On separation of church and state

[nadinbrzezinski]

Tuesday, December 09, 2003

The Wall Between Church and State

By

Plubius

In the formation of this Republic our Founding Fathers grappled with many new and revolutionary concepts. One of them was a new wall between the State, which is the Civil Authority and the Church. Many Americans in recent years have claimed that there is an attack on the United States as a Christian nation. This is supposed to be a threat on the religious beliefs of a minority under threat. Books and other media have been used to spread this fallacy, as a majority cannot be under attack. So Plubius will first explore where this wall between Church and State came from.
Imagine if you will a country where the Civilian Authority enforces Religious law. Does the Civilian Magistrate have the authority to take away property for religious reasons? In the England of John Locke this was the case. Many a times the Civilian Magistrate enforced religious laws and confiscated property from those who were deemed to be infidels. Those who were deemed infidels depended on what was the dominant Religion of the State. As John Locke asks in his Essay on Toleration, what if there are two Churches in Constantinople? One of them is a Calvinist Church and the other is a Papist Church (Protestant and Catholic), does the Turk have a right to say who is right? Does the Turk just stand back? Does a Muslim National Leader have a right to save one of them from the other, or worst force them to convert by force of Arms? In effect, Locke concluded that the Civilian magistrate had absolutely no authority over Religious affairs, just as Religious leaders have no issue over civilian affairs. The Wall between the civil and religious world came to be from Locke’s and other philosophers of the time. They saw the threat to civil society in the religious wars of the era. This was a hundred year war was over the supremacy of the Catholic over the Protestant. There were no clear winners in these religious wars, but many millions died.
There is more to Locke’s argument. Those who decide to follow the true Church will be saved. But they will be saved only if they do follow their faith out of free will and not at sword point. Nobody who cannot or will not want to be saved can be saved. Hence the Civil Authority truly has no way of forcing anybody to believe in a particular Church, or confiscate goods of a worldly nature. From this idea Thomas Jefferson took the next leap of logic, as well as the Founding Fathers. There could not be any National Religion, since matters of faith are separate from matters of the State. They understood this intuitively, and as Free Masons, they also understood that the role of the citizen was separate from the role of the clergy, or he who attended Church. After all, Church was part of the Private Sphere, and not the Public Sphere… also known as Civil Life.
What has happened today? We have some in this country that now tell us that this is a Christian Nation. My fair reader, if this is a nation where faith is part of the private sphere and private life, how can our nation, a civil matter, be a Christian nation? Our founding Fathers understood this. Seems many of our current citizens have forgotten that grace and faith are private matters and cannot be forced into the Public Sphere.
Yes there are examples of how faith has “left” public life and prayer is a major rallying cry. One of them is Prayer in School. First off, prayer is a matter of the heart and belief. Second who’s prayer? If we are to understand the usual answer Christian prayer. Well then, what type of Christian prayer? Calvinist, Catholic, Southern Baptist? After all Catholics are not considered real Christians by many, and this is a serious problem. Moreover, if we are going to allow what is a private practice, that is Prayer, into school then we must allow ALL types of prayer.

[DuctapeFatwa]

1. Like the middle class, separation of church & state is phasing out

It has been a separation in name only anyway. The majority of the voting class is comfortable with Christian prayer, almost comfortable with Jewish prayer, but would really not be comfortable at all with a Hindu or Muslim prayer being said in the public schools or public school events.

In some parts of the country, it would be a major issue and cause some heads to roll.

Similarly, there are many states with laws that reflect interpretations of Christian theology, one good example are the states that forbid selling liquor on Sundays - but permit it up until midnight on Saturday!

This is really wacky, since neither Jews nor Muslims consider Sunday to be the Sabbath, but neither conservative Muslims nor conservative Baptists drink at all!

One of the most controversial areas of law vs theology is the termination of pregnancy, with a sizeable chunk of people from both parties being staunch advocates of the Catholic church's position on the issue - even many Protestants - on the other hand, it is hard to find anyone who would like to see laws that attempted to enforce Rome's position on either contraception or premarital sex!

Anecdotal cases involving Muslims in the workplace and at public schools running into conflicts between the public policy and religious practice abound, but you seldom hear of Christian students being told that wearing a crucifix is a "distraction."

With things so topsy-turvy, it will not be a surprise when even many people who are not religious at all accept with varying degrees of resignation, the formalization of the US becoming a fundamentalist Christian Republic.

[Cleita]

2. I don't even care anymore.

Until people stop supporting these institutions, they are just going to fester and thrive as the money making institutions that they are, selling salvation as a product, and the big problem is that no one asks why they need to be saved and from what?

[nadinbrzezinski]

4. Neither Locke

or Jefferson would recognize what you just wrote as acceptable. It is time we reclaim our traditions, and educate the people. This means READING the documents that inspired us, and the founding fathers. This means you and I have to educate the people. Don't expect the schools to do it. It is up to us!

Doesn't anybody getting this? Our Founding Fathers took risks, real risks. They also used the medium of the era to explain these revolutionary ideas. The choice is ours truly, we can roll-over and play dead, and the Fundamentalists win, or we car fight back. The choice is your, seems plubius has chosen. As he/she is using a blogg This is the modern equivalent of the pamphlet.

[DuctapeFatwa]

5. The founding fathers believed only white male property owners should vote

There was a great Henry Liu piece in Asia Times with some very good insights on the founding fathers.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=859498

[nadinbrzezinski]

6. And we have evolved as a nation.

Read the preamble to the Constitution. If we are to continue the American experiment we need to hold on to the ideas. The original vision has expanded from the somewhat narrow (by our standards) views of the Founding Fathers and continue to expand on these ideas. the GOP believes in contracting these views to the narrowest of standards. It is up to us to continue to expand on the vision.

[DuctapeFatwa]

7. LOL you call it expanding the vision, I call it

repairing the damage.

Langston Hughes said it better than either of us:

"America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath--
America will be!..."

[loyalsister]

8. Not just the GOP, unfortunately

"Over-religiosity" is a bipartisan, equal opportunity thing. Although, there are fewer Republicans than Democrats who will stand up for the principle of Spearation of Church and State. Odd since Libertarianism is located on the right.

[nadinbrzezinski]

9. I do

Will you Join me? Do we still have the vision or will we just roll over and play dead?

[sweetheart]

3. in reality, its the war on drugs

The war on drugs is an war against freedom of religion, presuming by its very laws that the practices of hinduism, celtic, american indian, brazil indian and others... that these practices are not legal... intolerance of freedom of religion.

They convert this in to a secular perversion that to destroy our inner cities and youth generations AND spend taxes to have a criminal underclass across america, it is really racism and against freedom of religion. This is the church of the street, and if you sin, you will be imprisoned without regard to freedom of religion.