Dear editor,
First of all, I would like to say my faith in God highly outweighs my faith in man. I also believe how you worship God is a personal choice and tends to be more so imposed by man than offered by God at any time during man's history, other than with Adam and Eve.
Establishments of religions were used to civilize the world with a moral base long before government’s laws ever existed. Yet, your morals seem to be only as good as the accepted religion that surrounds you in a singular religious functioning society.
My biggest problem is when people start citing our Constitution as a document that delivers any religion to the forefront for the use of governing. Our Constitution does not endorse or deny any one religion, including any religion endorsing a president from the pulpit of the church. Nor does it "prohibit the free exercise thereof," no matter where your location, even if it is on a Friday night high school football field. Faith goes anywhere the mind and body go.
Amendment. I. is the only time religion is mentioned in our Constitution, yet it is in our Bill of Rights and not the original main body of our Founding Fathers' Constitution.
Any religion itself does have to meet certain standards to exist within our country's borders. Islam's Sharia Law cannot exist, as written and practiced, due to its cruel and unusual punishments, but 400 years ago neither could Christianity.
I also think many of the problems incurred in the Middle East are those of past and present religious acts of the Roman Catholic Church and now Islam.
Also remember the Roman Catholic Church and its pope protected its clergy during the victimization scandals of altar boys by trying to cover it up, avoiding society’s governmental justice system of man.
Chrys Holley's description of allowed abortion (in a recent letter to the editor) does not meet the strict standards of most religions and the non-taking of human life, period. That situation would religiously be considered "in the hands of God.”
My point is an immoral government will not return any type of morality — such as the last six commandments of the Bible's Ten Commandments — to society. But the religion of churches will not either when it is expressed as an all-or-nothing option promoted by the churches and its followers.
In actuality, Jesus believed in listening and talking with non-followers in a manner that didn't have them run from his message. When people deliver a religious message that would restrict your constitutional rights, non-followers of the churches tend to ignore the message and at some point begin to fight back.
They have previously done so by ignoring what spiritual beliefs of Jehovah they may have held to rightfully enjoy a glass of wine on Sunday at a restaurant.
The decline of the church is not because of its message but how it is delivered. So please pick your religious fights and the words you use carefully because this election was not a religious mandate to govern our country.
Our Constitution is and will always be that mandate for personal freedoms of a constitutionally lawful society.
STEVEN KING
Milton
This article originally appeared on Santa Rosa Press Gazette: Churches should change message delivery