Many may believe that it is our political disparities that are causing the present social stresses, but I suspect that the real truth lies closer to the bone of egalitarian secular humanism and its cancerous spread throughout our society over the last seventy years.
The basis for much of the misery and social strife that we see today can be directly attributed to our turning our back on our heritage and our Christian foundations and the origins of that derive from the subsequent interpretations of a letter written over two hundred years ago to a group of concerned Baptists in Connecticut.
Known as Jefferson's letter to the Danbury Baptists, this one single document has seemingly replaced the entirety of the document that one of its primary authors and defenders intended to support with his explanation. The letter reads as follows.
Mr. President
To messers Nehemiah Dodge, Ephraim Robbins, & Stephen S. Nelson, a committee of the Danbury Baptist association in the state of Connecticut.
Gentlemen
The affectionate sentiments of esteem and approbation which you are so good as to express towards me, on behalf of the Danbury Baptist association, give me the highest satisfaction. my duties dictate a faithful and zealous pursuit of the interests of my constituents, & in proportion as they are persuaded of my fidelity to those duties, the discharge of them becomes more and more pleasing.
Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should
"make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.
[Congress thus inhibited from acts respecting religion, and the Executive authorised only to execute their acts, I have refrained from prescribing even those occasional performances of devotion, practiced indeed by the Executive of another nation as the legal head of its church, but subject here, as religious exercises only to the voluntary regulations and discipline of each respective sect.]
Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.
I reciprocate your kind prayers for the protection & blessing of the common father and creator of man, and tender you for yourselves & your religious association assurances of my high respect & esteem.
(signed) Thomas Jefferson
Jan.1.1802.
There are two provisions of the first amendment cited here by Thomas Jefferson. Specifically, 'the duality' of the establishment clause as I see it. The duality representing the fact that while government cannot respect the establishment of any religion, it is also prohibited from interfering in any religion or religious practice of the citizens of this nation.
Somehow along the way, the American people have lost sight of the fact that they do have rights to religion and they do have rights to express their religion. they have also lost sight of the fact that as sovereign citizens, they have a constitutionally protected right to establish and recognize their faith as the founding principles of their history, their law and their culture. And as such, Christianity cannot be obliterated from the minds or the history of this nation, simply to satisfy some egalitarian edict.
The establishment clause as the anti Christian left has come to call Jefferson's commentary, is not a directive enforceable by law. It was and is merely an opinion of one man. and as such, the larger portion of the opinion has gone absent for the better part of the last seventy five years. The equal right of religion.
Simply stated, the provision preventing the government from recognizing any establishment of religion, does not convexly bestow upon that government the right to demean or destroy any religion. Nor is the government given the right either expressed or implied to persecute those who adhere to Christian beliefs.
So as you sit and contemplate your Sunday thoughts, consider this. You have the right to read and think what you wish presently, because those rights were granted to you by decree of the US Constitution, before you were even born. Many have fought and died for those rights since and if we are not careful, we will see these rights slip quietly into oblivion, while we are told that it is for the better good of fairness and equality.
1 comment:
Separation of church and state is not a product the "living" Constitution idea, but rather is a bedrock principle of our Constitution much like the principles of separation of powers and checks and balances. In the Constitution, the founders did not simply say in so many words that there should be separation of powers and checks and balances; rather, they actually separated the powers of government among three branches and established checks and balances. Similarly, they did not merely say there should be separation of church and state; rather, they actually separated them by (1) establishing a secular government on the power of "We 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. Given the norms of the day, the founders' avoidance of any expression in the Constitution suggesting that the government is somehow based on any religious belief was quite a remarkable and plainly intentional choice. They later buttressed this separation of government and religion with the First Amendment, which constrains the government from undertaking to establish religion or prohibit individuals from freely exercising their religions. The basic principle, thus, rests on much more than just the First Amendment.
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 were 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.”
While the religious views of various founders are subjects of some uncertainty and controversy, it is safe to say that many founders were Christian of one sort or another. In assessing the nature of our government, though, care should be taken to distinguish between society and government and not to make too much of various founders’ individual religious beliefs. Their individual beliefs, while informative, are largely beside the point. Whatever their religions, they drafted a Constitution that establishes a secular government and separates it from religion. 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.
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