The Separation of Church and Politics

Goeoge Bush, in the most radical change in American Foreign Policy in 200+ years has embarked on the world transforming policy of separating church and politics. This is quite surprising for a man so deeply involved in the politics of the religious right in America. America's stated policy is democracy, but not just any kind of democracy. It will be a democracy where the will of the people is supreme. The will of a few will not have ultimate sway. We see this in America. The government is secular and bad policy is not the writ of god. Dread Scott is no longer the law of the land.

In a way George has sown the seeds of the long term destruction of his own political base. The long term key for Bush will be to figure out how to keep the nation's Christian/Jewish character while at the same time reducing the religious character of America's laws. How do we make a religion neutral body of law and practice in American politics.

In a way Iraq is a great laboratory for the experiment of disentangling religion from politics. Afghanistan is another lab. The next lab will probably be Iran. Notice all these focus on Islamic politics? Hmmmm. In a way this is good because the religious right in America does not see the danger to itself this policy represents. They are too busy tring to rebuild the Temple and thus getting the messiah to come back. For that to happen they have to weaken Islam's power. For that to happen they have to move to separate church and state as official American Foreign Policy. Ooops.

In any case, out of our successes and failures in that area we will find out what the limits are relative to speed of disentanglement. Israel is already some help in the matter. It is a Jewish state. But it also has a lot of European and American church/state separation experience. So some of the issues we already have experience with.

Steven den Beste can give you the long version if he has an interest. (Hi Steve) :-)