Separation of Church & State Revisited . . . Again
So, the other day, Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Session, III, justified the separation of migrant children from their migrant families by quoting Paul’s letter to the Romans in the New Testament. According to Sessions, the Apostle Paul commanded people “to obey the laws of the government because God has ordained them for the purpose of order . . and lawful processes are good in themselves and protect the weak and lawful.” This seems to be another one of those “render unto Cesar that which is Cesar’s” lines which the early Christians seemed fond of repeating, but he used it to vouch for a very un-Christian action, because, you know, laws. It is interesting that the primary counterargument posed by dissenters was to quote other biblical verses in response, pointing out how un-Christian forceful separation of families is, instead of quoting the First Amendment, which might serve to remind Mr. Sessions that preaching by a public official is prohibited. So, instead of pointing out how the bible really says something different than Jeff Sessions says, we should be pointing out that the bible is -or at least should be — wholly irrelevant to any dispute we have with our government.
Detractors of this view will invariably insist that we cannot completely divorce our political discourse from biblical notions of morality, suggesting that religion — and in particular Judeo-Christian religion — is the foundation of all modern civilization. They will invoke the old canard that “America is a Christian nation!” This notion has been debunked many times before, but its almost as if those pious lawmakers weren’t listening, or something. America is not a Christian nation, it is a secular nation which preserves and supports absolute religious freedom. But virtually nothing that underlies American democracy can be traced back to any Judeo-Christian fundamentals.
America is a nation full of Christians — with approximately 70% of the population professing some level of faith in the doctrine of Christianity. However, that does not mean that America is a Christian Nation. In fact, our founders were quite adamant on this point. Not only did they make an explicit declaration within the body of the U.S. Constitution prohibiting any religious test for public office, the Bill of Rights also contains a 2-part prohibition on the meddling of government in religious matters, what has been described as “excessive entanglements” between government and religion. If their intentions were not clear enough, Thomas Jefferson, one of the principal drafters of our Constitution, wrote a letter in 1802 declaring that “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.” And John Adams famously proclaimed that “the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.”
It is not difficult to understand why our founding fathers sought to drive a wedge between religion and government. One need only glance at European history, much of it dominated by theocratic rule by the Roman Catholic church, to see why religious tolerance and secularism in politics was so important to our Constitution’s framers. Thus, it was an essential feature of our fledgling democracy to keep it safe from the oppression that inevitably accompanies sectarian government.
The “Religious Test” Clause, which is contained in Article VI of the Constitution, states “”no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.” This rather innocuous phrase was designed to keep the government free from undue influence from a religious group. Without such a prohibition, it would be exceedingly easy to exclude certain groups of people from having any voice in the government, and would be a short path to oppression of minorities, such as Jews or Muslims. Unfortunately, while the government cannot impose religious restrictions, in practice our elected officials are oftentimes subject to public requirements of religiosity, at least tacitly. In other words, anyone running for public office who is insufficiently religious is likely doomed to defeat. In fact, in a recent Gallup poll, nearly half (43%) of those polled admitted that they would not vote for an atheist for president. African-Americans, Women, Jews, Muslims and Homosexuals are all more electable than an atheist, according to the poll. And politicians know this. That’s why religion is such an important topic on the campaign trail.
The more ambitious provision in favor of secularism is the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, which states “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…” That short, concise statement is an enormously powerful pronouncement of the founders’ secular ideals. It is actually two separate, but equally important, doctrines in one. The first part essentially prevents the government from making laws specifically in favor of any religion. Justice Hugo Black summed it up thusly:
The “establishment of religion” clause of the First Amendment means at least this: Neither a state nor the federal government can set up a church. Neither can pass laws which aid one religion, aid all religions, or prefer one religion over another. Neither can force nor influence a person to go to or to remain away from church against his will or force him to profess a belief or disbelief in any religion. No person can be punished for entertaining or professing religious beliefs or disbeliefs, for church attendance or non-attendance. No tax in any amount, large or small, can be levied to support any religious activities or institutions, whatever they may be called, or whatever form they may adopt to teach or practice religion. Neither a state nor the Federal Government can, openly or secretly, participate in the affairs of any religious organizations or groups and vice versa.
The second part of the clause is known as the “Free Exercise” clause, which prohibits any law that restricts a person’s right to practice the religion of his or her choice. Of course there are limitations of things we allow people to do in the name of religion — no human sacrifices, for instance — but otherwise a person’s religious preference and their freedom to practice it are sacrosanct. This has always allowed America to be a veritable melting pot of different cultures, ideas and expressions. It allows Catholics, Muslims and Jews to co-exist peacefully alongside a multitude of other various faiths as well as the faith-less. It is the hallmark of America’s heritage of tolerance, and should be jealously guarded.
What I find disturbing, given the history of our religious freedom, is the rhetoric of the conservative politicians who frequently cite the Bible, God, religion, Christianity or some other religious source as the motivation and/or justification for public policy. And I would hope that reasonable Americans, even ones that are devoutly religious, would find it disturbing as well. Allowing our leaders and lawmakers to invoke divine providence in their decision-making process is a dangerous proposition. Not only does it run the risk of Biblical doctrine supplanting our “earthly” laws, it is also exclusionary to anyone who doesn’t believe in the same God. In other words, if the president says Jesus told him to act in a certain way, then anyone who isn’t Christian is going to be excluded from that conversation. At present, at least 30% of the U.S. population identifies as something other than Christian. To invoke Christianity in public policy is to disenfranchise nearly a third of the population.
Even if 99% of the US population was Christian, invoking Christianity in public discourse, and describing our nation as a Christian Nation, is still insensitive and contrary to the principals our nation was founded upon. The Bill of Rights, and all other civil liberties that have been endowed upon Americans throughout our history, provide fundamental rights to everyone. These enumerated rights and liberties have been set forth precisely to protect those in the minority, as the majority needs no special protection from encroachment upon their rights. It is another hallmark of our democracy that everyone, including those in the minority, are equal under the law.
Yet here we are, in 2018, listening to highly educated men and women invoking faith to justify laws that allow people to discriminate against homosexuals; to block women’s access to birth control and abortion; and to mandate the teaching of “creationism” from the Book of Genesis in public school science classes. We see Republican candidates having arguments over who is the more devout Christian. And we have conservative lawmakers, such as Jeff Sessions, proclaiming that God and the Bible are the sources that guide their decision-making, instead of the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America. This is troubling, at the very least. Politicians rail against oppressive regimes in the Muslim world that practice Sharia Law, yet if they were given their way they would undoubtedly install a version of Sharia, based on the Christian bible, here in America. We must be vigilant against any such attempt, lest we regress to a time when “sins” were defined by the church, and punished cruelly. We owe it to our ancestors, and our progeny, to protect our sacred tradition of separation of church and state, which is a fundamental component of a successful democracy, where everyone, religious and impious, Baptist and Mormon, Muslim and atheist all have the same rights, freedoms and liberties. America is filled with Christians, but America is NOT a Christian. America is a democratic republic, a paragon of progress and inclusion, defined by personal and individual freedom, and it is supposed to be blind to race, color, sexual preference and religion. America is a Secular Nation, which is the only option if we intend to herald ourselves as being one of the greatest nations in the history of civilization.
