Separation of Church and State

"Separation of Church and State" is a phrase that is anathema to many Christians in America today, often with good reason.  With the innate religiosity of humanity, complete separation is utterly impossible.  The religious view of politicians will always dictate their decisions, whether they are atheistic humanist, evangelical Christians, or fundamentalist Muslims.  With that in mind, it is also reasonable that people hope to have politicians in power who most closely share their own religious views.  I think sometimes there is the view among American Christians that "If only we could get a good Christian president and a good Christian congress, everything would be okay.  If only the country was run by Christians, we wouldn't be in such a mess."  Of course, non-Christians react strongly against this "ideal" situation, claiming "Separation of Church and State!"  Ignoring the misconceptions and problematic logic of both sides for the moment, I'd like to offer a different view point, gained from living in a state where there is no separation of "church" and state and where the majority of inhabitants of the land are not members of the state religion.

Israel is Jewish state, with all that implies.  Demographically, roughly 74% are considered Jewish.  So far, that doesn't seem like much of a problem.  Sure, there are the Christian and Muslim populations which will be bound to have their problems with the government, but my comments on the system lie elsewhere. 

There are roughly four main branches in Judaism today: Reform, Conservative, Orthodox, and Ultra-Orthodox, listed in order of what we would call least "conservative" to most "conservative."  Between these four there is a broad spectrum of Torah interpretation, and the results of these different interpretations are clearly showcased in the political arena.  

The Chief Rabbinate in Israel, the religious governing authority, is Orthodox.  They specifically have authority over marriage, divorce, and conversion.  This causes problems.  

Imagine for a minute that America did not have a policy forbidding the government to control the church and forbidding the church to control the government.  Instead, let's say that some specific Christian denomination was in control of the government, or some aspects of government.  Just for the sake of illustration let's say its a Baptist denomination. 

So, now, in America, the Baptists are in control of marriage.  Say you are Methodist.  You want to get married.  You go to get a marriage license, only to find that you are required to complete a 6 week premarital counseling class with a  Baptist minister.  Once that is complete, the ceremony has to be done inside a Baptist church, on a Saturday.  You begin to be a bit upset.  

Or perhaps you are agnostic and wanting a divorce.  You apply, only to find out that you must first supply proof that your husband has been unfaithful to you, since that is what is required for a Biblical divorce.  Not only that, but then you also must complete 6 weeks of counseling with a Baptist minister, hoping you'll change your mind.  Then you find out that technically, only the husband can divorce the wife (because in the Bible the man gave the certificate of divorce).  If he refuses to divorce you, you're out of luck.

Maybe you're Catholic and you just adopted a child from China.  You want to get citizenship for them, but then you find out that in order to become an American citizen, they have to convert to the religion of the state: Christianity.  So you go through the process of having them confirmed in the Catholic Church.  You return to apply for citizenship to find out that Catholic conversion doesn't count.  They have to be converted to Baptist.  In addition, if you want to adopt another child and also get citizenship for them, there had better be proof that you're raising your first child as a Baptist, or else your second child will not be allowed to convert to gain citizenship.  

Sounds a bit frustrating, yes?  These are examples of the sorts of things that are faced by the many Jews here who are not Orthodox.  Examples could be multiplied, but I think I have made my point.

The government is probably not the right place to try to enforce religious morality, especially for Christianity.  Brothers and sisters, if we are to impact the world, change must happen one heart at a time.  Using legislation to make people behave as you want them to behave simply doesn't work, as illustrated by the Israeli government.  Frustration and rebellion are the result among those who disagree with your stance, not increased morality.  

I do not write this to say that we should not try to make good laws or elect good officials.  I do write this to say that

1. We should not pin our hopes on the government and

2. Maybe we should be thankful for "separation of church and state" because we might find that whatever religion ended up in control might not be as friendly as we would hope.  

...and the winner is....

Yesterday was election day in Israel. Which means that by today, most of the results should be tallied and we should have a pretty accurate idea of who will be the new prime minister, right? Well, maybe not.

Before I elaborate any further, I wish to make it known that I make no claim to any great knowledge of Israeli politics. However, a couple people have asked, so I will attempt to explain the little that I've learned in the last couple weeks. (If you have any further questions, you're on your own, but maybe this will help you know where to start looking.)

