A day or two ago (no, we’re not doing selected verses of Jingle Bells) I posted the notation on Facebook that in reality neither the popular vote nor the Electoral College elect the President of the United States. “He serves by the good grace and divine appointment of God”, said I, citing the Prophet Daniel as my inspiration: “And He changes the times and the seasons; He removes kings and raises up kings; He gives wisdom to the wise And knowledge to those who have understanding.” Daniel 2:21, NKJV.
The Old Testament Hebrew rendered from the Chaldean of Babylon, and translated ‘times and seasons’ has with it the idea of history, and the word translated ‘kings’ is more accurately rendered leaders of nations. A fair paraphrase of this thought might be “God is the author of history, and worldly leaders come and go according to His Divine appointment.”
This thought was sternly rebuked by the single line “Thank God for separation of church and state!”
I’m going to go out on as limb here and suggest that the individual refuting not me, but Almighty God and Daniel, His prophet (one of many) fairly well does NOT understand the First amendment. As good students of Scripture will tell you, you must interpret Scripture with Scripture, and understand it in the context of history and culture, so too must history be understood within its context.
The text reads: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;”. There is more to it than this small segment, of course, but this is the part over which there is so much confusion, especially when you try to understand it absent the times and culture of those who penned the words.
Consider this. Henry VIII of the British House of Tudor wished to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, and thus petitioned the Pope for his sanction. He (the Pope) steadfastly refused to grant the King’s petition, threatening excommunication if Henry went through with it. Henry, in turn, dissolved the connection of the Royal House of Tudor and created the Church of England, over which the Monarch (Henry and his descendants) would be both monarchical head and religious head, thus eliminating that pesky church middleman in Rome and granting his own annulment. As both political head of state and religious head of the newly formed religion, Henry in fact mandated the rule of faith for all of the Britons to be the Church of England. To be openly protestant or papist in Henry’s England was a death sentence.
It was in this context that the colonial insurrectionists at the stern insistence of Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, penned the words “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;”. The intent of the founding fathers when viewed in the light of the historical, political, and religious context of its writing is patently clear. The congress of these United States of America will not create any law which constitutionally mandates a state religion! Furthermore, this Congress shall in no way make any law which prohibits the open, free exercise of personal faith in any setting public or private.
That is the context in which the first amendment originated and from which it must be interpreted, if it is to be rightly interpreted. Freedom of religion, in other words, is freedom FOR religion, and not freedom FROM religion other than by individual personal preferential choice. In the same sense in which Congress cannot mandate the religion practiced by the citizens of the Republic, neither can it create any law which prohibits the free and open exercise thereunto. The current practice of religious prohibition is in fact, unconstitutional. The words Separation of Church and State are found nowhere in the Constitution, and the closest inference to this is the clear understanding that the State will not dictate matters of personal faith to the people.
When viewed accurately in the context of history and culture, I, too thank God that the State does not have the authority to mandate religion.
But isn’t that kind of what Daniel said some four thousand years ago?
2 comments:
The phrase “separation of church and state” is but a metaphor to describe the principle derived from the Constitution (1) establishing a secular government on the power of the people (not a deity), (2) saying nothing to connect that government to god(s) or religion, (3) saying nothing to give that government power over matters of god(s) or religion, and (4), indeed, saying nothing substantive about god(s) or religion at all except in a provision precluding any religious test for public office and 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.
Some try to pass off the Supreme Court’s decision in Everson v. Board of Education as simply a misreading of Jefferson’s letter to the Danbury Baptists–as if that is the only basis of the Court’s decision. Instructive as that letter is, it played but a small part in the Court’s decision. Perhaps even more than Jefferson, James Madison influenced the Court’s view. Madison, 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.”
During his presidency, Madison also vetoed two bills, neither of which would form a national religion, on the ground that they were contrary to the establishment clause. While some in Congress expressed surprise that the Constitution prohibited Congress from incorporating a church in the town of Alexandria in the District of Columbia or granting land to a church in the Mississippi Territory, Congress upheld both vetoes. He pocket vetoed a third bill that would have exempted from import duties plates to print Bibles.
While the First Amendment undoubtedly was intended to preclude the government from establishing a national religion as you note, that was hardly the limit of its intended scope. The first Congress debated and rejected just such a narrow provision ("no religion shall be established by law, nor shall the equal rights of conscience be infringed") and ultimately chose the more broadly phrased prohibition now found in the Amendment. In keeping with the Amendment's terms and legislative history and other evidence, e.g., Madison's statements, the courts have wisely interpreted it to restrict the government from taking steps that could establish religion de facto as well as de jure. Were the Amendment interpreted merely to preclude government from enacting a statute formally establishing a state church, the intent of the Amendment could easily be circumvented by Congress and/or the Executive doing all sorts of things to promote this or that religion--stopping just short of a ribbon-cutting ceremony for its new church.
Wake Forest University recently published a short, objective Q&A primer on the current law of separation of church and state–as applied by the courts rather than as caricatured in the blogosphere. I commend it to you. http://tiny.cc/6nnnx
Doug,
And yet that simple metaphor, as you call it, has drastically altered our society. By extrapolation it has given way to courts who create rather than interpret law.
Clearly, I stand in opposition to your interpretation, but thank you for your indulgence of me in mine, as well as for taking time to offer your comment.
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