THE CURSE OF CHURCH AND STATE, PART 2: SILENCE, HERETIC

Control is the aim of all religionists who desire civil power. They want the power of government for one single reason: they are not content to allow their religious ideas to stand or fall in competition with other religions and philosophies in the marketplace of ideas, judged by each person for themselves as true or false. Instead, they intend to dominate human thought and behavior by having government compel their religious views on society using the force of law. Since they have lost the argument in the public square, they will win it by force. Some of these religionists may have vague intentions of altruism, hoping to reform a corrupt society through religious compulsion. But, regardless of motive, as soon as the objective is obtained it is inevitable that the union of church and state will result in persecution.

This is because the power of government is to make laws for society. When religionists have this power they will make laws for their religious purposes, and laws to punish breaches of their religious laws. The result is religious persecution, and the corruption of church and state.

There are many examples to demonstrate that the above proposition is true. In theocratic Muslim countries where the church controls the state, censorship of media of all sorts is enforced, from books to movies, and the internet. There are religious restrictions on every aspect of society, and these restrictions are for the good of society in the minds of those who pass them and enforce them. Compliance is mandatory, and a person is considered an enemy of the common good if he dissents.

In Islam, as in all religions, the ultimate dissent is considered to be conversion away from one’s former religion. But when the mosque controls the state, one converts from the religion which controls the government. In much of Islam, conversion is to be punished by death. Islamic teaching stipulates that a delay of three days for “reconsideration”, is appropriate prior to carrying out the death penalty.ⁱ

The Roman Papacy also wants control of government, even global government,ⁱ and it long ago proved that it persecutes dissenters. For centuries it banned books and persecuted their authors,ⁱⁱ justifying it actions with the claim that reading John Locke, Galileo, and John Milton, was “heresy” and “contrary to morality”, and suppression of writings is necessary for the common good. Many martyrs were tortured and killed for possession or creation of prescribed religious materials.

This censorship and persecution is supposedly justified by the papal teaching extra ecclesiam nulla salus - "outside of the Church, there is no salvation”, and, “it is absolutely necessary for salvation that every human creature be subject to the Roman Pontiff.”ⁱⁱⁱ Thomas Aquinas, often lauded by Catholic scholars, agreed that "to be subject to the Roman Pontiff is absolutely necessary for salvation."^iv Thus, the Papacy justifies censorship by the following perverse argument: since only Catholic doctrine can save society, dissenting or heretical views must not be tolerated if society is to be saved.

This position is not only ancient, but also modern. In advocating for a new reinterpretation of the Constitution through a lens of Catholic social doctrine deceptively called “common good constitutionalism”,^v Harvard legal scholar and Catholic Integralist, Adrien Vermuele, stated:

The libertarian assumptions central to free-speech law and free-speech ideology – that government is forbidden to judge the quality and moral worth of public speech … [should] fall under the ax. Libertarian conceptions of property rights and economic rights will also have to go, insofar as they bar the state from enforcing duties of community and solidarity in the use and distribution of resources.^vi

Carefully consider Vermuele’s assertions in this vein and it will slowly dawn on you that he is quietly but vehemently opposed to American independence, the Bill of Rights, and probably apple pie. Vermeule believes the United States government should be subordinate to the Roman Catholic Papacy. When he advocates for government censorship of public speech that is low in “quality and moral worth”, what he means is that the Catholic Church should direct the government to suppress public speech it opposes.

Vermeule’s contentions prove the proposition that a union of church and state results in wickedness and oppression, as President John Adams wrote.^vii But there may be another word to describe his intentional attack on US independence. What do you call a proposition that your country’s government and Constitution be subordinated to the Pope of Rome, who is not only a religious leader but a foreign monarch, and that your fellow citizens be stripped of their freedom of speech and property rights?

While these menacing thoughts are published under the sometimes-subversive cloak of academia, Vermuele betrays enough of an inner latent Torquemada that there should be serious alarm bells for liberty lovers.

Take David French, for example. French, a lawyer, former editor of the National Review, and Protestant twice has debated Sohrab Amari, a well-known Catholic Integralist and editor of the New York Post, on the subjects of American liberty and Originalism versus a Catholic social doctrine reinterpretation of the Constitution.^viii French is a staunch supporter of individual rights, and the defense of civil liberties as enshrined in the Bill of Rights. Amari believes the government should be subordinated to the Catholic Church, and that the Constitution needs to be “reinterpreted” so that it conforms with Catholic doctrine.

French handily won both debates. But if the Catholic church controlled the government, the French/Amahri debates probably do not end with a handshake. They end with French’s writings proscribed, his house expropriated and converted into a camp for Catholic migrants,^ix and French himself chained to a rack and tortured for heresy. That is the difference when the church controls the state.

Many Protestants today want civil power, and claim to be setting up a kingdom for Jesus Christ. They claim there will be more liberty in this kingdom, not less. But Protestants who believe in a union of church and state are not much different than Papists. They have behaved like Papists when they have had civil power and there is every reason to believe they will again if they obtain it again.

There are many examples of the foregoing, but one or two will suffice. In Scotland, “The National Covenant or Confession of Faith” was first created in 1580 and certified by an act of Parliament in 1640. The law was approved by Charles II in 1651 as a condition precedent of his restoration to power.

As noted by author and liberty advocate A. T. Jones, the Covenant “declares, in approval of various acts of the Scottish Parliament, as follows:

… do condemn all erroneous books and write concerning erroneous doctrine against the religion presently professed, or containing superstitious rites and ceremonies papistical, … and ordains the home-bringers of them to be punished … and ordains the users of them to be punished for the second fault as idolaters.ⁱ

In order to protect the Covenant religion, the Covenant declares that “all within the realm are bound to profess it”, and states all must:

… recant all doctrine and errors repugnant to any of the said articles, and all magistrates, sheriffs, etc., are ordained to search, apprehend, and punish all contraveners; … that none shall be reputed loyal and faithful subjects to our sovereign Lord or his authority, but be punishable as rebellers and gainstanders of the same, who shall not give their confession and make their profession of the said true religion.ⁱⁱ

Magistrates were required by the Covenant to:

Maintain the true religion of Jesus Christ… and be careful to root out of their empire all heretics and enemies of the true worship of God who shall be convicted by the true Kirk of God [Church of God] of the aforesaid crimes.ⁱⁱⁱ

Scottish Reformer Jon Knox himself stated that “none provoking the people to idolatry ought to be exempted from the punishment of death”, and “it is not only lawful to punish to the death such as labor to subvert the true religion, but the magistrates and people are bound to do so unless they will provoke the wrath of God against themselves.”^iv

As noted, this is far from the only example of Protestant misdeeds when they obtain civil power. John Calvin had Michael Servetus arrested and murdered over a religious disagreement. Zwingli endorsed violence to encourage conversion, and Melanchthon drowned an Anabaptist for the “heresy” of being rebaptized.

Thus we see a union of church and state in Islam, Catholicism and Protestantism all yields the same evil result. The supposedly “true” religion (as declared by thin-skinned religionists who cannot stand to have their ideas debated and adopted or discarded as the individual decides) is established by civil law, dissenting views are censored, and the expositors punished, persecuted and murdered. That is the lesson of history in all ages, and it is the prophecy of Revelation 13 that so will it be at the end of time.

Revelation 13:11 And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon. 12 And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed. 13 And he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men, 14 And deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live. 15 And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed. 16 And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: 17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. 18 Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.

The next installment in this series will examine the links between Catholic social doctrine, the labor movement, and the push for church and state union.