First of all, when you vote in Israel, you don't vote for a person. You vote for a party. There were somewhere around 30 different political parties vying for votes in this most recent election. While the main ones would probably seem fairly "normal" to us (right, left, stances on the economy, and Gaza being sort of main points of discussion) they range to the utterly bizarre (Holocaust survivors in favor of legalizing marijuana). Each party gets a certain number of seats in the Knesset (120 seats total), depending on what percentage of the vote they get. To get any seats, they have to get at least 2% of the vote. Other than that, if your party gets, say, 20% of the popular vote (which could be enough for that party to "win" the election), then you get 24 of the seats (or possibly more-to make up for the parties getting 1% and no seats), to be filled with the top members of the party. No one party ever wins a majority. The prime minister usually (or maybe always thus far) comes from the party that received the largest percent of the popular vote. He or she then has to form a coalition government. (Obviously, if only 20 percent of the legislative branch agrees with the prime minister, not much will get done. So they make deals and apparently "recruit" other parties to agree with them. They need at least 61 seats in the Knesset to form a coalition government. When the coalition falls apart, they hold new elections.)

This time the two main parties in the running were Likud, headed by Benjamin Netanyahu, and
Kadima, headed by Tzipi Livni. The Likud party had been leading in the polls, with an ever decreasing margin over the last couple weeks. As of yesterday, however, it appears that Kadima actually won a slightly larger percentage of the popular vote, giving them one more seat. (Though apparently this won't be totally certain for another week or two). Does this mean that Livni will be Prime Minister? Well, maybe.

The thing is, first of all, it's a very narrow win. That gives them less bargaining power with the other parties. Second, Livni already tried and failed to form a coalition government this fall after Ehud Olmert stepped down. There are various other reasons too, but suffice it to say that Netanyahu still has a shot at being Prime Minister.

Whether this is good or bad, and what all this will mean for Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank, well, only time will tell for sure. I'm sure analysts are attempting to predict what might happen, but I will not.

Fortunately, as I was reminded in our own elections, our hope is not built on who our president or prime minister is. Our hope is in the God who created the universe and who is still in control of it. Our hope is in the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son. Our citizenship isn't really here - it's in Heaven. So as you pray for America, please pray for Israel too. And then remember to trust the God who establishes and removes rulers.

Randomness!

Today I went to volunteer again. I helped in a 3rd grade classroom, which went fairly well. I don't think I would have the patience to teach there full-time, though. The kids are pretty wild and the school seems pretty disorganized (both in discipline and other areas.) Anyway... Melissa, who had been going with me, was again unable to go today. I always miss her, but I am also growing in my confidence to go about the city by myself when necessary. Apparently I'm starting to look like I belong too. Today I was walking back to school from the bus stop and a lady stopped me by Jaffa gate to ask about "Mamilla." I think she was Muslim (by her head covering) and I think she was speaking Hebrew, so that's about all that I understood. I pointed her to the Mamilla Mall (hopefully that's what she wanted) and was thanked in Hebrew. Anyway, not sure why she choose to ask me, but I guess I'll take it as a compliment. :)

I heard a fairly strong indictment of Christian music the other day. I was talking to a friend here who likes to listen to rap music. He apparently especially likes this Muslim rapper from Chicago. I must have looked skeptical or something becaue he tried to assure me, saying something like "It's clean - pretty much the same as Christian music." If all we expect of Christian music is that it be clean and otherwise indistinguishable from the music of any other worldview (secular humanism, Islam, Budhism, etc.) then our standards are far too low. (In defense of him, that's probably not quite what he meant, and he would probably agree that Christian music should have higher standards, but I think that his statement, whether he meant it that way or not, reflects the attitude of a lot of people. We listen to Christian music because it's clean, not because it's specifically CHRISTIAN in its worldview.)

Today is election day in Jerusalem. Interesting issues in this city. An article I read the other day said that Jerusalem rated pretty low in "livablity" when compared to other Israeli cities - lots of trash, fewer city services, bad parking. Jerusalem is also on the border between Israel and the West Bank, which means it has a larger Arab population. In addition to the Arab population there are Religious Jews, Ultra-Orthodox Jews, and Secular Jews, all of which have very different ideas of how thing should be. I didn't know this before coming here, but apparently the Ultra-Orthodox don't work so they can spend all day studying Torah and Mishnah. They also have lots of children. They expect to be supported by the government. Kind of a drain on the economy. Jewish-Arab tensions aside, Jewish-Jewish tensions are fierce.

Here's an interesting article: http://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1035415.html.

I have Hebrew today! We are working on translating Ruth. As much as I get rather frustrated with that class, I do enjoy starting to understand the text.

I leave for Jordan on Thrusday! I'm pretty excited. :) I get to see the "real" Petra. I'm sure I'll post notes and photos when I get back. Until then...