The Separation of Church and State

Church has a great contribution towards ourselves most especially our spiritual life. The purpose of it is to worship
God, study His words, pray and love one another. State or politics on the other side also plays an important role in
our country.

The government should not be able to restrict the church's involvement in politics and should allow religious
leaders to participate in political affairs. As long as there is no corruption or violation of any law, the government
should let churches take sides in politics. There are two reasons why religion and politics cannot be separated. First,
we human beings are deeply and inescapably religious and our religion cannot be defined restrictively as worship
of natural deity. Second is we cannot separate our private self from our public self. Any number of objections might
be raised against the view and our perspectives in life.

The point of our objection usually is that we Christians sometimes put our energy affection into their political views
and activism than they do their personal devotion to the Lord. In response, we affirm that politics and public life
are avenues to exercise our own spirituality.

As Roman Catholics living in a democratic country, we we should engage in politics and public life as an aspect to
our witness, as a way of seeking the common good for our society being a citizen of our rights.

Another objection or statement is that " no party or program encapulate's God's wisdom and will for the world". It
is true but it is not a reason for us to try separate religion and politics. We must be clear that we are unable to
know comprehensively how to apply God's will to certain political issues. In other words, no political party or
platform in either Church or State will encapulate God's will for a particular country.

For that reason, we must be clear that the gospel transcends political parties and platforms. It doesn't transcend
them by demoting them into insignificance, but by showing where they have gone right and wrong. As Roman
Catholics, therefore, we must continually evaluate platforms or what the plans of our government and church in
light of the Gospel and biblical teaching. But we must not in an attempt to make clear that God transcends and sits
in judgment of all earthy political program - make mistake of trying to separate religion and politics.