Selling Out for a Mess of Pottage

Have you ever visited a country where only one “prevailing/preferred/favored religion” or state religion is present?  Turkey, for example (98.9% are nominal Muslims there)?  Or maybe you’ve visited Greece (90% Orthodox)?  One in five countries around the world have an official state religion.  Islam is the official religion of 27 countries in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, North Africa and the Middle East.  Thirteen countries—including nine in Europe—are officially Christian.  Bhutan and Cambodia have Buddhism as their state religion.  Israel is officially a Jewish State.  In 40 countries with a “preferred” religion, Christianity is favored in 28 of them.

A Pew report says:  “In some cases, state religions have roles that are largely ceremonial.  But often the distinction comes with tangible advantages in terms of legal or tax status, ownership of real estate or other property, and access to financial support from the state.  In addition, countries with state-endorsed (or ‘established’) faiths tend to more severely regulate religious practice, including placing restrictions or bans on minority religious groups.”

In the United States, our illegal immigrant and refugee forefathers, based on their experiences in their various homelands, determined that there should be, must be, and ought to be, in the new democracy, a separation of church and state (no prevailing/preferred/favored/official or state religion).  Christians make up 70% of the U.S. population (Evangelical Protestant 25%, Mainline Protestant 15%, Black Protestant 6%—-Roman Catholic 21%—Orthodox Christian 0.5%).  Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, and Hindu comprise  about 6% of the American population.  

There is a major difference between  evangelical Protestants (25% of Christians in the U.S. and Exit polls in 2016 showed that about 80% of this group, particularly white evangelicals, voted for Trump) and evangelical Christians—though most do not make this very important distinction—particularly the media and the political pundits.  Mr. Trump does not make this distinction when he meets with so-called “evangelical leaders” (all of them Protestant or claiming to be)  behind closed-doors.  Twenty-five percent of the Christian population in the U.S. does not constitute a majority and their agenda IS NOT the same as that of many of us who are part of the other 50% of Christians in the U.S.  The biblical message far surpasses the evangelical Protestant agenda, the  overturning of Roe v. Wade, the appointment of  conservative justices to the Supreme Court and  the call for “so-called” religious liberty for themselves, which, in reality,  denies the “equal rights” of others who differ from them.  We not only  have religious diversity in this nation, but we also have religious and  political diversity among those who claim to be Christians!  Never forget that!