco of Egypt wanted to cross Judah to war with Babylon.  Against the warning of the prophets, Josiah went to war against Egypt and was mortally wounded. When we talk of faith but don't walk with faith, we are in serious jeopardy.

The prophets who cried repentance and faith were ridiculed, tortured, some even killed, on the grounds that what they were preaching was treasonous because it emphasized God, whom they saw to be ephemeral, if existent or not. The Book of Mormon tells us that God led Lehi and his family out of Judah in order to save his life.  Lest you think that is an exaggeration, I offer into evidence the Prophet, Urijah, who was contemporary with Jeremiah and Lehi.  He was also persecuted and threatened with death for preaching the fall of Judah if they did not repent.  He, too, was warned and fled to Egypt where he thought he would be safe.  King Zedekiah was so vengeful, he sent men to Egypt to extradite Urijah.  He was dragged back to Judah where he was executed by the sword of the King in the palace.  Whether the king did it himself or had a servant do it, Jeremiah (20:20-23) doesn't tell us.  The truth is always dangerous to those who speak it in the face of a people living a great lie.

Do we dare, as a nation, to ignore our current spiritual warfare in the false belief that we can solve our problems politically?  Perish the thought! Those who do so are fools and they lead other fools into destruction.  Truth doesn't cease to be true just because a group of people choose not to believe it.  Ignorance of the laws of God is as dangerous as ignorance of the law of gravity.

Today, we don't threaten those who speak for God with death; we threaten them with impeachment.

©Kathleen Rawlings Buntin Danielson November 2019