Blog Against Theocracy

Today is the last day of the three-day Blog Against Theocracy event, for which we are asked to post about the separation of church and state. As a sometime graduate student in medieval history, I know me some theocracy. I also know that what worked in Western Europe 800 years ago might not be the best model for today’s society.

Religion and government are hard to separate, though. The authors of the Declaration of Independence wrote that “all men are . . . endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable Rights.” Despite separating many aspects of church and state governance, they were not trying to remove God from the picture. Even now, both the U.S. House and Senate have official chaplains. The Senate Chaplain’s Web site states “Throughout the years, the United States Senate has honored the historic separation of Church and State, but not the separation of God and State.”

That’s a very fine distinction, and it’s clear many don’t adhere to it, much less one that would embrace the atheists and agnostics among us as well. Terrance at Republic of T has a good list of examples showing how religion is encroaching upon our government, military, and public schools in ways that are frightening and dangerous. In the same post, he also reviews three recent books on the subject. He’s studied modern church-state relations in much more depth than I have, and I encourage you to read his post if you want to delve into the subject.

In the meantime, I hope you have a great holiday if you are observing either Easter or Passover this weekend (or if you combine traditions and eat chocolate bunnies for eight days). Separating church and state does not mean striking religion from our lives. Rather, it means giving each room to flourish in its own distinct sphere.