Fidel Castro

Rafael Cruz, father of GOP presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, has said on the Christian TV program “The 700 Club” that Christians in America are allowing the nation’s moral decline by staying out of the civic arena.

“We are where we are primarily because the church has been silent,” Cruz told host Pat Robertson. “For too many years, the church has believed this lie of separation of church and state. That is neither in the Constitution nor in the Declaration.”

Cruz, an ordained minister and traveling public speaker, believes now is “A Time for Action,” which is the title of his recently published book. He believes inaction in the face of societal change has been the church’s greatest failing over the past 60 years.

One pivotal moment, Cruz said, was in 1962 when the Supreme Court banned prayer from public schools in Engel v. Vitale.

The church was silent.

Then the following year, when the court banned organized Bible reading in public schools, the church again failed to protest.

The church’s excuse, as Cruz recalled, was that they did not want to interfere in “political issues.” But Cruz objects to that characterization.

“How can you call prayer a political issue?” he exclaimed. “How can you call Bible study