Thanks to Pastor John Bechtel for forwarding information about a movement to expand the definition of the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom to include more representation for religious ideas in government policy. It is yet another volley in the culture wars between secularists and those who would seek to abolish the sepaaration of church and state. The original Virginia Statute written by Thomas Jefferson is where the term “wall of separation of church and state” was first used specifically, however the courts have interpreted the Free Exercise and Establishment Clauses of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution to also form a wall of separation that mutually protects both the church and the state from undue influence from the other.
From the website: http://www.newvastatute.org/articles.html
The purpose of the new statute is to update the old and extend its inclusive language to a new era by insuring the just representation of religious people with their ideas and symbols. There is no attempt to substitute a “theocracy” for the current “atheocracy,” where only secular people are permitted to participate in the civil process. I am calling for the inclusion of all citizens, religious and non-religious alike. I am calling for the privileges of real citizenship, not the patronizing and pacifying policies of toleration toward the disenfranchised. Without representation, religion will have no real significance in the hearts of the people or the future of our nation. If we continue on the present course, faith will lose more and more respect and eventually die out – not today or tomorrow, but soon enough – not “with a bang but a whimper” (T.S. Eliot). Its voice will die out through the growing and expanding power of a god-less state.
I too agree about your idea to expand the definition of the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom to include more representation for religious ideas in government policy.It is the religious freedom is very important for all of the people in the world…It’s a good idea
I too agree about your idea to expand the definition of the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom to include more representation for religious ideas in government policy.It is the religious freedom is very important for all of the people in the world…It’s a good idea
I disagree, I have still yet to see any debate, where you have people of opposing religious views, come to any useful solution. At best they agree to disagree and at worst… well look at the Middle-East. Keep religion out of the state, in my opinion the strong your religious beliefs, the more inflexible you are to hearing an opposing view. Politics is all about give and take, a willingness to give a little to further the discussion and come to a consensus view.
I disagree, I have still yet to see any debate, where you have people of opposing religious views, come to any useful solution. At best they agree to disagree and at worst… well look at the Middle-East. Keep religion out of the state, in my opinion the strong your religious beliefs, the more inflexible you are to hearing an opposing view. Politics is all about give and take, a willingness to give a little to further the discussion and come to a consensus view.