Roles of Church and State

I have been doing a lot of thinking about roles of churches, roles of government, etc.  It is clear to me that needs to be separation of church and state for both the state being involved in the church and the church being involved in the state.  This doesn't mean that Christians should not be politicians, but our work as Christians should influence the culture more than direct/dictate it.  A Christian politician/Governor/President is better in the sense that his morals, ethics and accountability are higher.  In a republic this would mean ruling per the constitution and not your own views.  Honesty and integrity would be/should be givens for a Christian politician, where you have a greater corruptness with those outside of God's Church.

It begs the question, why has the church allowed the state to take over so much of the church's roles/responsibilities?  Widows, orphans, needy, hungry, children, etc.  If the church would do what the church has been called to do, we wouldn't need many (could make the argument for ALL) of the state welfare agencies.  The society/culture in which we currently live, is as much a failure by the church as it is of anything else.  If the salt loses it saltiness...

The problems are easy to point out, the solutions are hard to implement, but easy to point out.  God's people - God's Church - needs to get going on doing God's work.  I love the Shawshank line "Get busy living or get busy dying."  That is so true of the American Christian Church.