Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: kodak!gerwitz@atexnet.epps.kodak.com (Paul Gerwitz) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Separation of Church and State or Christianity vs Civil Laws Message-ID: Date: 12 Aug 90 08:18:13 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Eastman Kodak Co. Lines: 49 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article , garth!dbarnes@unix.sri.com (Dave Barnes) writes: |> Actually the issue is not with abortion per se, but with the greater |> issue of being a Christian and believing God's laws have sovereignty over |> the laws of man when there is conflict between the two. As an American |> we are to respect others' views, and our religious views are not to be |> mandated for everyone. But what if others' views are in opposition to |> God's views (as we interpret them) on certain issues? |> |> I've been really struggling with this over the last few years. |> How have some of you out there reconciled this? I'd appreciate |> hearing from you. |> When confronting this issue of reconciling my faith beliefs with the tenents of civil law, I find it helpful to refer to Mathew 5:13-16. Here Jesus is showing us a conceptual model of what a believer should be to the world. There are other passages spread throughout the NT with similar ideas. Reconciling this with our interactions with the civil authority is a very difficult matter to come to grips with. The issue of seperation of church and state has been warped from the origonal 'intent' of the constitutional framers to fit the mistaken view of a large segment of the population. The popular interpretation is that religious belief should have NO interaction whatsoever with the civil government, either in its official policies or in forming the basic tenents and beliefs of the society. In my opinion, this is a false interpretation. The creation of this nation was firmly based on the basic beliefs of the christian faith, the framers where only trying to prevent the new governent from establishing a national 'religion' as England did. The current interpretation of the 1st amendment is taking this idea much farther and playing word games to completely take the chrisitian foundation and replace it with something else (call it whatever you like "humanism, agosticism, atheism...). The humnan race continues to rebel against God and His authority, therefore as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, must continue to pray fervently for our nation, not that it will change, but that the people will repent and be reconciled to GOD. "...if my people, upon whom my name has been pronounced, humble themselves and pray, and seek my presence and turn from their evil ways, I will hear them from heaven and pardon their sins and revive their land" 1 Chron 1:14. +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Paul F Gerwitz WA2WPI | SMTP: gerwitz@kodak.com | | Eastman Kodak Co | UUCP: ..uunet!atexnet!kodak!eastman!gerwitz | +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+