Untitled article | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · New York · February 16, 1893

Commingling of Church and State.

RELATIVE to the ruling of the Supreme Court of the State of Nebraska, dated November 11, 1892, in which the State’s Sunday laws were upheld on the declaration that they were based on divine law, Der Lutheraner says under above heading:—

A State acts properly and in a way commendably when enacting Sunday laws, as Luther says, “for reasons of bodily necessity, taught and demanded by nature. And this in the interest of the great multitude, of man and maidservants, who ply their work and handicraft the whole week, so they too may retire a day for rest and recreation,” and for the further purpose of protecting citizens that observe the Sunday, in the exercise of their religion. But, alas! this finds no expression in those laws. And now the Supreme Court of a State decrees with emphasis that its Sunday law is not merely a civil enactment, but a religious one! By no means, therefore, should we tire in our testimony against commingling of Church and State.

Der Lutheraner is the official organ of the German Joint Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and other States, representing upwards of twelve hundred ministers and sixteen hundred congregations.