Mark Twain famously posited that, “There are three kinds of lies: Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics.” Twain, in turn, credited British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli with originating the saying.
Regardless of its true author, I would like to add my own spin to the old adage. “There are two kinds of lies: normal, everyday lies… and lies that originate from the very pit of hell.”
In the former category, I would lump “the dog ate my homework” type of purposely dishonest, but relatively harmless falsehoods. In the latter category, I would include lies that are so evil – but so deceptive – that they often appear to be true on the surface. Take one bite from these ripe-looking apples however, and you are sure to find a half-eaten worm inside.
One such “pit of hell” lie is that religion and politics don’t mix. Actually, they do. More importantly, they were meant to… at least in America. If you don’t believe me, just ask one of our greatest and most influential Founding Fathers, Patrick Henry. When delivering his immortal “Give me liberty or give me death” speech to the Virginia Convention, which was meeting at St. John’s Church in Richmond, Henry quoted from the Book of Jeremiah at least three times.
Travel abroad and – before his death in 2021 – you could have asked Bishop Desmond Tutu for his opinion on the subject. Tutu, an Anglican priest, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 for his role as “a unifying leader figure in the campaign to resolve the problem of apartheid in South Africa.” One can only imagine the quizzical look on the good bishop’s face when he said, “I am puzzled by which Bible people are reading when they suggest that religion and politics don’t mix.”
Or you could travel back in time – and “across the pond” – to merry old England in the late 1800s for a chat with Charles Haddon Spurgeon. Known as the “Prince of Preachers,” Spurgeon pastored the New Park Street Chapel, later known as the Metropolitan Tabernacle, the largest church in Great Britain if not the entire world.
“I often hear it said, ‘Do not bring religion into politics,’” Spurgeon thundered. “This is precisely where it ought to be brought, and set there in the face of all men as on a candlestick.”
If Spurgeon and Tutu are too clerical for your liking, then how about asking Albert Einstein to weigh in on the matter? An avowed agnostic, Einstein said, “Those who believe that politics and religion do not mix, understand neither.”
Truth be told, many of America’s founders were evangelical Christians and quite a few were either ministers and/or attended seminary. Remember that Princeton, Yale, Harvard, Columbia, and Brown were originally established to train prospective pastors. And don’t forget that John and Samuel Adams, John Marshall, John Jay, John Hancock, Benjamin Rush, Peter Muhlenberg, and the aforementioned Patrick Henry all wore their deep Christian faith on their respective sleeves.
Even the most famous Deists of the day, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, were frequent churchgoers. In fact, Franklin vigorously promoted the ministry of evangelist George Whitefield, his close friend and business partner, while Jefferson often graced the largest church in America when he was president, which not-so-coincidentally met in the rotunda of the U.S. Capitol. So much for the false “separation of church and state” premise that we will address head-on in a moment.
During the Constitutional Convention in 1787, Franklin proposed that the meetings open with prayer. “How has it happened,” he pondered, according to a copy of the speech in Franklin’s papers, “that we have not, hitherto once thought of humbly applying to the Father of Lights to illuminate our Understandings?”
But, Dale, you can’t impose your morality – or anyone else’s for that matter – on others. To which I respond: it is not my morality, it is God’s; and the absence of which invites and virtually ensures complete societal anarchy.
Why is murder illegal… at least for now? Because our laws, which are founded upon the Mosaic Law and the 10 Commandments, state unequivocally, “Thou shalt not kill.”
Imagine living in a culture where theft is no longer illegal, let alone punished, because following the biblical commandment “Thou shalt not steal” is deemed too religious? Don’t we already live in such a lawless and ludicrous state, you say? My point exactly! Strip America of its founding Judeo-Christian principles and all hell will eventually and inevitably break loose.
But, Dale, what about the separation of church and state? First, that phrase is not included in any of our founding documents including the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. Second, when President Thomas Jefferson coined that phrase in his January 1, 1802, letter to the Baptist Association of Danbury CT, he was writing to assure the ministers in question that a “wall of separation” existed between the church and the state, protecting organized religion and religious expression from the government… not the other way around.
Folks, I am not proposing that America become an officially recognized Christian nation. That would be unwise, impractical, and unconstitutional. On the contrary, I am simply stating that our country was largely founded by Christian men and women using the eternal truths of God’s Word as the foundation – nay, the virtual cornerstone – of our republic. The further we drift from those spiritual moorings, the greater our national peril.
As Ronald Reagan once said, “America will cease to be great when it ceases to be good.” The Gipper was right then… and he is right now.
