As Clara sang in Porgy and Bess, “It’s summertime, and the living is easy.” Summer probably brings great childhood memories of fishing in farm ponds, hand cranking ice cream in White Mountain cedar buckets, eating chilled watermelon, and chasing lightning bugs at twilight. All of that has been replaced these days by busy summer schedules that consume large quantities of gasoline and hours spent on the road. If you are not up in the mountains or down at the beach on Sunday, I hope you will join us for worship as I attempt to explain the delicate balance between church and state in the sermon.

A lot of people forget that America had two foundings, the first by religious Puritans who wanted to create a Christian Commonwealth where they could worship and live without the oppressive control of the British Parliament, and the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church. But the second founding came when the colonies revolted and became an independent nation, a democratic republic with a constitution. So, the American colonies did establish a Christian society in the early 1600’s, but in 1789 the newly formed United States of America ratified a constitution that guaranteed freedom for all religions to exist and practice their faith without government hindrance or establishment of any single religion.

By and large, this has helped Christianity grow and flourish in many helpful ways. The first church I served was the Old South Church in Boston, established by the third generation of Puritans in 1669. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts had established the Congregational Church as the official church of the colony. This meant that if you were not a full, communicant member of a Congregational Church, you could not vote in public elections or hold office. This also meant that you could neither receive communion nor have your children baptized in the church. Voter suppression has been around for over 350 years! So, even though we are not an official Christian nation that allows full civil rights only to Christians, we are a religiously tolerant nation, that guarantees full rights to all citizens, no matter what their religious beliefs are. This is probably why our nation has been able to thrive for over 240 years.

We will sing patriotic hymns on Sunday, and give thanks for our founding fathers and mothers who had the vision and foresight not to establish any single religion in America but to allow all people to worship God and carry out their ministry in freedom. Thanks be to God! 

Grace and peace,
David 
Respond to David