“I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their Legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between Church and State.” – Thomas Jefferson

“Humbly invoking the blessings of Almighty God, the people of the State of Texas, do ordain and establish this Constitution.”
(Preamble of the Texas Constitution. http://tlo2.tlc.state.tx.us/txconst/toc.html)

“The moment the idea is admitted into society, that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence. If “Thou shalt not covet,” and “Thou shalt not steal,” were not commandments of Heaven, they must be made inviolable precepts in every society, before it can be civilized or made free.”
(John Adams. “Property” Chapter 16, Document 15. (University of Chicago, 2000) Warren-Adams Letters. The Works of John Adams. Edited by Charles Francis Adams. 10 vols. Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1850–56. http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch16s15.html)

Kind of an off-shoot from the point I think you’re trying to make, but the reason why the government isn’t the Holy Spirit is because we’d rather follow other people than God. I agree in that the reason why our government can’t be the Holy Spirit is because it’s led by people, many of which are more interested in trying to be the Holy Spirit than being led by the Holy Spirit.

Maybe the right question is, “What is the proper government?” Maybe not, since it should be obvious that a government led by our perfect God would also be perfect, when it happens as promised (sorry for lack of reference, I’m hoping that everyone that reads this understands basic eschatology) we’ll probably be asking much different and more fulfilling questions, and we don’t really have much control as to when it does happen. I bring it up because people are broken, therefore a government formed and led by people will be broken (no matter how smart our founding fathers were). Our government that is “of the people, by the people, for the people” (Gettysburg Address) will indeed “perish from the earth” (still Gettysburg Address… but opposite) because our people are flagrantly disobedient to God, are unrepentant and even prideful about it, and people like that perish. A government for our people is going to be chaotic, because the vast majority of those people are very lost.

Anyway, you’re absolutely right in that the role of the Church under this government is to boldly stand up for Truth in love (voting would be a good start) and evangelize the lost to make them disciples of Jesus that seek to please God in all things, because God has commanded us to do that under any government. The Church is only a tiny minority of our population, however (and I don’t mean people who go to church, I mean Christians, who are a small subset of that). If our government constructed policy according to our values and mission, it could not possibly call itself democratic because it would not be serving the majority (in their own eyes, which is what counts in democracy). Then again, in our time of special interest groups and their inflated level of influence in our policy-making today, I guess that happens all the time. Hopefully, we Christians won’t be distracted by having an inflated level of influence in policy-making, but will be focused on making disciples of Jesus. What if they take away our right to free speech? We’ll continue in our efforts to make disciples of Jesus just as we’ve been commanded, then we’ll be persecuted and thrown in jail, and then we’ll praise God that we have the opportunity to suffer so that He could be glorified, just like Jesus, Paul, and all of the other apostles did. Taking away free speech won’t inhibit the Gospel in America, because it won’t stop those who preach the true Gospel, and it will take it to the others in jail. What it will hopefully stop is the preaching of the false Gospel you were describing above.

After all, maybe some persecution is just what our comfortable, watered-down American church needs. Taking away free speech is hardly persecution, though.

You sure sound libertarian. lol. I’ve considered libertarianism, but decided that I couldn’t find any libertarian I completely agreed with, so I’m enjoying my independence.

Still searching for answers…
>Brian