the Separation of State and Church
By admin | July 5, 2010
Although I am a Tea Party conservative, I am certainly not a Christian conservative, but as a student of the constitution and many of our other founding documents I do accept and attest to the fact that our country is founded on Christian principles.
Also, I know that the so called separation of church and state, should be more correctly termed the Separation of State and Church.
This is because our founding fathers were not looking to remove the morals of Christian religion from the functions of government, but they were looking to remove the ever changing and evolving morals of the government from the morals of religion…
Think I’m wrong? Have you been to the monuments that our founders built all over Washington, Virginia, or Philadelphia? They are covered in scriptures from the Bible…
So, these great minds of that time and ours where not running away from the morals of Christian faith, instead they were in part escaping from the morals of a king that had hijacked that faith and turned it into his own religion, the Church of England…
Still doubt me, then watch the video above and see what the Founders said in their own words…
Then leave your comments and discuss the foundation of our countries moral compass, and where it lies today…
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4 Responses to “the Separation of State and Church”
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While many founders were Christian of one sort or another, care should be taken not to make too much of the founders’ individual religious beliefs. Given the republican nature of our government, it is only natural and expected that the laws enacted by our government–in both the founders’ time and today–largely reflect Christianity’s dominant influence in our society. That said, there is no reason to suppose that Christianity or theism is an inherent aspect of our government. Indeed, any such claim is antithetical to the constitutional principle of separation of religion and state.
In assessing the nature of our government, the religiosity of the various founders, while informative, is largely beside the point. Whatever their religions, they drafted a Constitution that plainly establishes a secular government on the power of the people (not a deity) and says nothing substantive of god(s) or religion except in the First Amendment where the point is to confirm that each person enjoys religious liberty and that the government is not to take steps to establish religion and another provision precluding any religious test for public office. This is entirely consistent with the fact that some founders professed their religiosity and even their desire that Christianity remain the dominant religious influence in American society. Why? Because religious people who would like to see their religion flourish in society may well believe that separating religion and government will serve that end and, thus, in founding a government they may well intend to keep it separate from religion. It is entirely possible for thoroughly religious folk to found a secular government and keep it separate from religion. That, indeed, is just what the founders did.
James Madison, for instance, who had a central role in drafting the Constitution and the First Amendment, confirmed that he understood them to “[s]trongly guard[] . . . the separation between Religion and Government.” Madison, Detached Memoranda (~1820). He made plain, too, that they guarded against more than just laws creating state sponsored churches or imposing a state religion. Mindful that even as new principles are proclaimed, old habits die hard and citizens and politicians could tend to entangle government and religion (e.g., “the appointment of chaplains to the two houses of Congress” and “for the army and navy” and “[r]eligious proclamations by the Executive recommending thanksgivings and fasts”), he considered the question whether these actions were “consistent with the Constitution, and with the pure principle of religious freedom” and responded: “In strictness the answer on both points must be in the negative. The Constitution of the United States forbids everything like an establishment of a national religion.”
Great insights Doug,
I do agree that the founding fathers were just as afraid of a theocracy as they were of a state sponsored religion. At the same time the first amendment is often sighted as a separation of the church from the state, but it is actually a protection of the church from the state. Also, this supposed separation is used as a way to try and remove religion from the public square, which is very much against what the founders had intended.
The founders themselves attested to the fact that our rights are not granted to us by government, or instituted by other people, but are inalienable and given to us by God. Therefore the idea of a completely secular government, that does not hold that truth to be self evident would be well outside of what they had intended for our country and for its people.
They understood that the moral foundations of our country were going to guide us into the future, and they were students of history that understood that without those moral underpinnings we would eventually come to the same end as every great empire. So, they purposely wrote where our rights are derived from, and they made a continuous effort to make sure that the government could not become the authority that would set and change that moral underpinning.
This is why those that would hope to change America want to remove religion from the public square, because in the end they know that the church is protected from the state, therefore since it cannot be openly corrupted by government, they want to convince people that it simply has no place at all in the public life, and this is wrong.
