To the Editor

“It seemed like a good idea at the time…” is often said when two things were brought together that should not have been.

Such is the case with church and state.  It may seem, at first thought, that pairing the church with government might bring about desired ends:  the church could finally accomplish it’s well-intentioned goals and that the government would be less corrupt.  History, however, has shown just the opposite:  pair the church with the state and you get unchecked, abusive power by both.  When they remain separate, they can and will critique each other.  They will hold each other accountable to take better care of people and keep abuses in check.

If you’ve been to church in the past 3 weeks, you’ve likely heard stories of how Jesus’s kingdom is the opposite the Roman empire in every way.  Jesus did not want to be put in a position of power like Caesar (Luke 4:1-13).  Jesus’ kingdom is nurturing and Jesus would not cease his ministry to people even when those in power didn’t like it (Luke 13:31-35).  Jesus also countered the message of the powerful that bad fortune was a sign of God’s disfavor - reassuring those on the margins that God, indeed, favors them (Luke 6:20-49, 13:1-19).  

It was a monk, Telemachus, whose speaking out against torture in the Roman Coliseum that brought an end to the macabre practices of the empire.  In 381, Constantine would make Christianity the religion of the empire, but the patriarchy of the empire would require the wiping out the history of women in leadership in the church that had been in place from the beginning with Mary Magdalene.

In 1095, the church/state crusades began - going to to war with Muslims over the Holy Land.  Estimates of those killed vary from 1-9 million.  

Then, the church/state bore down on immorality with the use of various shaming and torture devices for all kinds of immoral behavior.  It got progressively awful and gruesome - iron maidens.  There were no police, no lawyers, no jury, no concept of innocence until proven guilty.  Punishment was public for all to see.  Some were hung in cages along public streets until they died.  Henchmen employed by the one church/state enforced all kinds of rules, minor or major, guilty or not.  Forgiveness and the salvation of Jesus Christ could only be purchased.  The poor were out of luck - and heaven.    

When, in 1517, Martin Luther wrote 95 theses to critique the abuses of the church/state, it sought to kill him.  His reforms would take away their leverage to coerce money out of the rich and poor alike, with less power to abuse both and gave more voice and power to the people.  Translating the Bible into German, the Bible could be heard, read and understood by any German-speaking person for themselves.  Additionally, Luther’s understanding of the New Testament led him to advocate for public education of all children, not just the wealthy.  And for greater rights for women - like owning property.

In 1534, England broke away from the church/state and created their own, the Church of England.  Varying theological beliefs led to church/state wars between countries and inquisitions that, together, killed millions more and created economic disasters, as well.  Puritans hoped to leave all that behind in 1620 as they established a new life in America to worship how they pleased, free from war and persecution.  They had no intention, however, of allowing others the same privilege in the colonies.  

In the 1650’s, Roger Williams, a deeply devoted Christian and leader who settled Rhode Island realized that people could not be authentically converted to Christianity unless the church and state were separate.  He realized that to have an authentic faith required a person to be free to choose to believe and free to choose and discern how God was calling one to live their life as a disciple.  

In his book, The Bloudy Tenant, of Persecution, for cause of Conscience, discussed in A Conference between Truth and Peace, Williams wrote: “I infer that the sovereign, original, and foundation of civil power lies in the people.”  This was a turning point as previously, the state sovereignty came from God.  Entire communities began relocating to Rhode Island for the haven and freedom its laws offered them.

Acutely aware of all of this history, in 1787, the founders of our nation wrote the Constitution.  Washington, Franklin, Adams, Madison and Jefferson likely all believed in a divine being, but did not believe Jesus was God’s son or a savior.  Jefferson, however, thought Jesus’ teachings were valuable, and that Jesus was merely human, but not divine.  Hamilton was the only one who believed in Jesus as a divine savior, so technically, he is the only one we can classify as a Christian.

Carl T. Bogus, author of “Is This a Christian Nation? An Introduction,” writes, the Founders labored for nearly four months writing the Constitution of the United States which never mentions Christianity. “The Constitution, as originally adopted, alludes to religion twice. It provides that 'no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to hold any Office or public Trust under the United States.’ It also provides that public officials shall pledge loyalty to the Constitution 'by Oath or Affirmation,’ thereby allowing Quakers and others who objected to taking an oath to make the pledge in a non-religious form.”

