Outchurched

If a new bill passes in Congress, churches and charities will be the new enforcement arm for the government, required to check ID and verify that the poor that they serve are not illegal aliens. If I was still involved in church, I would shut it down before becoming the new army for the government. Something seems fascist about all of this. The church has sold its soul to the U.S. government, and now its going to have to pay a price. You want to be “the recognition” of being the government ordained religion? The price for this recognition is going to be your soul.

I love this. On the one hand they call themselves the majority, but let’s go running to make a law to make sure the damn hippy liberal minority doesn’t take it from us. Ummm…. except we’re in a country where the majority rules. Why are they so scared then?

As a citizen of the state of Missouri, I think I have to decide that I’m overall in favor of this bill. My political opinion is definitely opposed; see the First Amendment for my reasoning. However, as a follower of Jesus Christ, it seems to me that we, as a church, need all the help we can get.

There are bad churches out there, churches who do not truly follow Jesus or live what they preach. Those are the churches that would check ID and search out the illegal aliens. But there are other churches and other groups of people who don’t meet for any reason except a desire to glorify God.

This bill probably won’t pass. But on the chance it does, let’s be reasonable. I bet it will be overturned in the next Congress. The world is not pro-Christian. I’m glad to see someone in our goverment who is actually making an attempt to further the Christian movement. It may not be much, and it may not even be the best choice in this situation. But it could definitely be a whole lot worse. This bill only wants to make Christianity the state’s “official” religion, in the same way that the bluebird is our “official” bird or the mule is our “official” animal or the fiddle is our “official” musical instrument. It doesn’t want to make Christianity the ONLY religion, and it doesn’t want to make Christianity the Nazi- or the Communist-style religion.

It may seem strange, but in practice, nominating an “official” religion can actually act to balance out the “faithscape”. The act of nominating one religion by implication acknowledges the existence of others. Ignoring the issue (as seems popular in the USA) leaves a free field to big-money corporate evangelism.

Here in the UK we have had a state religion for centuries, and (although I may be mistaken, of course) we don’t seem to have immediately descended into fascism. Instead, we have laws protecting all forms of religious expression.