Successful models of church/state partnerships are essential to counter the often valid concerns of the materialist humanists seeking to realize their equal citizenship under a nation of just laws, where neither religion, race, gender, political affiliation, degree of wealth, professional status, social position, level of education or age confers upon its adult citizenry superior status or greater weight in the collective decision making process.
As was hinted in my penultimate post, history is replete with evidence justifying the clear separation of church and state; but that ‘separation’ suggests clear functional boundaries, not a complete divorce, which as I have tried to show in past posts is quite impossible.
In summary of those arguments, religion and politics are inseparable (indivorcible) activities of people collectives, representing consecutively the arenas for generation of value and policy. Not only natural, but compulsory partners, separation then speaks to the functional boundaries that preserve and protect, as in every effective partnership.
Biblically those boundaries are grounded in the ancient Hebrew understanding of the differentiated roles of prophet, priest and king; so that even when all three are represented in one person, for example Melchisedec, David & Jesus Christ, a different hat is required for each ministration, so that the roles themselves would never be confused.
Any usurpation of roles one by the other produces abomination … abomination that ‘maketh desolate’, Only in the harmonious and orderly interfacing of the roles is prosperity for the people promised. Balaam, Jezebel and Nebuchadnezzar have many lessons and anti lessons to teach us here.
Only an apostate church could ever imagine that it is her role to ‘sit upon the kings and peoples of the earth‘ Rev17:15 when scripture clearly admonishes her to carry them on her shoulders. It is that haughty attitude that, consistently throughout human history, continuing into the present day, eventually attracts her repudiation by both, so that perhaps in her state of abandonment and desolation, she might remember her true place.
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YeKengalé 