The Founding Fathers managed the trick of uniting social conservatives (which they mostly were) with libertarians such as Jefferson. They did not do it by working out a compromise on what prayers were to be mandated, they took the literally revolutionary position that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion”. They did it by showing social conservatives that political liberty was what was best for Christianity, and founding what became the most Christian nation on Earth, for over a century; despite the fact that all other Christian nations had state-mandated religions.
Christianity does not thrive when Christianity is mandated, it withers. No human government has ever gotten it right, nor ever will. But it would still wither even if our consciences were forced perfectly in line with God’s principles, because force impedes the development of our own consciences.
Christianity charity has withered in America over the past century as the government has mandated welfare. The Christian principle of temperance took a terrible blow from the WCTU and Prohibition. Christian love and decency are both hurt by assault laws; if I refrain from beating the crap out of Guy Cimbalo, it’s not because of my Christian principles but because I don’t want to be arrested. In a debate over gay marriage a friend said, “If it’s legal how will my kids know it’s wrong?” If anyone thinks that just because it’s legal it’s OK, he is going to be damned.
The clearest current example of this is gay marriage.
Christian marriage has already been terribly hurt by the government defining marriage, because of easy government divorce. The true, principled American way of dealing with this is not to legislatively allow or deny gay marriage, it is for conservatives to stop the government from claiming to define marriage at all. Judges should be not be capable of performing marriages under the First and Fourteenth amendments, only civil unions whether the couple is gay or straight. Marriage is God’s venue, not Clinton’s, Bush’s, Obama’s, or any judge’s.
