[Rev Dan Prout is a Nevada County Christian minister of the evangelical persuasion, and a friend.  He sent this thoughtful piece to a circle of his friends and congregants.  It addresses an important viewpoint shared by many concerned Christians in the land, myself included, and a call to stand for what we believe.  I post it as received.  gjr]

Rev. Dan Prout

One of Jesus’ most famous statements is, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and give to God what is God’s.” The verse has been often referenced when talking about separation of Church and State. Jesus was applying a very subtle but important concept regarding societal authority. It is a concept and distinction largely lost in America today.

It is in our day, today, that we again see civil authority competing for power over everyday life and living. Jesus demonstrated in one sentence that there are two realms of authority simultaneously governing community life. In one statement, he affirmed the legitimate role of civil government while maintaining the religious, moral authority of God and godliness. These twin authorities are to govern in concert, their proper exercise providing a safe and blessed life experience, “that our lives may be quiet and peaceful” as the Apostle Paul put it.

All political issues are based in social issues. All social issues are based in values. All values come from religious precepts. It is, therefore, impossible to separate political matters from faith matters. The laws of a society are based inescapably in moral law. The first written law of the Bible, the Ten Commandments, demonstrates this point. Every one of the Ten – from Worship No Other Gods to Do Not Covet Your Neighbors Goods – establishes boundaries for one’s personal relationships both with God and with one’s neighbors. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, and goodness represent the biblical law for our behavior, all standards for our relationships. These qualities are so universally accepted that Paul says there is no law against such things. (Galatians 5:12)

The purpose of Law, as Frederic Bastiat, the French philosopher, points out is not to guarantee justice but rather to prevent injustice. Understanding this reality, the Founders, in developing the U.S. Constitution, worked to bind the reach of government misbehavior by decentralizing powers. They leaned heavily upon the principles of the Bible which call individuals to personally restrain themselves from wrong doing and they expected the generations to follow to do the same. The strength of a nation’s social fabric is directly dependent on the level of individual liberty. Individual liberty is directly dependent on virtuous morality. A nation with liberty unbridled from strong virtue will fail. Daniel Webster wrote in 1823,“If the power of the gospel is not felt throughout the length and breadth of this land, anarchy and misrule, degradation and misery, corruption and darkness will reign without mitigation or end.” His words spoken nearly 200 years ago have an inescapably prophetic accuracy for our present social and spiritual condition, and, as predicted, we have a government gone astray.

Civil authority must be informed and restrained by moral authority. It is the role of the Church to be bold enough to advise and even correct civil authority when it goes astray. Dr. Martin Luther King rightly observed, “The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state. It must be the guide and critic of the state and never its tool.”

The problem today is not that government and its leaders have lost their way; that is to be expected in the absence of vigorous moral argument. Rather, it is the Church, its leaders and its people, which has become complacent and ineffective in providing clear moral guidance in the society. To its great discredit, the Church has expected that civil authority can well function without the tangible presence of moral virtue. To its discredit, the Church has failed to bring preserving, moral salt to society, relegating the nation’s inhabitants to a hopeless life amidst moral and cultural decay.

Let us heed the admonition of Russian historian and philosopher Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn spoken at Harvard University, “A decline in courage may be the most striking feature that an outside observer notices in the West today.” It is time to stand.