Don't vote from the pews

If it's an argument you want, bring up politics.

If you like to fight, debate religion.

And if you're intent on starting a war, why, mix up both hot topics and toss them on the front burner.

That's what a number of local churches did in the recent primary election, apparently pulling a powerful enough punch to swing several key legislative races to the most conservative, evangelical Christian candidates. Blurring that hallowed line separating church and state in the name of religious and political ideology is one thing. Putting a church's tax-exempt status in jeopardy might be quite another.

Churches' foray into local politics has led to far more than angry feelings from ousted candidates and mere conjecture from political observers. You don't have to talk to many people before somebody claims some of these churches are actively recruiting like-minded, disgruntled evangelicals - particularly from southern California - to move to the former home of Aryan Nations founder Richard Butler. While that seems bizarre to the point of sounding paranoid, recent church-supported assaults on the defense of gays and lesbians, plus some North Idahoans' volatile views on immigration, do hint at the kind of bigotry that once helped fuel Butler's little parade.

We'll all have to wait to see how the Internal Revenue Service and perhaps the judicial system view churches' entry into the local political grandstands, if not the playing fields themselves. In our opinion and that of renowned constitutional scholar Dr. David Adler, among others, the separation of church and state is a holy delineation.

In Coeur d'Alene last month, Adler said our founding fathers, including James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, believed firmly that religions were stronger if they survived without any form of governmental support. Similarly, government works best when it's free from religious interference. The founders knew that many wars had been fought in the name of God and religious persecution was common throughout Europe. They worried that mixing religion and government could destroy the young American republic.

Adler also summoned the wisdom of Machiavelli, who observed that churches and government have very different missions: Churches are concerned with the afterlife, while government is focused on the current one.

That's why both church and state are not just valid, but vital - and why they should be kept a healthy distance apart.