American Clarity Essays political, philosophical, and theological from an American romantic.

When I was a 19 year-old non-Christian, I argued that if the Bible was true, sin was God’s fault. At the time, it made sense to me that sin was a result of biochemical survival, in which an entire being’s existence is predicated upon—in theory—selfishness. Without the drive to eat and procreate and amass wealth for safety, the concept of sin seemed meaningless, and I was well aware that Adam and Eve had been eating in the Garden of Eden.

Of course, what eating implies is that the capability for sin already existed before Adam and Eve had eaten the forbidden fruit, since satiation and perfect circumstances prevented the need for selfishness. But when God expelled us from the Garden, that is when our real problems began, making the present-day human evils more His fault than anyone else’s. As a young socialist keen on the idea of crime reduction through government subsistence for all—an idea I now firmly reject—it seemed sensible enough to conclude that God had built us to fail, as though God should have built us differently so that sin wouldn’t have had to exist. (more…)

Editor’s note: This article was written for a brother in Christ who’d brought this important topic up earlier.  Here’s to you, buddy. 

Oftentimes, those opposing an establishment of a so-called religiously-affiliated morality in government will argue that people who adopt and promote Christlike standards are the same kind of Pharisees who not only failed to meet God’s standards, but who ultimately killed Jesus.  Sometimes they’ll argue this point because they wish to engage in sinful behavior, and other times because they don’t believe enforcing religious morality is conducive to liberty, but the argument is always the same: people should keep their religious beliefs out of the legal system.

Either way, both parties agree on one point, which is the danger presented by a unified church/government structure like the historic Papacy or yesteryear’s Anglican church.  But whether or not the state formally declares a separation of church and state, there are only two realistic theological declarations a state can make regarding this issue.  The first is that God does exist and our entire existence is therefore predicated upon Him and His law.  The second is that He does not exist and our entire existence is futile, directionless, and entirely encapsulated in three concepts: pleasure, pain, and death.   It would be incredibly misleading to have a government which declares the sovereignty of God but does not enforce any of His principles, or a government which refuses to acknowledge His existence and yet takes stances only a theist can take. (more…)