Reply #34: More about eliminating the power of State over Church [View All]

Separation of church and state in this country goes back to Roger Williams. He got into trouble with the Puritans because he was uncompromisingly against allowing the state to have any influence over religion whatsoever. For example, he didn't think magistrates should be able to administer oaths.

On the whole, governments have always been perfectly happy to get tangled up with religion, because they know it increases their own power. Religions, on the other hand, have a great deal to lose from being co-opted by governments, since it can only corrupt and weaken them. (Probably the best thing that ever happened to Christianity was the fall of the Roman Empire.)

The fact that the fundamentalists don't see this, and have fallen into the Puritans' trap of believing that a government they controlled would be spiritually pure, inclines me to believe that they have ceased being religious in any genuine sense and (to use a decidedly old-fashioned term) are simply serving the Master of the World.