Religious Freedom

Seeking God and truth on behalf of America!

Biblical View

The Bible teaches that those who follow the Lord are to do so all the time--whether they are persecuted or not. In fact, Jesus discussed persecution and said it would happen. (Matthew 5:10-11, Matthew 24:9). It happened with the early church as we read in the book of Acts. Interestingly, when the church was persecuted, they scattered, which resulted in spreading the Gospel to a larger area. When the apostles were arrested for preaching in the name of Jesus, they said, "We must obey God rather than men." (Acts 5:29).

After having experienced the problems associated with governmental interference with religion in Europe, America was founded upon the principle of religious freedom. The founders did not want the federal government to establish a state church. However, it must be noted that they expected the Christian faith to be freely allowed, even within the government.

To quote David Barclay from Wallbuilders:

"The First Amendment meant Congress is limited from setting up a national denomination and Congress is limited from prohibiting the free exercise of religion. The First Amendment does not limit faith or the people, only the government."

We allow the "free exercise of religion." This doesn't mean that we force every citizen of the nation to be religious. God doesn't even do that. He has given everyone a free will to choose whether they want to follow Him or not. Following the Lord's way in this, our founders did not want a government-sponsored religion. This is the true meaning of the "Separation of Church and State."

Although we allow people to choose their religion, or no religion at all, we must be careful of any religion which, once in a position to do so, will force others to convert. This is the danger of allowing Islam's Sharia any place in the U.S.

Bring Down That Wall

Nicholas Papanicolaou has an excellent book on what separation of church and state really means. It's an easy to read book called Bring Down That Wall.

Take a look at it here.