Much of the debate on the relationship between church and state has centered around the phrases “freedom of religion” and “separation of church and state.”  While these phrases have a very important history and should be studied, their applicability to American government must be understood within the confines of the First Amendment.  Unfortunately, the debate on this Amendment has largely focused on whether or not its prohibitions are limited to the US Congress.  The real key to understanding the First Amendment lies in unlocking the mystery of the phrase “an establishment of religion.”

Conservatism is the philosophy that the wisdom of the past is still just as applicable today as it was then.  Conservatism is an ancient wisdom in itself, for every age has its conservatives and liberals, and it is always the conservatives who succeed and pass their wisdom down to the next age where some new brand of liberals will rise up to challenge that wisdom once again. 

It has become rather common in our day to hear descriptions of our founding fathers as bold rebels daring to defy the authority of the British government, but is that really what happened?  Was the American Revolution an act of rebellion against England?  That has certainly become a popular theme in modern, American education, but the records of the founding era tell a different story.
 

A friend of mine told me that she was doing a show on her podcast discussing what Christians can learn about God from divorce.  That’s certainly a great topic for Christians to think about, and there is a TON of information in the Bible about divorce. There's even an entire book of the Bible devoted to that topic. But I think that the most important thing any Christian can learn about divorce is how to avoid it, and that is found in I Cor 7.

Nearly 3,500 years ago, the nation of Israel faced a pandemic so deadly that it killed 23,000 men in a single day.  That was 4% of the total population of Israel.  All of those who contracted this disease did so by committing a capital crime, and the initial defeat of the disease was accomplished by sentencing all of the survivors to death.  But that's not the end of the story. 

One of the most fascinating things about the Old Testament is the fact that God established a republican government in ancient Israel.  Most people today think that Israel had a standard monarchical form of government, but that was not the case.  Israel (and Judah) never had a true monarchy.  Throughout their history, they were always a republican nation characterized by popular elections of their rulers.  (For more on this topic see my free eBook The Bible and the Constitution.)
 
When God established Israel’s government, He also taught the Jews how to choose the right kind of leaders.  Those instructions can be found in Exodus 18:21, Deuteronomy 1:13, and Deuteronomy 17:15-20.  The qualifications listed in these and other passages are not difficult. There were thousands of men in Israel who met them. God intentionally set the standard low so that the various offices could be filled. He gave the Jews a list of the barest minimum standards that would allow their government to function with good men in positions of leadership.

I did not watch this year's State of the Union address.  In fact, I have never watched a State of the Union address.  I always wait to read the transcript afterwards instead.  I have found that reading a transcript of a speech allows me to focus on the actual content of the speech without the distraction of the speaker's theatrics.  And when I read this year's State of the Union address from Donald Trump, I found that this practice of separating content from theatrics gave me a fairly unique perspective of a speech that many of my friends were describing as the greatest State of the Union address they've ever heard.

I am glad that Trump attended the March for Life instead of the Planned Parenthood gala like Obama did, and I'm glad that he gave a speech proclaiming that "Every child is a precious and sacred gift from God."  I just have one small question:

I wasn't planning to write this.  When I heard about Trump's brave new guidance for prayer in schools, I tried to just ignore it and get on with my life.  I figured that I had gotten enough of my friends mad at me for the time being and that I should just let this particular opportunity slide on by.  However, I saw so many of my friends posting about how wonderful Trump was for issuing these new guidelines that I finally decided to actually read the guidelines for myself and see what all the fuss was about.

Dear Bro. Charles,
 
By now, you have almost certainly heard about the contention between Pastor Dan and the deacons of First Baptist Church.  In fact, it would be nigh impossible for you to have missed it.  Unfortunately, there is a lot of misinformation being spread by both sides of the conflict, and I wanted to write you to ensure that you received an accurate account of the proceedings up to this time.  Of course, I won’t be able to go into a lot of detail, but I hope that this overview will help you to sort out truth from fiction among all the conflicting reports that you have read.