30 March 2011

Tempered by secular processes

The separation of Church and State is about not only the introduction of legitimacy into the domain that heretofore was dominated entirely by authority. The introduction of legitimacy forces the dialogue into purposes and objectives that must yield to reason, to expression and deliberation, to the impersonal processes of the corporate will and desires. By virtue of their impersonality, the civic decision-making process can take on the self-restraint that legitimate authority necessarily requires. 
The Bible (both Hebrew and Christian) as well as the Greek polis both posit spiritual systems that are tempered by the secular processes that are designed to represent, in part, the public weal. 

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