by M. L. Larzelere

Created on: July 12, 2009   Last Updated: July 14, 2009

Should There Be No Religion

Christian soldiers march on. One would think that our nation is falling to pieces because not everyone is a Christian; it is as if all the non-Christian people are the cause; and are in the midst of this great nation's decay. As a Christian myself, I am appalled at the claims made by some of these so called Christian advocates. It is not the non-Christians who have caused this great nation to come tumbling down at its knees; it is those in high political and high corporate power who have caused this nation to start buckling down under.

I keep hearing on the radio, seeing on television, and reading in the newspapers, and viewing online our country is a Christian country like Iran is a Muslim country ruled by Muslim leaders. The implication meaning our country is a Christian nation ruled by Christian leaders. I will probably make a few enemies among my Christian friends, but people who preach this viewpoint fail to understand the intent our forefathers had when crafting rules of law for our nation. While they whole heartedly imbedded the Christian values (we had no Hindu, Muslim, Jewish, or any other religions represented at the time) they made the rule of law based on moral and ethical values free from religious dictates. We are not a Christian nation, but a nation based on Christian values and freedom of religion. And unlike what some media people rave about, most of us are not asking for freedom from religion either.*

That being said, one must make a great distinction between a country that honors Christian values and one that is ruled by Christian practice. I, for one, am glad we advocate Christian values, George Washington, an Episcopal vestryman, called religion, as the source of morality, a necessary spring of popular government." Meaning it is through religion we find our moral values. Although one could argue moral values and religious values are not one in the same, it is through the history of religious practice that moral character has been handed down through the generations. And this is true of nearly every prominent religion on the face of the earth.

The people who argued and debated on how this country should be set up knew that religion and politics were a poor mix and that was the reason they kept a separation of church and state. These proponents and talking heads we hear today on the media are either confused or ignorant of history. For one thing, upon reading the Declaration of Independence, nowhere do I

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