Should they always be separate?  No, not at all.
Should they ever be separate?  Yes, absolutely.

Should they be separated here and now in England?  Yes, if/No, but.

I want this country (and all countries, but I have little authority to speak on them) to be under the rule of Christ.  Not under the rule of 'the church as an institution' with someone giving their take on the word from the bible and setting up either more pressure on people or a falliable law based on their human interpretation, but, Christ himself.

I want people in government who are humble enough to know that they cannot possibly manage to fairly and beneficially govern a whole country without any outside help, but instead will seek it from the source of all knowledge and wisdom, the LORD.
I want people in government who would never have chosen power if God didn't lead them into it, but at the same time, are willing to be there now that He has said it.  I want people who will spend many hours down on their knees or in some other appropriate posture because he really cares about our country and about running it properly, rather than coming in from the first energy, which sounds alright but runs under his own steam and is ultimately self centred.  I want people who will weep for our nation and with our nation, whenever the need arrises, rather than try to manage other people's strong feelings.  I want a man who will give himself to us.
I want people in government who have backbone and make decisions upon what they genuinely believe is best for our country (having done the above), rather than giving into spin, PR and the alternative meaning of politics.
I want Parliament to be filled with Christians to the point that the parliamentry system itself is questioned and altered, if needed.  [[[My personal oppinion is that it does need changing, but I haven't done what I've just said, and besides there are many other stages to go through before we get to that point.  If we tried to force that now it would just fail.]]]
In short, I want people who will pray.

I want people who will let Christ come into the rule of this land, through them and their actions/decisions, and as such, I do want the country ruled 'by the church'.  I do not want the church just to force itself on people though.

It isn't fair to people who are not Christians, and whilst I think everyone should be a Christian (because I honestly genuinely do believe that that will always be in an individual's best interests), I accept the fact that my oppinion also has absolutely no bearing on the issue, because it is something that every man must decide for himself.

Having said that, it's not actually exactly fair to people who are Christians either, because in the time of Jesus the priests and the Pharisees (religious scholars who acted like religious police) did exactly the same thing under slightly different circumstances, and the people probably got told off for breathing at times, and noone wants that.  Christ came for freedom, and so who am I, or who is anyone in the church (who are after all supposed to be emulating Him) to add more pressure to everyone when Jesus Himself not only did not, but did the exact opposite and did have some very harsh words to say to the Pharisees of His day as well?  We are nothing, but dust from the earth in that sense.

But anyway, my other point is that I wouldn't want some other religion to come and force themselves on the rule of the country and make decisions based on Islamic or buddhist law, so why should Christians do the same?  NO, Christians should be merciful and kind but also just and brave and willing to stick up for what they believe in, if they are challenged, and they should keep giving God the glory.


On a mostly unrelated note though, without talking about Christians in whatever form of government a country has, but of a specifically Christian government (hopefully you see the difference; I mean the country is basically one big church, I suppose) - If it goes that way by concensus of the populace (and I don't mean 55%, I mean 95%+), then it should happen.  And although there are no examples I can think of where this has happened, in theory there is nothing stopping it, and if it did happen, for sure of course 'the state and the church should be one'.  To be honnest, I'm not 100% sure that anyone could disagree with me on that one.

But are there occasions where the reverse is also true.  Where the wrong thing is trying to happen at the wrong time or people are doing things for the wrong reasons (powerhungry etc), then attempting to bring the church and the state together is going to cause many, many, many more problems than ever there were there beforehand when the state ran by itself.  Or, or partly because of the above, if the concensus of the populace is mixed, or the concensus leans in an entirely different direction, then combination is not the answer, should not be enforced and in fact any combination that does exist will probably need to be disolved pretty sharpish to be in everyone's best interests and to bring peace within the land.

But it is deffinately interesting to have thought about these things!