Pauline Maier, historian observed, “In the state ratifying conventions, even some clergymen argued for allowing Jews, Catholics, and Muslims to be eligible for public office against broad popular conviction that religious freedom, and indeed, freedom in general was safest in the hands of Protestants.”  So Bogus concludes, “To the extent that religion was a significant issue during the ratification debates, it was because some advocated that freedom of religion be protected in a bill of rights. That, of course, was accomplished by the First Amendment to the Constitution, which states simply: ‘congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.’”

Within 10 years, Barbary pirates from Tripoli (North Africa) would kidnap American sailors (“infidels,” they believed) and make them slaves.  And so, in 1797 Treaty of Tripoli, the United States clearly and formally articulated the founders’ position that “the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion,” protecting our sailors and our country from threat of jihad.

In Germany, 1934, Christians in the Lutheran, Reformed and United churches who opposed the German Christian pro-Nazi movement to make the church subservient to the state adopted the Barmen Declaration.  The six theses state that:  the only source of the revelation of God is Jesus Christ, that Jesus is the only authority over personal life, the message of the church should not be influenced by political convictions, church leadership is in service to its members, the church and state take care of their own business and they reject the insubordination of the church to the state.

“In God We Trust” was inspired by a minister in Pennsylvania during the Civil War.  It first appeared on the 2 cent piece in 1864.  Prior to that, the phrase on the US seal was “E Pluribus Unum”, “Out of One, Many”.  The first US coin minted in 1787 actually had the phrase, “Mind Your Business”.  “In God We Trust" became the official motto and appeared on all our money in 1956 during the height of the cold war to set the US apart from the Soviet Union, which was officially atheistic, using the motto to divide, not bring peace.

The United States has been a Christian nation only in the sense that most of those living here have been Christians.  It is NOT because Christianity is the religion the founders intended its people to ascribe to.  In nations where Christianity is the state religion, there is dramatic reduction in participation over against nations where the church is separate from the state. Though it may seem to be a good idea, it is not good for anyone that the church and state be one.   It never has been.  It never will be.  

Pastor Lissa Kahl

Pastor Lissa Kahl, ordained in 2000, has served churches in SE Minnesota, NE Iowa and Western Iowa and is now serving both an ELCA and United Methodist church in Corwith, Iowa.  She grew up in Aurelia, and currently lives in Humboldt with her husband (also a pastor) and two children. 

Selected References

St. Telemachus

The Ministry of Women and the Merger of Church and State in Fourth-Century Christianity

Medieval Crime Museum, Rothenberg, Germany

Ninety-five Thesis

Martin Luther on Reformed Education

Luther’s Will - Contrary to law and custom, he designated his wife, Katharina, as sole heiress and guardian of their children.  Luther’s Death House, Eiseleben, Germany.

Puritanism

Is This a Christian Nation?  

Treaty of Tripoli 

After 65 Years Of ‘In God We Trust,’ The Problems With The National Motto Have Never Been Clearer

The Barmen Declaration

Every morning, VA psychiatrists log in to their work computers. They see missives from patients. Pleas for help. Requests for assistance with worksheets. Appointments to be rescheduled due to sick kids at home. 

Appointments that get cancelled and never rescheduled.

And, lately, they get another email. This one offers them the chance to leave this job as a vital lifeline to the men and women who have served their country. Should they decide to remain in this job, the email reminds them this will be taken as a refusal to accept severance, and that their job will likely be terminated. 

The email contains a countdown clock to the day when this will happen. The email is unsigned. It comes every day. My VA psychiatrist saved my life, and I have no idea how much time we have left to complete my treatment.

This is the thanks of a grateful nation. This is what we have become. A nation that cannot evenkeep the promises made to those of us who have served it in harm’s way, have done so honorably, and have returned home broken in mind if not also in body. 

The promised recompense for the physical and psychological wounds we incurred in service to this country was that our country would care for those wounds, directly through health care and indirectly through benefits. 

Now, these promises are considered “waste.” This is the message from our government. That our sacrifice and service has amounted to waste.

To be clear: this isn’t about me, however, or even just about veterans. This is about all of us.

