CHURCH AND STATE by George Ide Butler

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Apr 4, 1906

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 32, No. 14.

CHURCH AND STATE.

By George Ide Butler

FRANCE, the great European republic, claims to have separated the church from the state; but in the new cabinet, which has grown out of the throes of separation, it has been found necessary to retain the office of minister of public worship. The most disastrous scheme that Satanic cunning ever injected into the affairs of men is the union of church and state. It is Babylonian, whether actual and formal, or merely virtual tho unprofessed. The Reformation under Luther was a protest against this principle, but even Protestants never were able to entirely shake it off. And so insidious are the workings of the delusion that nearly every denomination growing out of the perversion of that Protestantism are now influenced by it—we might say, practically committed to it. The Lutheran Church itself is a state church wherever such a consummation is possible.

Even in the United States, where separation of church and state is a fundamental principle of the government, we have Sunday observance, a religious institution, enforced by law in nearly all the states and territories.

We have religious teaching sustained by the general government.

We have a religious lobby established at the national capital, for the avowed purpose of influencing legislation and securing the enactment of religious laws; and this “bureau” has secured the free use of the mails for the circulation of large quantities of its peculiar literature.

We have a National Reform Association, encouraged by nearly every nominal Protestant denomination, whose fundamental purpose is to “place all the Christian laws, institutions, and usages of our government on an undeniable legal basis in the fundamental law of the land.”

We have also, as a crowning movement, the Federation of Churches, recently formed—including about thirty religious denominations—whose main purpose is to wield a political influence in the government. This federation has received the encouragement of federal and state officials, including members of the Supreme Court, senators, and even the President.

Thus the nominal Christian church in America is about as prominent in the manipulation of politics as are any of the state churches of the Old World. And the trend is onward toward formal official recognition—the full-fledged “image” foretold in Revelation 13.

So long as the adversary of Christ can delude professed Christians with the idea that it is their business to influence earthly governments through political power, or to control them in any way, just to that extent he can hinder true Gospel effort. G.