When discussing the issue of Church and State, most people concentrate on the protection of a free State from the evil and vile Absolute Moralities of religion. They see the long and ugly history of religious wars as evidence of the evils of the Church. They look at the current controversies over Creationism in the schools, or a plaque of the Ten Commandments over a judge's bench and fear that they will be forced into submitting to the Christian faith unwillingly. These are very approproiate concerns, but for different reasons. I believe that the Church and State must be separate (as much as it can be), not to protect the State from religious influence, but to protect the Church from politics itself.

There is a very serious danger when the Church and State are mixed, and it is to the Church's detriment. Religion is very powerful force in the hearts and minds of people... and it can be very easily manipulated by politics to achieve its ends. Look no further than any given conservative web-site or your local dispenser of Religious Right wisdom. In there you will find more than Christ's message of salvation; you will find a political manifesto decrying anything not distinctly American (or, in the case of my native Canada, anything not trying to be distinctly American). Issues about gun control, military action against various nations and peoples, and certain social commentaries have no place in the fellowship of Christ. Yet there they are in all their right wing glory, manipulating Christians into believing that a vote for the Republicans is a vote for God.

The best example of the dangers of mixing these strange bedfellows are the religious wars, such as the Crusades. Contrary to popular opinion, these were not "religious" wars at all; they were nothing but political power games. If we look at the religions involved, namely Christianity and Islam, we see that both of these religions decry war... it is a sin, it is murder. There are incredibly strong roots of Christian pacifism and anarchy. In the faith system of both of these, a "religious war" is an impossibility and an abomination.

Then there is the fact that often, Christian was turned against Christian. How could this be? Well, the Byzantine empire was the political rival of the Church of Rome. Interpretations of the faith was not the issue here: battle hungry soldiers and a greed for territory was. In spite of this, people still insist that these were actions of the Church, and that this only proves the irrationality of religion.

To answer these claims comes perhaps the most damning testimony to implicate the State. This is that large scale religious wars like the Crusades stopped with the widespread separation of Church and State. As countries all over Europe began to make each separate and distinct, the religious wars began to go away. Even to this day, the only "religious wars" being fought are those where this separation is not net solid: the theocracies of the Middle East, and Northern Ireland for example. This is not to say that wars stop altogether though. Relieved of the state's influence, religion contentedly went about its business while the secular State gave us Napoleon, two World Wars, a Cold War, Korea, Vietnam, the Chinese invasion of Tibet, and the Gulf War (only to name a few). The secular State gave us the bloodiest century in human history, and it was a secular State considered the pinacle of Church-State separation which introduced atomic warfare to two populations of hapless civilians, including Japan's largest concentration of Christians.

Thes conflicts rest soley and completely on the shoulders of the noble pure secular State. Indeed, history have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that the State, with or without the Church, has been nothing but a source of violence and chaos in the world. Yet that doesn't stop the State from still trying to implicate religion, with their assertations that amount to little more than God being the chaplain of American forces.

Of course, there are more examples. The Inquistion is such a beast. This was little more than a veiled attempt by individuals to dispose of political rivals and aquire more land. I am not completely discrediting that religious hysteria can and does exist, and that people have done horrible things in God's name. However, I find it too convenient and intillectually dishonest (something that many anti-religious people like to accuse us of, but I have yet to see any of them shy away from it) to convict religion for all of society's and history's ills, esspecially when it is so obvious that the State is to blame for many.

It is easy to see how religion is being abused to draw support for the political ambitions and ideologies of the Right Wing. For the Creationists, there is much political power to be gained by convincing people that what they command is not only divine will, but supported scientifically. Emphasizing that the Arab nations are "evil Islamic hordes" does no end of good when trying to justify bombing their women and children for the sake of oil. Many see this as an expression of their faith... that it's their religion they're trying to push.

The separation of Church and State enables us to see this plot clearly. Before Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire and began down its path of religious violence, the Church was radically pacifistic and anarchic. This tradition was slowly lost over the years of 300-400 AD, but with the blessed separation, the faith has slowly begun to reclaim itself. The danger exists, for the Church, in those professing to be Christians who only use the name of Christ to legitimize their own claims of political power.

The Church, divorced from the pursuit of political ambition and the domination of the State, is a remarkable and transformative force for good in the world. But when it is not divorced, the Church inevitably becomes corrupted and reduced to the pawn of tyrants and presidents.

Separate Church and State, and smash the State.