If this government cares so little now for those of us who gave it so much, imagine how little this government cares for a person who in their eyes has given them nothing. This is the danger posed by a government that sees itself as a transactional entity, as a business. 

The government ceases to be of the people, by the people, and for the people. It becomes government for the sole benefit of those doing the governing.

You see, we have lost something as a nation. Something ugly has grown right up inside of us. We have lost the ability to see how our lives, all of our lives, are completely intertwined. “We the People” have lost any sense of the responsibility we have for one another.

We’ve lost what it means to be a “we.”

We have lost sight of the fact that when I demand pork chops at $2.49/lb, there’s a hog farmer at the other end of that demand who is losing money. 

That when I demand my legislators cut the budget on the backs of Medicaid and SNAP, it means your grandparents lose the ability to buy their medication or remain in their assisted living facility, and that your toddler’s friend at daycare is going to show up with an empty stomach. 

When we cut nutritional assistance programs and foreign food aid, not only do we increase child poverty rates and child hunger, we take away the livelihood of farmers across the country from whose farms the bulk of the grains for foods in these programs is purchased. 

This is why Chuck Grassley has been a vocal proponent of keeping SNAP and other such programs in the Farm Bill, and not broken out as entitlements. Protecting those programs protects both the recipient of the nutritional assistance and the farmer. 

E pluribus unum. 

It’s on our money. “Out of many, One.” We are bound together to one singular fate. In a democracy, you can’t pick and choose who gets rights; you can’t use your vote to punish folks you don’t like, and expect this will only redound to your benefit. 

In a democracy, when I lose rights, you lose rights. You just won’t know it until it’s too late. Your voting preference will not save you, because we are all in this together–we have just lost sight of this simple fact.

We chase the money and miss the motto.

We lapse into self-regard and selfishness and we forget who we are as a people. We lose sight of the fact that if they can outlaw a same-sex marriage, they can outlaw your marriage. That if they can unilaterally deny civil rights protections for trans folks, they can unilaterally deny those protections to you. 

That if they can impose one theological framework on our laws and public policy, that this creates a justification for any other religion to be so imposed–or to one day decree that any such belief is now unlawful. 

We only have rights when we all have the same rights. 

When rights are contingent on political loyalty, they cease to be rights at all. Rights become merely the benefits of patronage, and are thereby subject to the whims of whomever is in power at any given moment. 

Democracy is not about getting the government that accords only to my beliefs; it’s about getting a government that protects all of our beliefs, equally.

Think about it this way: you can find out what rights you have by looking at the rights extended to those who are the most despised members of society. Whatever rights the lowest person in a society has, those are the only actual rights you have. Everything else that you have which they don’t, can be taken away from you just as it has been denied them. 

Your rights are only as good as the rights of the most despised person you know. If one person can be put in a cage without a trial and separated from their children, then any one of us can be treated the same way. 

We institutionalize abuse by accepting it as necessary, and once institutionalized, we become subject to the same treatment–it’s just a matter of time before we find out. We are the only guarantor of each other’s rights.

“Out of many, One” cuts both ways. If they can strip from me my promised benefits, benefits for which I faithfully served and fulfilled my end of the bargain, they can strip anything from any one of you. The fate of any one of us, is the potential fate of all of us, because we are one people. We cannot just dispense with this reality. We cannot abide a system where our rights are up for grabs every election cycle.

We would do well to take this lesson with us into the voting booth. We don’t need to be great again; we need to be generous, and compassionate, and to find fellow feeling again.

Phil Mayo

On an unseasonably warm Feb 25, a group of a little more than 20 area Democrats gathered outside Congressman Randy Feenstra’s Office in Ft. Dodge to protest the budget proposed by U.S. House Republicans. 

Democrats in attendance were against cuts to Medicaid, cuts to the Children’s Health Insurance Program, cuts to food aid for the poor, and cuts to environmental programs outlined in the House Republican budget proposal. “People don’t realize that this budget means cuts to nursing home patients and dementia patients,” said one attendee.

Democrats weren’t shy about stating what they thought about the Republican Budget plan and Feenstra’s silence on the issue of cutting benefits for Iowans. One couple brought a sign that read. “Rubber stamp Randy.” This was a comment on “Feenstra’s devotion to Trump without consideration of how these policies affect Iowans,” they said.

