ARTICLE PUBLISHED IN THE LODI NEWS-SENTINEL, Lodi, California, February 10, 2007

Written and Submitted by Guest Columnist, Ken Owen

America is being driven to a moral civil war

Last updated: Saturday, Feb 10, 2007 - 09:37:47 am PST

Over the years, Christian Community Concerns has been addressing moral issues such as abortion, homosexuality, drugs including alcohol, sexual promiscuity and religious freedom in America and how they affect us on the national, state and local level.

I want to share with you what I believe is the overriding spirit that is destroying this nation from within and making us weak and vulnerable by undermining one of our most basic fundamental freedoms. I'm talking about the myth of the separation of church and state. Let me give a brief historical background to help us understand.

The First Amendment to the Constitution declares: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."

To understand more fully why our Founding Fathers demanded the Bill of Rights (the first 10 amendments) as an additive to the Constitution is summed up in the following statement: "The Constitution stated what government could do, while the Bill of Rights stated what the government could not do."

The main question they debated while they were drafting the Constitution was: "Do we want a strong central government limiting individual rights, or do we want to limit government, by giving more rights to individuals?"

Many representatives vowed to not sign the Constitution unless they all agreed to enact a Bill of Rights for individual people, guaranteeing that this was truly a government of the people, by the people and for the people.

The U. S. Constitution was ratified on Sept. 17, 1787, with the Bill of Rights proposed on Sept. 25, 1789, just two years later, and ratified on Dec. 15, 1791, just four years later.

Today the phrase "Separation of Church and State" is strongly associated with the First Amendment, which in reality has nothing to do with taking God out of politics.

It is nowhere to be found in our Constitution, but has been taken out of context from a letter that President Thomas Jefferson wrote to a Baptist Association in 1802. It has no constitutional power whatsoever.

I'm sure that had he known the potential harm those words have caused through misinterpretation, he would have chosen his words more carefully.

In studying the original intent of the Founders, it's obvious that religion in their thinking meant "denomination."

They did not want any particular denomination of the Christian faith to be the dominant sect of doctrine that everyone would be required to adopt. They wanted the most important freedom that people had to be religious freedom, where people were guaranteed the right to worship God according to the dictates of their own heart.

A clearer interpretation of the First Amendment would be, "Congress shall make no law respecting one denomination over another, but there shall be no prohibition against any denomination."

Many of the signers were professing Christians who had no intention of separating God, the Bible and the Christian faith from government.

On May 10, 1789, four months before the Bill of Rights was proposed by Congress, President Washington speaking to the United Baptists of Virginia said: "If I could have entertained the slightest apprehension that the Constitution framed by the convention, where I had the honor to preside, might possibly endanger the religious rights of any ecclesiastical society, certainly I would never have placed my signature on it ... I beg you will be persuaded that no one would be more zealous than myself to establish effectual barriers against every species of religious persecution."

Why is separation of church and state such a bad idea?

The first reason it is a bad idea is because it is a blatant lie!

This perpetrated lie is allowing the enemies of Christianity, both foreign and domestic, to remove all symbolisms of God, the Bible and Christian values from the public square.

The ACLU and like-minded anti-Christian organizations have used separation of church and state to take prayer out of public education. All across America, they are challenging the public display of the Ten Commandments, our national motto, "In God We Trust," the Pledge of Allegiance "One nation, under God." And now they want to take "Christ" out of Christmas.

Abortion on demand has been the law of the land for 34 years now, with approximately 50 million babies being aborted. (Almost twice the population of Canada having been aborted).

For the last 30 to 40 years, the political homosexual agenda has been trying to destroy marriage. In California, they have succeeded in getting all of the legal rights and benefits of marriage. The only thing they don't have yet is the name "marriage," but now they are going for that.

Truly, we in America have sown to the wind and are reaping a whirlwind. Crime is out of control ’Äî gangs are increasing, and drugs are rampant. We are consumed with alcohol among adults as well as our children. Promiscuity, nudity and perversion are promoted in our theaters, television and Internet as acceptable behavior.

Today, the very government that gave us religious freedom in America has become the greatest enemy of our religious freedom by giving in to those who want to separate God from government.

What we need more than anything is God's blessings on America; but that will never happen until we as a nation get back to the Christian principles that this country was founded on and wage an all-out war on the myth of the so-called "separation of church and state," and begin breaking down the strongholds that it has erected.

More than ever before, the citizens of America need a vision for the soul of America, a vision that is bigger than our own personal needs, a vision that is bigger than our family needs.

In 2007, CCC is entering into our 21st year of ministry in Lodi and San Joaquin County, but in all of these years, I have never felt that America was more divided than we are right now. We are not "one nation under God, indivisible" any more.

We are a nation divided right down the middle. It parallels the Civil War in many ways. That war was fought over the issue of slavery, but today we are in a cultural war of many issues.

The scriptures state that "Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord. God cannot, and will not, bless a nation who rejects his laws, and his Son Jesus Christ."

Lodi resident Ken Owen is president and founder of Christian Community Concerns, an organization dedicated to exerting a Christian influence in the community.

First published: Saturday, February 10, 2007