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They are bound right now by the Constitution.

Actually, no. They aren't. That is why we have the mess we are in.

They are indeed legally bound, however the rule of law is simply being ignored. If the law is not enforced, it’s not the law’s fault, but the fault of the people who have accepted the responsibility of upholding it.

The Bible tells us that it is perfect counsel revealed by God. The problem is not with the Bible, then, only with men.

But which of you is right about how to apply God's word? The Catholics? The Baptists? The Quakers? Lutherans? Until y'all figure that out, how in the heck do you think you'd be able to codify that into a National charter?

That’s the thinking of the founders, which is why they designed a secular humanist Constitution, which has predictably lead to apostasy, which leads to national chastisement, i.e., pain and suffering. They would have had to figure out the core of belief that was a) Scripturally compliant and b) able to be agreed upon in order to write a Christian Constitution. However, due to a) the mix of denominations in America at the time and b) the rush the Constitution's authors were in, they were not inclined to tackle the challenge at that point. They did not tackle the slavery issue for the same reasons. I’m not saying that there was any possible way they would or could have drafted a Christian Constitution at that time, especially since all happens according to God’s plan. In the long run, perhaps America needs denominations to unify much more, as part of a general revival of faith, in order for national Covenanting to take place. Interestingly, because of the way history has unfolded, America's Constitution does not expressly link Christianity and our present moral failings.

The biggest law that people would go crazy about today would be the prohibition of blasphemy. That sounds outlandish today, but to oppose it is the height of hypocrisy for everyone who is so fanatical about tolerance. Refraining from blasphemy, when you think about it, is simply those who are not Christian simply showing respect and tolerance for them. Up until a few short years ago this was the norm in society and only crackpots complained about Christianity. Contrary to what many think, an explicitly Christian nation would not require anyone to believe or not believe in anything, since the Bible tells us that conversions can not be brought about by force or deception. A blasphemy law would have nothing at all to do with forcing people do something, simply prohibiting them from being intentionally and hatefully disrespectful.

I've only in my life ever seen one true instance of blasphemy, when I was robbed one Christmas (when I still observed it). I was on a long ride home, had stopped for dinner and ate at the bar in a restaurant. A wicked fellow was there, perhaps a bit drunk, was bruised up a bit after having been in a fight, and was itching for another one. He was menacing two couples sitting at the bar and the bartender. He spewed filthy speech, insulting everyone and everything except me. He needed a ride home, which, when I finished, I offered him. He spewed his speech during the ride, blaspheming, continually, purposefully, with vile hatred in his heart and he truly was deserving of the death penalty. I've never heard a person say f God that many times in one day, nor express such indiscriminate and vicious hatred, practically begging people to fight him (only somehow not me). Only after I was down the road did I notice that he had reached behind the seat and grabbed a bag with a $300 gift certificate I had purchased that day, so I had no gift when I arrived home. Incidentally, that was one instance that up until now I had not thought about since my conversion, where the Lord preserved me, even before I had turned to him.

Especially once you put "fallen beings" in charge of that much power...

As far as putting fallen beings in charge of writing a charter, fallen beings were "in charge of that much power" in the writing of the Constitution. That's all we have, fallen beings. The question is what does the Charter look like.

Who decided the Bible was tyranny and when did this happen ?

It isn't. Until you try and make a government out of it. Then you get what happened for all those Centuries in Europe with the various Monarchies.

No thanks. We don't need to do that again.

This is the view of the writers of the Constitution, which is the predominant mentality to this day: State Churches created political problems. Historically speaking, however, the most provocative problems were rooted in the complex relationships between the various monarchies and the Papacy, which, to one extent or another in different times, was (and is) not only a Church but also a nation-state. So there was a persistent situation where one nation-state, external to other nations, had considerable power and influence inside their governments. If each nation had it's own national Church with no outside allegiances or influences outside of itself, many of the causes of wars would not have existed. Of course nothing in the Bible says that a monarch needs to be subject to any person in any other nation.

