Editorials / Columns
Religion and Government Should Never Be Mixed
By Elissar Saleeba
Apr 9, 2004, 17:27

Religion offers humanity thousands of years of wisdom and morality with the supernatural carrot and stick for all. Democratic government protects citizens from the abuses of other governments and entities foreign and domestic. Both are excellent separately and are essential to human society today. Problems arise when they mix however.

Democracy ideally relies on elected bodies of power to create laws and govern the day-to-day affairs of the nation. Debate ensues and usually compromise is reached. Because these bodies are not unanimous and are not taking the cues from the same source generally a mutually beneficial and efficient solution is reached. Democracy in essence relies on compromise and debate of parties seeking the best interest of the nation.

The problem with church and government mixing usually means the issues begin to be defined not as fair or just, but as good and evil. Religion has a bad habit of making a black and white argument. Christians, Muslims and Jews see the world as a test and struggle to the souls of humanity for eternal reward to the believers and eternal punishment for the unbelievers. Hence compromise with those outside the group in power usually isn’t an option as they are not good or as good as the ones with religion. In essence, it is wrong to compromise with evil.

For example, allowing homosexuals to marry and claim legal rights and privileges that other couples enjoy. Sounds fine if one views marriage is just a contract honored by the government and the parties involved like any other. However apply the religious view of marriage being between a man and a woman and suddenly this is unacceptable. To those religions that find homosexuality is offensive this argument would not even up for debate.

The same goes for women’s rights, or even the fact that women can hold property. Christianity interprets a woman as inherently flawed who redeems herself though childbirth. Genesis 3:16 for those who are wondering or “Women are subordinate to men because of the sin of Eve for which all women must be punished,” 1 Timothy 2:14-15. With arguments like those in the holy book of Christians how could a society where church and state mix even begin to discuss much less implement equal rights for women.

While I am not against religious people participating in government we must remember the dangers of theocracy. This is not only to the government but also to the religions themselves. Often enough in historical Europe, churches became the pawns of governments to silence dissent and gather information; and eventually to subvert the church for the needs of the government. Even now in the Middle East, the Iranian government’s extremists use its Mosques as recruitment for terrorist camps and sacrifice its followers for political ends.

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