“Sixty-nine thousand Iowans in District 04 will be affected by Medicaid cuts,” read a sign held by a woman from Pocahontas County. District 4 refers to the 36 counties Iowa that Congressman Feenstra represents. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 16.1% of the total population of Iowa’s Fourth District receives Medicaid benefits, almost 1 in 6 people.

“The Republican Budget extends the Trump tax cuts. These cuts are projected to increase the federal deficit in the range of $5 to $11.2 trillion over the next ten years according to the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget,” said T.C. Loving, an attendee from Humboldt. 

Participating Democrats from Calhoun, Webster, Pocahontas, and Humboldt counties were unable to meet with any of Feenstra’s staff because the office was closed on what normally would have been a work day. They expressed a hope of meeting with Feenstra soon. Although, they claimed that Feenstra usually only schedules poorly-publicized events in the district with Republican or hand picked constituents.

Later that evening, House Republicans passed their budget resolution with the support of Congressman Feenstra. 

According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a nonpartisan research and policy institute, the House Republicans’ budget resolution directs the House Energy and Commerce Committee to reduce the deficit by at least $880 billion over ten years, a target Republicans have indicated they will hit primarily by cutting Medicaid. In addition, Republicans are planning roughly $1 trillion in new tax cuts, much or all of which could go to corporations, paid for primarily through cuts that put health coverage in jeopardy for the 72 million people covered by Medicaid.

At the same time, the House Republicans are calling for extending the Trump tax cuts, of which costs outstrip these savings many times over. 

The Senate must reconcile their budget with the cuts outlined in the House budget resolution to have them take effect. 

T.C. Loving

In a recent edition there was a write-up on Humboldt PRIDE which covered the difficulty the organizers had finding a venue this year. One of the venues formerly available to them, the VFW, had refused citing "conflicting values" with PRIDE. As a Marine Corps veteran twice deployed to the Middle East, I was taken aback by this claim, because I served in a Marine Corps infantry unit with two gay men, two gay men who both have legitimate combat decorations, men who saved the lives of fellow Marines on more than one occasion. In the Marines, we have a set of values that we live by, values which bind us together: honor, courage, commitment, and esprit de corps. These two men embodied each of the values to an exemplary degree, so it strikes me as strange that a veteran's organization might have values that would celebrate these men for their heroism but not allow them to celebrate how and with whom they share their love. Indeed the stated mission of the VFW is "To foster camaraderie among United States veterans of overseas conflicts. To serve our veterans, the military and our communities. To advocate on behalf of all veterans."

I was proud to attend PRIDE with my family. Not only did I witness nothing that conflicted with the values I was taught as a young Marine, I witnessed those same values at work: honoring the sacrifice of those who have gone before with our own sacrifices; having the courage to run towards the fire rather than away from it; remaining committed to one's fellows in the face of any adversity; expressing esprit de corps through demonstrations of solidarity. So I cannot imagine a set of values that I might hold as a veteran that would conflict with PRIDE, and even now I tremble at the courage it took for my two brothers to don the uniform and risk life and limb for a country they knew would not love them back. I am Proud to have served with them. I am proud to be counted as their brother in arms. I am proud that I could honor their sacrifices--all of their sacrifices. I do not write here to condemn anyone or "cancel" any one. I write simply as one who served, one who was there, one who bore witness. Veterans are not monolithic; there is not a single set of values which encapsulates all of us. In my platoon alone, we had atheists, Christians of several stripes, Bhuddists, Muslims, Jews, and a Satanist. Two of them were resident aliens. We were drawn from all walks of life. We did not all believe the same, but we loved each other deeply. So we should take care when articulating our own values that we do not presuppose that they are shared by everyone with which we find common cause. America is not a country founded on the idea that everyone have the same values; it is a country founded on the idea that multiple competing sets of values can coexist peacefully and effectively in a thriving, vibrant, and diverse nation. That is the country I swore to serve, the country I was proud to serve. I will always be a Marine, and I will always love me fellow Marines, and I would dishonor the sacrifice of my two brothers if I did not stand for them now.

Phil Mayo