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Kimball Shinkoskey
Woods Cross
The Protestant Reformation that started in 1517 in Europe advanced onward with the completion of the American Revolution. Freedom of religion in America allowed new churches to be started here, several of which believed they reached the full potential of the Reformation. However, politics and government were also a part of the Reformation as well. Politics had always been front and center in religion and religion front and center in politics from the very earliest days.
In fact, ancient governments usually had a non-denominational "high priest" as second in charge in the government. The high priest had charge of ethics, law (acting like a Supreme Court justice) and science, since the gods supervised all the laws of nature. America made a sterling addition to the political science of the Reformation--our Constitution--but like our European counterparts fell short of understanding the full breadth and depth of biblical religion.
The Ten Commandments were written to serve as something like our own Articles of Confederation, a treaty establishing a loose national government between self-governing tribes/states and setting out the means to ensure democratic governance in the localities. However, over the passage of several thousand years of time these laws came to be seen instead as a brief list of religion-supportive moral admonitions and civil and criminal statutes to be modeled in Jewish and Christian communities.
For example, religious leaders today read the 4th Commandment "Remember the sabbath day to keep it holy" as a law enjoining church attendance. In its full biblical context, the commandment adds the following words, "Six days thou shalt labor, and do all thy work: but the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work."
In this broader rendering of the 4th commandment, the provision becomes a labor law setting a national standard for a six-day workweek. It prevents employers and governments from enacting the anti-democratic practice of seven-day workweek slavery that Israelis experienced in Egypt. It was not a mandate for folks to go to church once a week.
The 2nd commandment was a frontal assault on monarchy, as it prohibited the placing of images of the king on precious metal coins, statues and other artwork, a practice commonly used in the ancient world to engage people in devotion to a dynasty of kings. The 6th commandment against killing targeted the age-old habit of kings killing off rivals for the throne. The 8th commandment against stealing targeted the habit of the royalist aristocracy of expropriating the hard-earned property of the commoners to lard their own estates.
The 5th commandment to honor fathers and mothers was the linchpin of local government, as it empowered parents rather than centralized government to exercise control over the raising of children. It also empowered parents to enact laws regulating the farm and business employees of the family estate, renters, close relatives and transient travelers biding time with the family. The 9th commandment enacted equality of government treatment of all citizens by assuring the courtroom was devoted to truthful witness testimony. The 3rd commandment required faithful completion of contracts, oaths and promises made in the private enterprise system of democratic economics and in political and social contexts.
The 1st commandment prohibited the electorate from changing the commandments (the system of egalitarian government that God ordained) and thus undermining democracy.
The 10th commandment required an active system of devotion to the health and prosperity of the neighbor, in other words, good citizenship.
The 7th commandment required the national government to avoid "adulterous" treaty arrangements with other nations that might compromise their own nation's independence and self-determination. In sum, the commandments were primarily intended to regulate government at all levels, but also naturally applied to individuals and families, who were the designated authorities in local government.
As far as religion being an integral part of the politics of the nation, I offer this additional proof. In the long history of the Western world, governance of the church has always followed the pattern of governance of the nation. For example, during the thousand-year medieval Dark Ages, nations were run by authoritarian kings and the Christian church was run by an authoritarian Roman Catholic system of top-down governance. When the advance of science finally convinced people kings did not have special blood apart from others and that in fact all people were created equal, Europe and America shunned kingship in both secular and religious government and followed democratic governance in both instead.