(This is a reflection I published nearly three years ago. I’m re-posting it now in a revised form. In many ways, it seems more relevant than ever. –J.W.)
“Will you walk into my parlor?” said the Spider to the Fly,
“‘Tis the prettiest little parlor that ever you did spy.
The Way into my parlor is up a winding stair,
And I have many pretty things to show when you are there.”
— “The Spider and the Fly,” Mary Howitt, 1829
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Very few people on either side of the debate seem to understand what “separation of church and state” is really all about. The original intent was to protect poor Pilgrims against the corrupting influence of entanglement with the power establishment – not the other way around.
Ever since the Emperor Constantine conquered his rival Maxentius “by the sign of the cross” at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge (312), most of Christendom has assumed that it is not only possible but even proper and necessary to maintain a solid connection between the government and the kingdom of God. The Radical Reformers of the 16th and 17th centuries – the so-called “Anabaptist” followers of Conrad Grebel, Menno Simons, and Jacob Amman – disagreed. They were convinced that the gospel had been sullied and the church corrupted by this unholy alliance. As a result, they adopted a principled and conscientious stance apart from the state. Many paid for it with their lives. It is primarily to them that we owe our modern concept of “separation.”
In 2011, at age ninety-two, Billy Graham was asked if he had any regrets over his long career. His response? “I would have steered clear of politics.” Graham learned this lesson the hard way. For years it was his habit to invite presidents and governors to share the platform with him at his evangelistic crusades. In the late 1960s he kept up a close relationship with President Richard Nixon. All this came back to bite him in a big way after Watergate. Now his son Franklin, for reasons that defy rational explanation, seems determined to ignore Billy’s advice.
Let’s get one thing straight. Scripture is very clear about the sanctity of human life. But it never tells Christians that they have an obligation to use government to impose biblical perspectives on unbelieving society. It would be just as easy to argue – indeed, easier – that the New Testament warns us to keep out of government altogether. Our business as believers is to live the truth and stay faithful to the Kingdom of Christ, which is not of this world. We are not called to exert forcible control over “the culture” – certainly not by forming an unholy alliance with a man described by one Christian source as “the imperfect political street fighter evangelicals have never had.” Since when do followers of Jesus have anything to do with “street fighters?”
I find this mindset on the part of many contemporary “evangelical Christians” simply appalling. Apparently we’ve reached a place where all a person has to do is say that he’s “pro-life,” and he can get away with virtually anything. Once he assumes that sacred moniker and takes that all-hallowed mantle upon himself, he is free to lie, cheat, steal, connive, plot, scheme, brag, boast, bully, consort with porn stars, even shoot somebody in broad daylight on Fifth Avenue. He can do whatever he wants, and Christian people will rush to his defense without batting an eye. It staggers the imagination.
“Franklin Graham,” says Americans United for Separation of Church and State, “seems determined to repeat his father’s mistakes.” Perhaps so, but the rest of us don’t have to follow in his footsteps. Far better to embrace his father’s change of heart. Like Billy, we’ve all been tricked and trapped and co-opted by the political establishment too many times in the past. Let’s pray we don’t get fooled again.