Blog - Joyful Curmudgeon - Blog
A Mary T. Hoffman Commentary from All-Creatures.org

 

"Joyful Curmudgeon" An oxymoron?
No! I see all the beauty of God's creation and I'm joyful.  At the same time, I see all the suffering and corruption going on in the world, and feel called to help expose and end it so that we may have true peace and compassion.

 

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Separation of Church and State – 17 December 2006
By Mary T. Hoffman

In my Blog “Is a Christian Nation Possible? – 21 August 2006” I wrote about the separation of church and state, and why I think that a theocracy – government of a state by immediate divine guidance or by officials regarded as divinely guided (Webster’s Dictionary) – is feasible only when Jesus returns to establish His Peaceable Kingdom.

One of the lessons from the past is that the establishment and support of a religion by government results in an erosion of belief among the people, the opposite of the hoped-for result. As the expected adherence to church dogma becomes established, over time ritual and formula replace heart-felt prayer, until a once robust faith erodes into a skeleton of religious clichés devoid of meaning and uttered mechanically by the cowardly submissive.

Evidence of this phenomenon is widespread in countries where “faith” is government-supported. Complacency has set in resulting in many people’s distancing themselves from anything “religious” while a few continue to go through the motions expected by followers of the state religion.

Jesus describes this kind of empty ritual in Matthew 15:7-8:

7 “You hypocrites, rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you, saying,

8 ‘This people honors Me with their lips, But their heart is far away from Me.’

~ New American Standard Bible

In 1 Samuel 16:7, the Lord said to Samuel, “…God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart."
~ New American Standard Bible

Go on to: Comfort Food - 18 December 2006
Return to: Lies and Distortions - 16 December 2006
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