Are church-state disputes being settled for good? Winding down? Waco, Texas Congressman Chet Edwards says no. In fact, he warns, those who would chip away at the wall of separation are never content with small victories, and never deterred by defeat. Those battles, Edwards says, are "never-ending." The Baptist Standard's Ken Camp reports on Edwards' remarks at the BJC's Religious Liberty Council luncheon during the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship meeting in Houston last week.
The “patient and persistent revolutionaries” who would “chisel away at the wall of church-state separation” present a continuing threat in part because many Americans don’t understand what separation of church and state means, and politicians find it too easy to try to use legal power to influence or regulate religion, he said.
“Politicians cannot withstand the temptation to use religion as a means to further their own political ends. And the siren song of seeking favor from the religious majority will lead politicians to step on the rights of religious minorities,” Edwards said.
Another powerful challenge to religious liberty, he added, is the “powerful network of cable television and radio talk shows that fuel the constant drumbeat that church-state separation is a liberal secular plot.”
Edwards challenged people of faith to “become the public face of debates in defense of church-state separation” rather than allowing atheists to claim that role.
“In the halls of Congress and on the main streets of America, you can be effective missionaries for religious liberty,” he said.
Having watched church-state disputes daily from the perch of this blog, I would have to agree: the need for vigilance on religious liberty issues is not going away; if anything that need is as great now as ever. A court decision, a defeated law… these will never mark the end of the church-state story in America. There will always be those who seek to undermine the protections of separation. Hopefully passionate defenders from a perspective of faith will continue to counter their efforts. Let's have more like Chet Edwards, please.