So, while I agree with you that they did not want too much religion in government, at the same time they certainly did not want NO religion in government…
I’m not exactly sure what distinction you would make between separation of church and state and protection of the church from the state. By prohibiting the government from promoting or opposing any religion, the First Amendment supports the freedom of all individuals to exercise their religions without expecting that the government will promote those views or fearing that the government will oppose them or promote the religious views of others. By prohibiting the government from promoting or opposing any religion, it also serves to protect churches from government.
When discussing separation of church and state, it is critical to distinguish between the “public square” and “government.” You are correct to note that the principle of separation of church and state does not purge religion from the public square–far from it. Indeed, the First Amendment’s “free exercise” clause assures that each individual is free to exercise and express his or her religious views–publicly as well as privately. The Amendment constrains only the government not to promote or otherwise take steps toward establishment of religion. As government can only act through the individuals comprising its ranks, when those individuals are performing their official duties (e.g., public school teachers instructing students in class), they effectively are the government and thus should conduct themselves in accordance with the First Amendment’s constraints on government. When acting in their individual capacities, they are free to exercise their religions as they please. While figuring out whether someone is speaking for the government may sometimes be difficult, making the distinction is critical.
As for the intent of the founders, they fastidiously refrained from any expression in the Constitution even remotely suggesting that the government is somehow connected to or predicated on any religious belief. Given the norms of the day, that was quite a remarkable and controversial and plainly intentional choice.
While some draw meaning from the reference to “Nature’s God” and “Creator” in the Declaration of Independence and try to connect that meaning to the Constitution, the effort, I think, is baseless. Apart from the fact that these references could mean any number of things (some at odds with the Christian idea of God), there is no “legal” connection or effect between the two documents. Important as the Declaration is in our history, it did not operate to bring about independence, nor did it found a government. The colonists issued the Declaration not to effect their independence, but rather to explain and justify the move to independence that was already well underway. Nothing in the Constitution depends on anything said in the Declaration. Nor does anything said in the Declaration purport to limit or define the government later formed by the free people of the former colonies; nor could it even if it purported to do so. Once independent, the people of the former colonies could choose whatever form of government they deemed appropriate. They were not somehow limited by anything said in the Declaration. Sure, they could take it as inspiration and guidance if, and to the extent, they chose–or they could not. They could have formed a theocracy if they wished–or, as they ultimately chose, a secular government founded on the power of the people (not a deity) by a Constitution that says nothing substantive of god(s) or religion except in the First Amendment where the point is to confirm that each person enjoys religious liberty and that the government is not to take steps to establish religion and another provision precluding any religious test for public office.
While one may reasonably doubt whether the founders intended at least some religion “in” government as you put it (Madison, for one, plainly thought they did not), they effectively got some, since notwithstanding sometimes lofty rhetoric about an impenetrable wall of separation, as maintained by the courts, the wall is low and leaky enough to allow various connections between government and religion. Wake Forest University recently published a short, objective Q&A primer summarizing the current law of separation of church and state–as it is actually applied by the courts, which contrast with how it is sometimes portrayed in the media and blogosphere. http://tiny.cc/6nnnx
Wow, once again well stated.
My main point is not that religion, either Christian or any other should be injected into government, but that the foundation of our government is built on the very morals that come from Christianity and that link to morals should not be shirked aside, and that the point of the first amendment is not to protect government from religion, which is the way it is most often put forth, i.e. keeping the Church out of the State (government), but instead is about what you point out, about keeping the State out of the Church.
There are many today that wish to rewrite history and say that the founders did not want any kind of religion in the government, not even on a moral basis, this is especially true of those that think that morals are subjective. But, by having this view, rights stop being something that are inalienable to us because they are given by God, and instead fall once again to being something that is simply given to you by your government or granted to you by other people, and thus are things that can be taken away at their whim.
This is something that the founding fathers understood, and what I was hoping to convey in my original post is that your rights, those laid out in the constitution and those that are not enumerated but that you still hold, are not granted to you by a judge, a politician, or the grand poo-bah of the moment, but are yours granted by the highest power, and thus they cannot simply be granted to you or taken away by others… But if there is no underpinning to these rights being linked to the morals that were put forth by God, they do become just another gift of the government, that can be taken away by a vote and nothing more…