This assumes that rights, in the liberal sense of rights, are something that our Lord would respect or agree with.
Was Jesus an 18th to 21st century liberal who judges via that standard? Or is he the Lord and King of all to whom everyone is ultimately subject?
Do we for instance have the right to blaspheme God or desecrate a building sanctified to him according to our Lord? Probably not, since love of God goes before any freedom to blaspheme him.
When it comes to homosexuality, why would our Lord legitimize that which is sin?
I don't believe any human institution of governance to be
Christian. Christians exist in and under human institutions. I've no interest in the creation of a Christian State, because I don't believe such a thing is real nor possible; certainly not on this side of the Eschaton.
And thus the Christian is only capable of working within the limited means of human institutions.
A Christian Dictatorship would not be Christian, because even if the dictator were to, nominally, institute a "Christian" government it would exist contrary to the rule of Christ.
I believe, therefore, that the Separation of Church and State is a situation that maximally enables human freedom; that freedom enables the freedom of belief; wherein I as a Christian am permitted to be free in my Christian life without the impositions of an authoritarian state imposing itself against my religious and spiritual autonomy. The by-product is that this also means that others are entirely free to not believe, and to live in a state of disbelief, and that means even that which we may regard as sinful is permitted, not because it is in harmony with the way of Christ, but because in a society that maximizes human freedom there is freedom to both pursue righteousness and to pursue unrighteousness. And thus it becomes the purview of the Church, not the State, to reach the lost, to come bearing the Gospel, and be the City on a Hill. It is the Church, not the State, which is the Kingdom of God on earth.
Is it my Christian duty, in my vocation as neighbor-citizen, to compel the State to due as my religious convictions dictate; or is it my Christian duty, in my vocation as neighbor-citizen, to compel the State to enable a condition of human freedom in which I am free to believe, live, and preach as I am (a Christian) and seek to win my neighbor over with the truth of the Christian faith without the compulsion of the State?
If it is my Christian duty to uphold the State to be be a defender of human freedom, then that means recognizing that the rights which I enjoy are to be enjoyed by others. I am not a special class of citizen, I am not privileged as a Christian to have a higher social status, or a greater position under the law; I am not afforded special treatment. For the good that I wish for myself is also the good that I should wish for my neighbor. That freedom which I desire for myself is the freedom I desire for my neighbor.
If, however, you believe that the State should act as an instrument of the Church to strongarm men to be Christians, even against their conscience; then we are at a fundamental disagreement. I believe that is definitely contrary to the way of Christ; for Christ did not institute a government, but a Church. The Apostles did not write on the formulations of human government, but on practice of free-believers in the Lord Jesus even while under the tyrant-power of Pagan Rome.
The Church is a free association of brothers; not a compulsory body created by the tyranny of the State.
As such I believe that Democracy is a preferred state of affairs for temporal human society than Monarchy.
-CryptoLutheran