The Birmingham age-herald., 1922-01-08
GOVERNMENT AND RELIGION


 When Jesus said we should render unto Caesar the things which are Caesars and unto God the things which are Gods, He laid down one of the broad and basic prin- ciples of the Christian life He said in effect, that there were two departments of life, the secular and the religious; that there were two kingdoms, the kingdom of this world and the Kingdom of God, in both of which His people must live and he denied to either kingdom the right to take unto itself the power or the functions of the other. If human language has any mean ing at all, this is what the story of the tribute money means, and this comes to us with the authority of Christ Himself.
 That we in this day and time, have come to confuse these two phases of life, is no new development. The Jews tried the ex- pertinent 5000 years ago when they made their religious leaders the judges of the land, It was a noble experiment but it ended in failure, for the state became en- slaved and religion became thing of rule and precept. It ended in the ideal of righteousness coming through laws, an ideal which Christ died fighting, and which, strangely enough, we have resurrected. But the Jews learned the lesson, and today arc loyal to their God and the state and seldom confuse the two. The Christian Catholic church tried the experiment. of joining church and state in the days when kings were the servants to the Pope of Rome. It ended in disaster. The Protestant church tried it in the days of Calvin at Geneva. It ended with the prison and the rack. The alliance of church and state is ever an unholy alliance, and we are tending toward it today more rapidly than we dream. In another 20 years, | if the present development continues, church | and state will be so inextrcably intertwined, that we shall not be able to tell God from | Caesar, for the churches are working with the laws of Caesar, and Caesar is busying himself with the affairs of God.
 su. If people would stop and think, and free l themselves from the personal prejudices which so largely govern them, they would see that this broad principle is fundamental to most of the things about which we contend. We differ concerning prohibition, Sunday amusements, whether or not it is wrong to dance or to smoke tobacco. These are mat | ters of conscience, about which men have | the right to differ, but the state is tending more and more to compel us to think alike. | There is no end to the confusion we face. | know city where it is lawful to waltz, but Unlawful to toddle! I know state where one can buy strong black cigars and be- | come criminal by smoking mild cigarette. l This sort of thing is the ridiculous offspring | of that union which God never contemplated. It is useless to ask why the church-working | through the state-cannot regulate what we eat or how we breathe, or when and whom we love and marry. We are laughed at. Per haps it can-and will in time.
 | I think that people ought not to eat or drink excessively. I think they ought to love and marry wisey-and even perma- nently, but utterly deny to the state the right to put me in prison for doing or failing to do any of these things. Personally, I would | not go to theatre or dance hall on Sunday, but it is none of the states business if I do. When Christ said "Those whom God hath joined together, let not man put asunder," l think He implied the opposite truth: "Those which God hath put asunder, let not man join together" and all history testifies that | when either church or state crosses the dead line that God has placed between, the result is ruin to both. There are matters of human law and matters of Christian conscience, and | in these latter, Congress and the city com mission to the contrary notwithstanding, God alone is my Judge.
 MIDDLETON s. FAREWELL.