Why swear by the Bible or Quran at all?
Why not just swear by the American Constitution and the legal documents defining it? The "Constitution" is the "religion," or should I say instead, "ideology" of the American political system, not Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism or Hinduism. The oath is to protect and serve the American Constitution. As an American Citizen, you are swearing, as a public and civil servant, to preserve the integrity of the American government, following its rules and protocols, upholding its tenets, statutes and institutions and aligning oneself to the goals of the American political system. On top of that, one promises to amend whatever is improper and wrong in the American political system and to regulate it in such a way that it achieves its goals, or to change the goals in view of what the nation considers important.
How can one swear to preserve the integrity of the American political system yet swear, in the same context, to be serving an alterior entity, such as a religion like Christianity or Islam? How can one preserve the integrity of the American government when a promise is made to impose one's agenda on governmental processes "in the name of religion?" It would be more meaningful to privately and personally follow Christ or Islam, but swear to perserve the integrity of the American political system and in the same context swear to serve the goals of the American political system. This, of course, sounds like a "separation of religion and state thing," but the way I see it, it's not about making religion a "peripheral" of the State, that one's religious interests are pushed down to the bottom of one's priorities to serve the State.
To me it's the other way round. Even if I was serving in the government, my religion would still be at the top of my agenda. Religion is personal and private (and most important in my life). The affairs of State would be secondary. It would just be my job. Here's my point: if we work in the government, we do it to serve people. We do it to serve the State. With my religion, I serve God. Religion and state are separate not because the State takes precedence over religion, but because one's religion, one's personal and private interests take precedence over State and cannot be subordinated by the State.
The State is not God. When we separate religion and state, we are not cutting God in half. The State is a man-made entity. God is uncreated. We need to make a distinction between what is man-made and what is uncreated. Should we try and impose religion over the state? My question is, does that mean God is imposing His authority over something man-made?
The way I see it, God doesn't need something man-made to rule over us. Fusing religion and state is another way of saying that God is inadequate. We are fusing something God-made with something man-made. What does that say about God? I think that might be seen as an insult to God. Fusing religion and state is a way of saying that God needed a political system to rule over His people. That may be seen as undermining God's personal ability to rule.
The Constitution by surrendering its authority to the people to decide what to do with themselves, in terms of religion, is actually allowing people to make God their priority. If the Constitution imposed "religion" on people in order to control what they did in their personal lives (in which case it would be unconstitutional), it would in fact be anti-God.
Separation of church and state is actually pro-God rather than anti-God. The State is henceforth not allowed to impose its authority on God's people. God's people are at liberty to do as they please, and not be lorded over by the State. Even if "God's people" believe that they can mount their religion on the pinnacle of a political system, they would in fact be deluding themselves. You can't serve God by putting religion on top of a political system because it's man-made.
There is no such thing as a God-run State. The State is run by ideology, which is lifeless and dead. If God ran the State, that would make God a politician!!!! So God Himself would have to swear by the Bible and promise to uphold the American Constitution. God would be a man, a man-made man proclaiming everything that is man-made, including the American Constitution. Christ was a man, but he wasn't man-made. Christ was God-made, and he introduced a God-made religion.
Imposing religion over the State doesn't mean we're more religious or pious. We have this idea that we're in a society of moral decline. Perish the thought. Don't waste your time. We can meet and experience God wherever we want. We don't need a political system to express our devotion to God. Why bother with politics? Who here thinks we can change the world by getting into politics? Even so, is not changing people and their attitudes more important than changing what runs and drives the world?
Somewhere in our history, we as human beings decided that we needed a political system. But that was before we found God.
