Experiences, Theocracies, & Liberty

Ron Paul Interview on the Influence of Religion

This interview of Ron Paul by the religious site, Beliefnet, helps puts his views of the role that Chritianitiy (and other religions) should play in the US government.  He talks a lot about how his non-religious experiences religious upbringing in Lutheran and Baptist churches has affected his current beliefs.  His Christian upbringing has taught him to value life and given him strong morals.  However, his personal experiences have affected him far greater.  It was is seeing friends be drafted and die that made him anti-war, his career in medicine that made him pro-life, his value of freedom and the constitution that pushed him to make abortion a states issue and religious concerns of local importance.
He also further explains how America is not a Christian nation, and should never be a theocracy.  The Constitution was written by Christian men with Christian morals so but Christianity itself was never written into the Constitution. In fact, other than the free practice thereof, religion is not a large part of the constitution.  Therefore, it is not the federal government's job to create or enforce a secular nation.  It is up to local communities to decide how large a role they want religion to play in there lives, not the government duty to impose forced rule.
Paul's discussion of how a politician's religion should play into his candidacy  touches on issues we talked about in class.  He believes that a candidate should not run on a religious ticket, he does not want any religion to come to power and create a theocracy.  Instead candidates should keep to their religious traditions but run as an individual, a religious man who can lead, not a religious leader, to paraphrase.  Along this line he says voters hould not look at a man's religion as a deciding factor but rather his or her stance on the First Amendment.  This holds true to his libertarian ideals.  What he means by this is that it is more important to have a man that values freedom and has similar religious views.  For if a man values freedom and promotes the First Amendment over his religious ties, the government will never become endanger of becoming a theocracy and each community will feel free in choosing their own religious leanings.