Al-Fatihah wrote:

Throughout history, the christian world would set up governments where they would incorporate their religion as the part of the law of the land. Today we see a separation of church and state. So why did the founding fathers decide to separate church and state? Did they really base this decision on freedom? Also, is this concept a teaching of christianity? Let's have a dialogue.

The concept of a Christianized government really only evolved as a concept following the Edict of Milan, and even then it took another 80 years for Christianity to become the official religion of the Roman Empire.

State and Church were never confused together, as in both in the East and in the West various controversies pitted Church and State against one another in various capacities.

It wouldn't be until the rise of the modern nation state in the 16th and 17th centuries that religion and government became fused in new ways, often imitating Geneva's form of theocracy. The Anabaptists particularly resisted this new form of Protestant theocracy by refusing any participation with the State whatsoever.

It was within this mix, where nationalism and church fidelity existed together in a strange marriage that many European intellectuals began to challenge the status quo. The concept of government itself was challenged by various political philosophers, such as John Locke, which became foundational for the American founding fathers to propose a system of government very different than anything that existed back in Europe.

Nonconformist Christians such as Quakers and Mennonites found that they had a chance to survive in America in ways they didn't in the situation that Europe still largely found itself.

As someone who believes not only in the separation of Church and State, but who believes that the very concepts of "Church" and "State" are diametrically opposed to one another the idea of a "Christian nation" makes about as much sense to me as the idea of a square circle.

Church and State are not two spheres of authority, as has oftentimes been said, but are two completely opposite ways of comprehending human interpersonal activity. The State is an organization of power and glory, the Church is an organization of suffering and weakness.

The State, by its very existence, is opposite of Christ, His Kingdom and His Church; who teaches that "the greatest must be the least" and that mercy triumphs over retributive justice. Whose life in all that it encapsulates demonstrates the absolute and utter poverty of the powers and principalities and in His death He makes a mockery of them. The moment Caesar had Christ nailed to the tree he showed himself to be the loser--despite all his pomp and splendor, Caesar has failed. Caesar is fallen. Babylon is fallen, she is fallen and dead.

-Jon

Al-Fatihah wrote:

Response: The founding fathers were not christians? Then what were they?

As Horton noted, many were Christian of varying degrees of orthodoxy, but others held no particular religious stripe and still others, such as Jefferson, were Deists which is less a theological position and more a philosophical one.

About the only thing the founding fathers agreed upon was that it was necessary to break free from the British Crown and establish a government built upon democratic principles--though they heavily disagreed on how to implement such principles.

Some even wanted the new nation to be a monarchy.

-Jon