In post #38 you said “So you'd exchange a humanist tyrant for a religious one...”. Whether or not a leader winds up being a tyrant is independent of what faith they professes, or if they profess no faith. There can be Christian tyrants, Jewish tryants, Muslim tyrants, atheist tyrants, etc.

The assertion of exchanging a humanist tryant for a religious one implies that a professing-Christian leader of an explicitly Christian nation would inevitably lead to tryanny and a professing-Christian leader of an explicitly secular humanist nation would be less likely to lead to tryanny. The Constitution writers did not have that negative a view on Christianity or they would have banned it; no, instead, their idea was to simply not get into Christian doctrine at all so as to avoid disagreements in the short time during which they wrote and ratified the Constitution. I'd like to view the tyrant statement in the best light possible, that the implication is that regardless of having an explicitly Christian or humanist nation, either way, the leadership is fallible humans, which may lead to tyranny. Of course, tyranny is always a possiblity, as the best of human-devised governments can be corrupted. In any case, having the Bible as the rule and guide for life is infinitely better than not. IMHO, too often today, we see how much our government has overreached it’s Constitutional limits, and tend to think only about tyranny and forget about the role that government must play in restraining evil. If it does not fulfill that role, citizens are left entirely to their own devices in defending themselves, which is the law of the jungle, kill or be killed.

The Reformation happened because of efforts to correct doctrine. If the Church at that point had, even over decades, corrected doctrine sufficiently, the Protestant Churches may never have grown much. On the other hand, this would have lessened the impetus driving Reformed Christians’ flight to America.

Religious wars during the Reformation happened for the purpose of defending the faith. Even though there can only be one right side over some of the issues fought over, both sides in each war thought they were in the right at the time. In the case of people being persecuted for conscience, ultimately it must be understood and admitted whether or not their conscience was true to Scripture. This is because if it was, then they truly were being persecuted in the name of Christ. And if they were, and they were also being turned into outlaws as a group, then it was the right thing for the heads of the households to do, that is, to fight or flee, as seemed best at the time, so that their children might live according to God's Word and not according to heresy. To not fight or flee would be to save their children’s lives for the moment but damn their souls. The Bible gives full responsibility to parents to raise up their children according to God's Word, not to sit idly by as society or the Church around them apostasizes, then to let their children mingle with and learn from the apostates. From the point of view of the Church hierarchy at the time, it can certainly be claimed that they were trying to preserve the Church and keep it pure. So rather than reignite old angers, it would seem wisest for Christians today to simply learn from the past and continue to correct errors, with great care and patience, and move closer to truth.

If we calmly and rationally reason through things, we can see that perhaps all things happened according to God's will to serve his purposes. Mankind was. and of course still is being taught some hard lessons. Certainly we can see that our secular humanist government has nothing on which to base it's morality. Accordingly, morality is taken to be whatever each person wants as it suits them. We see this in the public nudity debate. Without any objective standard, in our moral-relativist society, clothing and nudity are merely a matter of individual taste. Even the public health argument does not hold water, since beachgoers are essentially in their underwear anyway, and that is often viewed as perfectly fine by people who are against public nudity. Does a bikini keep the "germies" from jumping from a person to the park bench ? It’s not a latex glove. Also, many men who are against public nudity of men have no issue with public nudity of women. Also, public health is a non-issue if the person is 50 feet away - no "germies" are going to bite someone 50 feet away. Obviously in that situation people are really saying the prefer that they and their families were not exposed to naked perverts walking around in public. But there is no purely logical argument for that which would not also apply to simply dressing promiscuously, which is also a matter of taste, if there is no objective moral law. One could also argue that if a nude person was ugly enough that instead of tempting people to fornicate that it would turn them off on sex permanently.

Christians would do well to remember that our faith is not to be hidden away but it should guide us in every part of our lives.