Separation of Church and State

I have been thinking a lot lately about debating, whether in person or online, and the many themes that seem to come up. There is definitely a life-cycle to a debate. First you have your general arguments made for both sides. As this goes on it segues into the sharing of links to other sources to support your argument or to disprove the opposing side. This then leads to the trashing of any and all sources as either lies, completely biased, or just plain stupid. Then there's the section of the debate when both sides assure the other that Jesus is on their side. Were he still alive, he'd totally be out fighting for the cause of which we are fighting as well. And then it slips down to the level of name-calling and then of course the death knell of any debate: Godwin's Law. The first person who compares the other side to Hitler, loses. And ends the debate. And there you have, the life-cycle of the debate.

But what I am focusing on at the moment, is the part where people try to say that Jesus would have been on their side. I am a strong supporter of the separation of church and state, and I had the realization that this should trickle into my debating as well. Maybe it's time to leave Jesus out of it all. He was pretty non-political, really. He was more about stirring things up with religion, so maybe I need to try and leave Him to those types of debates instead. It might be difficult because it's such an easy thing to do. I will probably continue to fail miserably and continue to disappoint myself, but at least I am aware of it.

It's too bad we have to debate and argue sides in politics anyway. Instead of tearing each other down and trying to make others feel bad for their beliefs, it would be wonderful if we could all learn to see where each other comes from, and to find the good parts of each side, and combine them together into something strong and unbreakable. Maybe that was ultimately what Jeuse was about: If we could all learn to get along better and to live spiritually strong lives, maybe we wouldn't need politics at all?