I know Christians who think that our country ought to be run as if were a large church where we have an official protestant religion and all decisions are made by the Bible - these are well intentioned ideas but they are misled.
The people of Europe knew all too well the dangers of mixing church and state: persecution and torture. The English protestants had known extreme punishment until Elizabeth I made the Church of England the official church - not following suite was punishable by the state. Mind you, this is not "Christian vs. Muslim" this is "Christian vs. other Christian."
Is that what we want?
Asking the government to regulate religion would create a monster that no one could control. The reason our patriarchal God-fearing church builders established absolute religious freedom in this country was to avoid this problem all together. Asking the government to favor one religion could backfire as soon as Christianity finds itself as a distant minority and new leadership wants to persecute the church. It might sound far-fetched - but no government needs to have that kind of power.
Instead, let's rejoice that our neighbors can build Buddhist temples and mosques. Why? because it means we have the freedom to worhsip as we choose. We do not worship the same God as other religions but we can only hold on to our freedom if they hold on to theirs.
For Independence Day - let's be thankful that we can do with our religion as we please and remember two things:
1 - The first amendment which allows religious freedom to all - it's the best thing that ever happened to Christianity in the world of politics and government.
2 - The brave soldiers who make it possible.
Thank God for them.
5 comments:
i know that it's somewhat off of the focused topic, but many of us that are non religious would love to see a state mandated religion. The reasons that you give are great not to, but the fact that most people that have religion forced upon them choose to treat it as ceremony and not really follow it anymore. Then it dies out for the most part. Adam, i'm glad that i know you and that you bother to think about things before you just proclaim them to be gospel. thank you for being a voice or reason to all of those who are sheep that will jump on a bandwagon just because a "religious" person told them to. I read your blog regularly and look forward to reading it. usually i don't even have a debate an wish that other christians would take a few notes.
I agree with what is expressed here, but disagree with the conclusions/applications modern opponents to Christianity (note: I do not mean opponents to state-sponsored Christianity) draw from these sort of statements.
Sort of the same way that for your and Dustin's reasons I am a disestablishmentarian, but few people even recognize that the longest word that exists in the English language came in to use because the Constitution does not prohibit the establishment of religion on a state level... and that for many years there were established denominations in some states.
Congratulations on your three hundredth post! I love coming here and reading your insights.
A little historical nicety, the vast majority of the founding fathers did not come to this new world, they were born and raised by parents, only some of whom were fleeing religious persecution and only one of whom wanted to establish religious freedom in the sense that Enlightenment secularist understand it, Pennsylvania being the only notable exception (although there might have been another Quaker colony). The other colony actually formed with that in mind was from a person fleeing religious persecution in Massachusetts.
The founding fathers themselves were seeking to protect the democratic institution of the church, particularly in its functioning within the envisioned political system. There is little evidence that they envisioned the religious plurality we experience today. That said they did at least support the non-preferentialist interpretation you’re giving as applied to the Federal government, as it would undermine the aforesaid democratic institution.
The government has always regulated religion, they haven’t seen this as particularly inconsistent with the Constitution for a variety of reasons, two important ones being an underlying adherence to secularism and their interpretation of toleration via a Christian (Protestant) horizon of practice (so the Free Exercise clause is understood from a perspective primarily exposed to Christianity). To add a little humor, I don’t see the boogie man popping out anywhere.
Joshua, I was only speaking about our predecessors in generalities - I realize that the Pilgrims were not the same as the ones who signed the Declaration of Independance, but it is remarkable that the Puritans did not set up a culture that demanded a state religion. We owe our religious freedom to that culture.
How has the U.S. Government regulated religion?
Our intolerance of indeginious relgions is too well docomented, ranging from pagan rituals to drug usage, beyond the pertenant point that these peoples are technically not U.S. citizens in the traditional sense. However, one can look to the persecution of Mormon practices which still has consequences today and even our denial of Muslim marriage practices as a result. Animal sacfrifice is a huge issue. Being in GA, I've always been fascinated by the snake churches, outlawed in all but one state. Once though a major phenemenea. Like Indians, slaves techinically were not protected, but there were mass prohibitions of their worship of either Christianity or Vodoun.
I can keep going on.
And FYI - the Pilgrims were the original Puritans, who came not again to establish religious freedom, but freedom to worship as they pleased. Huge difference.
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