Trump and Union of Church and State

Koot van Wyk (DLitt et Phil; ThD) Visiting Professor, Department of Liberal Education, Kyungpook National University, Sangju Campus, South Korea, Conjoint lecturer of Avondale College, Australia

Catholics condemned the separation of Church and State in 1864 (Collier 1963: 38). John F. Kennedy was a catholic and one time he was invited to an interfaith dinner and it is said: “While Mr. Kennedy was a member of the United States House of Representatives he received an order from Dennis Cardinal Dougherty of Philadelphia not to attend an interfaith banquet in Philadelphia Hotel. He obeyed the directive by saying: ‘As a loyal son of the church [Catholic Church] I have no alternative but not to come.’(1) In the San Diego Union newspaper on Wednesday 5, September 1962 it is reported that President Kennedy made a slip on the constitution of the United States: “In accepting the presidency, Mr. Kennedy took an oath ‘to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic’. A million men have fallen in its name. Are we now going to say it is only a scrap of paper?” Kennedy publically declares that he is for the separation of church and state but in the examples above, he made slips that crossed church and state so that the church dictates for him what he should do in the state.(2)

President Eisenhower’s pastor was dr. E. L. Elson and he said to Eisenhower that “Where the Roman Catholic Church is dominant, you regularly find Communism stronger than where the free churches are dominant” (3)

S. Lowell explained in ca. 1963 the following about Catholics and the USA state: “I once asked a Jesuit priest if this really represent the aim of Rome. He admitted that it did, but added: ‘You Protestants need have no cause for alarm. It will be a long time before Catholics are in a majority and we are able to establish a true Church-State relationship in the United States.’ That is to say, we Protestants needn’t worry until it’s too late to do anything about it!”(4)

Captive Schools is a term that was used by C. Stanley Lowell in a pamphlet 1633 by POAU about Catholic control of education in the USA. “The ‘captive school’ is an astounding institution. Most people believe such a thing could not exist in the United States. But it is a reality.. . A captive school is a public school which has been taken over by the Roman Catholic Church and is operated as one of its own parish schools. ..they said: ‘has precedence over any right of civil society and of the state, and for this reason no power on earth may infringe upon it’”(5)

In The Final Crisis and Deliverance Ellen White says: “The Protestant governments will reach a strange pass. They will be converted to the world. They will also, in their separation from God, work to make falsehood and apostasy from God the law of the nation”.(6) LGBTQ and Woman Ordination are two of these ichabods.

About the image of the beast of Revelation 13 Ellen White said: “The ‘image of the beast’ represents that form of apostate Protestantism which will be developed when the Protestant churches shall seek the aid of the civil power for the enforcement of their dogmas. The ‘mark of the beast’ still remains to be defined.”(7) On the same page Ellen White says that when Protestants repudiate every rule in the constitution of the United States with its union between Spiritualism, Protestantism and Catholicism, then the end is near.

And then Trump came on 119, also a huge surprise after 911.

On the 15^th of August 2016 Trump promised Evangelicals that he will close the gap between Church and State.

“I said, ‘I’m going to take this into my own hands and I’m going to figure a way that we can get you back your freedom of speech,’” Trump told the evangelical pastors. “It will be so great for the evangelicals, for the pastors, for the ministers, for the priests, for America.”

Trump promised that one of his first efforts as president would be to dismantle laws that keep Christian churches from spending tax-exempt money on political advocacy. He promised to vigorously attack a law established in the 1950s—from legislation sponsored by then-Senator Lyndon Johnson amending the U.S. tax code rules—that prevents tax-exempt organizations such as churches or educational institutions from endorsing political candidates. The ban on 501 C-3 charitable organizations from engaging in political advocacy has come to be known as the “Johnson Amendment.”

“If I get elected President, one of the early things, one of the absolute first things I’m going to do is work on totally knocking out the Johnson Amendment,” he said. “The power you have is so enormous. It’s not like you represent two percent of the country and it’s going to be difficult. You’re probably 75, 80 percent. If you want to put your full weight … I mean, can you imagine if all of your people start calling up the local congressman and the local senator?”

“A lot of it has to do with the fact that you’ve been silenced. You’ve been silenced like a child has been silenced.”

“You have a chance to do something that will be earth shaking,” he said. “I literally mean it: earth shaking. You got to get your people out to vote.” (8)

Yes, we add, looking at prophecies: to fulfill the prophecies of the End-Time in its last course with shaking things.

Source:

1)     G. W. Collier, “Catholicism” Closing Events Study No. 3 Part III (unpublished pamphlet 1961-1963), page 35 citing R. R. Bietz, “Clericalism in Today’s World” POAU Leaflet. Sermon of R. R. Bietz, page 8. Cited from Church and State Monthly Review, Nov. 1960.

2)     Collier page 33, citing from G. L. Archer, POAU Pamphlet, page 9.

3)     Collier page 33.

4)     Collier page 29 citing S. Lowell, “A Summons to Americans” Pamphlet distributed by POAU, 633 Mass. Ave. N.W. Washington, D.C. pages 4-5.

5)     Collier page 4.

6)     Page 4 cited in Collier page 4.

7)     Ellen White, Great Controversy page 445. Jeff Nesbit, “Donald Trump Vowed to Close the Gap Between Church and State” Time 15^th of August 2016 downloaded from www.time.com/4452309/trumps-evangelical-voters