The recent Supreme Court ruling on the Dobbs case which overturned the 1973 Roe vs. Wade precedent is reverberating across the nation. The verdict has caused a plethora of responses including the good, the bad, and the ugly.
Even though the intent of the verdict was to correct Constitutional flaws in the initial judgment, the moral argument against abortion has stolen the spotlight. Some are accusing our Supreme Court, the highest court in the Nation, of imposing their “religious beliefs” on others.
CNN aired an interview with Kristan Hawkins, President of Students for Life of America. Anchor Pamela Brown, somewhat aggressively, posed the question, “Your Catholic faith dictates that life begins at the moment of conception. Why should your religious beliefs trump [other people’s beliefs]?”
Of course, this is not what happened. SCOTUS did not impose its beliefs on anyone. Rather, they kicked back the right to vote on abortion laws to each state so that residents can vote for elected officials to represent their wishes, as the Constitution requires.
The Real Question is…
Before we discuss Ms. Hawkins’s response to the actual question, let’s look at the implied one. Is this ruling and others a violation of the separation of church and state?
This premise of separating the two institutions is the one used by many who disparage America to remove prayer from our schools, tear down the 10 Commandments from our courtroom walls, prevent government buildings from displaying nativity sets, and oppose anything even remotely tied to Biblical Christianity—such as traditional marriage.
But no, this separation-of-church-and-state idea isn’t the brainchild of the woke mob who want to destroy our Constitution and erase our Christian heritage. Actually, our country’s founders created this barrier between the government and religious organizations when they wrote the First Amendment. These men understood well how religion was simply one more tool used by ruthless tyrants to control the population.
Those who claim that the rule of law in America shouldn’t favor one religion over another misunderstand the purpose of separating the two entities. The separation of church and state has always been, and will always be, about protecting individuals from their own government. Period.
This separation doctrine was never about protecting the state from the church. And yet, that’s exactly what many in government, media, and entertainment try to tell us. The thought that the most powerful government on the planet needs to be protected from religion—from the local church, synagogue, or mosque—is laughable, if you think about it.
So, yes, for all intents and purposes church and state are—and have always been—separate in the United States. Separating the two entities is what creates religious freedom, as we’ll discuss below.
To go a step further, the idea that Christianity should not influence our laws is not only preposterous but is also dangerous. We’ll explore 3 reasons why.
1. Every government is influenced by some value system.
Individuals who disparage the Judeo-Christian influence on our legal system ignore this simple fact.
Marxism is the value system guiding communist governments such as Cuba and Venezuela. Carl Marx demonized capitalism and encourages the working class to rebel against the upper class, citing that the wealthy were exploiting them (Wall Street Mojo, 2022). Communism then seized on the chaos and [forcefully] proposed the “solution”—the government owns all the factories and means of production to eliminate this struggle.
Islam guides Sharia Law, the legal system utilized in the middle-eastern countries such as Afghanistan, Pakistan, Jordan, and Egypt. According to Pew Research Center, the rule of law in many Muslim countries favor the punishments prescribed by the Islamic religion for crimes such as adultery, theft, homosexuality, or leaving the Muslim faith. For example, converting to another religion and away from Islam draws the death penalty.
Similarly, Christianity influences our Constitutional Republic in America by granting certain rights to the individual regardless of their gender, ethnicity, or religion. Every man, woman, and child is created in God’s image and, as a result, are morally equal according to the Bible.
Basic rights such as the ability to own property, defend yourself, vote, and even work for a living are conferred to us as Americans but not guaranteed in many places around the world. Women, for example, are not able to buy property or open a bank account in Pakistan.
2. Religious freedom is a privilege denied to many.
We tend to take for granted that we can worship how we want (or don’t want) in this country.
There are many nations, even today, that mandate certain religious practices and prohibit others. Let’s look at countries where state-run religions still exist. Afghanistan, Algeria, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Libya, Malaysia, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen, for example, have Islam as their State-sponsored religion. Buddhism is the state-sponsored religion in Cambodia, Sri Lanka, and Thailand.
Let's be clear, state-run churches have absolutely nothing to do with God. It’s all about controlling the masses. These countries are notorious for denying any type of freedom—either religious or personal.
Anyone practicing “unauthorized” religions in these countries is often subjected to violent persecution—at the hands of government-run militias, such as ISIS or Boko Haram.
A report from June 29, 2020, lamented the brutal murder of 32,000 Christians and Jews—near capacity for PNC Park, for comparison purposes—since 2009 throughout the world (Ibrahim, 2020). The story outlined massacres happening in Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Greece, Turkey, Pakistan, Serbia, and Egypt.
The Muslim man who murdered an 18-year-old seminary student confessed that he did so because the young man “continued preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ” to his captors. The murderer was not prosecuted.
America doesn’t have a spotless record in protecting worshipers, but we have the greatest legal protections in the world, compliments of our Constitution. We are lawfully shielded from all would-be assailants, including our own government, as a result of separating the institutions of state and church.
3. Removing Christian values from any government has tragic consequences.
Historically, when a government deliberately rejects Judeo-Christian principles such as capitalism and free markets, the directive to protect human life, and the ability of private citizens to own property, it does not bode well for that country’s people.
Authoritarian governments always hate Christians. When Stalin came to power in the Soviet Union, he killed the priests first. Mao Zedong did the same thing in China. The first thing Fidel Castro did was to cut off the food supply to force Cuban citizens to submit; the second thing he did was to kill pastors and bulldoze churches.
America is the greatest protector of human rights around the world because of Christianity.
The Wrap Up
When asked why her faith should take precedence over others Hawkins brilliantly responded, “It’s not my faith that tells me that life begins at conception, it’s science… You can debate whether or not that life has value. My faith tells me that human life should be protected. But science tells us that at the moment of conception when egg and sperm unite, a unique genetic code comes into existence that has never existed before and will never exist again. That is a fact. That is indisputable.”
Please don’t be fooled. Individuals like the CNN anchor ranting that we are trying to force our beliefs down their throat aren’t saying that religion shouldn’t influence government—just not our religion.
Those who don’t want our laws to be inspired by Christianity are really proposing a “new” type of government. Only, it’s not new. It’s very old and it's called Totalitarianism—the same system which oppresses the entire populations of Cuba, Venezuela, China, North Korea, and others. This is the same form of government the very first Americas bravely fled England to escape.
Biblically-based Christianity is the only religious system worldwide that supports personal freedom and is compatible with a democratic government. When you hear media, politicians, and actors tell us to stop forcing our religion on others, it’s an unapologetic play for power. Pure and simple.
So, stand firm! Don’t allow others to bully you into denying your personal convictions. And thank God that we live in a country where church and state remain separate.
To watch the full CNN interview with Kristan Hawkins, President of Students for Life of America, click HERE.