I really appreciated Colin Powell's willingness to reemphasize our historic separation of church and state, when he endorsed Barack Ovama and pushed back against the sleazy Republican campaigning of late:
"Well, the correct answer is, he is not a Muslim, he's a Christian. He's always been a Christian. But the really right answer is, 'What if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country?' The answer's no, that's not America. Is there something wrong with some 7-year-old Muslim American kid believing that he or she could be president? Yet I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion, 'He's a Muslim and he might be associated with terrorists.' This is not the way we should be doing it in America."
Just as it is very conceivable that a Jewish person could become President, so too with a Muslim person. Christianity is the majority religion of America, but American is not a 'Christian nation', as some fundamentalists would conceive it. Good Americans worship as Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Taoists, and Unitarians. And anyone of these, given the right circumstances, could become President and do a very good job. It is the Constitution, not the New Testament, that the President vows to defend and protect.
Let the Lord and the 'holy catholic church', not the Republican Party, defend Christianity. They're better at it anyway. (For more on this, see this sermon, and also this one.)
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