Government & Religious Groups

Once there was a man who witnessed the following phenomena.

Two birds were quarreling. The larger bird pounced on the smaller bird and killed her. As the small bird lay dead the big bird flew over her, flapping her wings and trying to awaken the dead bird.

After realizing that the bird was dead, the live one flew away. A short time later the larger bird returned with a twig in her beak. By placing the twig in the dead birds mouth, a miracle took place. The small bird came back and flew off with the big bird.

The man ran to the area and grabbed the twig. He thought to himself, "I have the most important object in the world, a twig that can restore life! If only I could sell it to the rich king, how wealthy I would become." He took the twig and went off to see the king.

When he arrived at the king's palace he saw the carcass of a man-eating-lion. "I am now going to sell the twig to the king. I will become famous and rich," he thought. "But before I sell the twig I must do an experiment. I will see if it still works."

He took the twig and placed it into the mouth of the lion. Sure enough, the lion became full of life. The first thing he did was jump on the man and eat him.

We have witnessed many changes in society; some quite miraculous such as the failure of fascism, communism and dictatorship. In America we owe our success to religious democracy. If a country experiences religious democracy, then it has life. The religious freedom of the people gives our great republic its sense of values and moral backbone.

With the Christian coalition signing an agreement with the Republican Party, I wonder if we may be creating a new monster -a man-eating-government taking away our religious freedom!

At the present time we have rights to practice as we wish. There is no bigotry of religion. However, the very idea of a religious coalition as part of the deal-makers may jeopardize the very existence of the freedom we fought for. When our founding fathers established this country they were strongly concerned about not having religion established as part of the government. Government was to be religious, but having a national religion for the government was not part of the plan. Remember, its freedom of religion, not freedom from religion, that concerns us.

As in the bird metaphor, birds fight just as people do. The twig of life is religion. It makes the dead come alive. But when religion, the twig, is fed to the lions, especially a man-eating lion, it strikes the feeder and destroys life. In our case, it could mean a religious governmental coalition curtailing the freedom of our great country or causing an anti-religious backlash.

America, is a mosaic of religions. We can keep our country teeming with life through religion. Let's continue to direct our families and friends with religious instruction. But when we deal with government, I believe we must be prudent. 

Remember, it's possible, that our country's government may turn against those not in the coalition,  those of different religions, thus creating a man-eating lion scenario.

Early in 1790 President George Washington wrote a letter to the Jews of Newport, Rhode Island.  In it he stated, "For happily the government of the United States, which gives bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support." Washington wanted to see an elected government that would support the people ignoring the religion they belonged to.

When the Republican party and the Christian coalition speak of using their religious power to control government, they may be discounting the message of our first president, George Washington.

This is something to think about.