February Focus Month: Separation of Church and State
“An Historic Overview; a Spiritual Conundrum”
by Reverend Charles Blustein Ortman
February 5, 2006
Each year we set aside the month of February as our congregation’s Focus Month. Worship services, through the month, are dedicated to the selected theme so that we can take an in-depth look in order to find, not only how the theme pertains to each of us, to our church community and to our world, but to find a way of being clearer in how we want to respond to issues related to our theme in our lives and in the world. Each year I ask that each body, committee and organization within the congregation take at least a few minutes of their gathering time during the month to consider how the theme impacts upon their group and how their group might impact upon the issues inherent in the theme.
The theme chosen for this year is, “The Separation of Church and State. This theme, by the way, was requested by a number of members of the congregation who feel that the lines distinguishing the boundaries between church and state have been blurred in our country’s recent and current history. This morning my intention is to look at some of the history behind the principle of separation of church and state, as well as some of the spiritual questions that are raised in the practice of that principle. Next week we will look at some of the consequences that occur when this principle is manipulated for political gain. The final Sunday of the month is especially set aside for an intergenerational worship service so that families and church members of all ages can have a full community experience in exploring just what “freedom of religion,” might free us from and free us for.
The United States Constitution made no mention of a Creator, of a God, or of any religious tradition. It claims that our laws are drawn from the authority of, "We the People." The Constitution is a secular document. Its only reference to religion prohibits any "religious test" for "Office or Public Trust." The First Amendment establishes the protection of religion: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.” The amendment, as it pertains to religion, was added to protect religion from governmental intrusion and to protect the government of our country from being intruded upon by any church or established religion. Particularly, we might correctly read the First Amendment as intending to keep government officials from dictating religious tenets to faith communities, as well as to keep the nation safe from political religionists who believe they are, or their religious tradition is God's authentic mouthpiece.
So what were the intentions of the founders? Let’s turn to Madison and Jefferson to see what they said about intentions. James Madison wrote in support of adding freedom of conscience to those other inalienable rights years earlier in the Declaration of Independence: “The religion then of every man must be left to the conviction and conscience of every man; and it is the right of every man to exercise it as these may dictate. This right is in its nature an unalienable right. It is unalienable; because the opinions of men, depending only on the evidence contemplated by their own minds, cannot follow the dictates of other men. It is unalienable also because what is here a right toward men, is a duty toward the Creator. It is the duty of every man to render to the Creator such homage, and such only, as he believes to be acceptable to Him.”
About religious tradition specifically, Madison wrote: “Who does not see that the same authority which can establish Christianity in exclusion of all other religions may establish, with the same ease, any particular sect of Christians in exclusion of all other sects? That the same authority which can force a citizen to contribute threepence only of his property for the support of any one establishment may force him to conform to any other establishment in all cases whatsoever?”
Thomas Jefferson, himself a Unitarian, wrote these words in an excerpt from an often cited letter to the Elders of the Danburry Baptist Church at the beginning of 1802:
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, and 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 and state. [ Congress thus inhibited from acts respecting religion, and the Executive authorised only to execute their acts, I have refrained from presenting even occasional performances of devotion presented indeed legally where an Executive is the legal head of a national church, but subject here, as religious exercises only to the voluntary regulations and discipline of each respective sect.]
Jefferson indicated not only was there a wall clearly separating the two institutions, but that, as executive of the government, he would not preside over religious events. There is a great deal in print to indicate the intentions of Madison, Jefferson and the other framers of the Constitution. Many historians would cite that specific mention of exclusion cannot be found in any document until 1797 in Article XI of the US Treaty with Islands of Tripoli: "As the government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian Religion," the Muslims of Tripoli didn’t need to fear a religious war from us. That treaty was approved by the Senate unanimously, by the way, by many of those same men who had earlier signed the Constitution, a further indication of an intent on the part of the founders to create a wall of division between the two.
Their intentions seem to be clear, and yet they have been construed and misconstrued in many ways. The amount of primary and secondary sources regarding their intentions is really astonishing, and the spirit expressed in them is quite ardent.
What seems clear is that these forebears were speaking out of their own history. These were the descendents of immigrants who had fled their homelands in order to practice religion with a freedom of conscience. How many of us would entertain such a venture? The pilgrims had been persecuted in their motherlands for their religious interpretations and practices. Even though there is much evidence that they themselves were not very tolerant of one another’s religious practices, here in America . Quakers for example were not tolerated in most of the colonies and were even hung on public display in the Boston Commons, for over a hundred years! Still, the descendents of the pilgrims—the framers of the Constitution—wanted to insure that no one would have to endure such persecution in this new nation.
The framers were also children of the Enlightenment. My UU colleague, Rev. Roberta Finkelstein writes: “They were able to apply many of the new and radical concepts of the Enlightenment: …an attempt to free the human mind from the bonds of tradition, to free the human spirit from the bonds of medieval religion. The emphasis was on the individual, and on the use of reason to solve problems. This embrace of rationalism reflected a philosophical confidence in the innate human capacity for self-improvement and self-government. The logical outcome of this philosophy was a society based on freedom and tolerance. In what other environment could every person possibly exercise the freedom of their minds?”
And so our country’s founders, ennobled by the freeing concepts of the Enlightenment, set out to create a nation that protected, nurtured and sustained those inalienable individual human rights already so clearly articulated: life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and the exercise of conscience. America ’s founders were not irreligious or anti-religious; they believed that religion was an important part of life and society. Their contribution to civilization was to recognize that religion could stand separate from civil government and make its contribution to an ethical society without being part of the civil establishment. Civil and religious thinking, practices, and structures were important on both sides of the divide. And it was important for each side to be protected from the other. Only in this way could the free exercise of conscience be guaranteed.
This would require that the wall separating church and state be, what some have called, “…a glass wall.” Again Roberta Finkelstein writes, “That image [of a glass wall] immediately took hold…the metaphor of two institutions firmly separated from each other, yet visible to each other is … how…government and religion should relate to each other in a free society.”
All of this seems so clear. How could there be any dispute about the role of government in religion or the role of religion in government? And yet we look around us in this country and we see that there is all kinds of contention regarding the separation of church and state. It was hard for me to even conceive that there was a legitimate argument here until I came across the work of Kevin Seamus Hasson, founder and chairman of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a law firm specializing in religious freedom, and the author of a recently released book, The Right to Be Wrong: Ending the Culture War Over Religion in America.
Seamus Hasson makes several interesting points in his book and in his interviews. There are three such points that I’d like to take note of here: one that is easy for me to dismiss, but for which I have appreciation of the outcome; one that, while I disagree with his premise, is not so easily dismissed; and one a conservative explanation of the idea of separation that might give liberals cause for a reassessment of their own interpretation.
First, Seamus Hasson, a devout Christian, feels strongly that Christianity is the only religion that holds the truth, that is right. I couldn’t disagree more with the audacity and arrogance in such a position. And yet, he claims that his Christianity and the law compel him to defend the rights of all those who are wrong, when their rights have been trampled. This is no small claim. In ten years, his Becket Fund for Religious Liberty has represented dozens if not hundreds of litigants in cases of religious discrimination.
And while I disagree with his premise, I have to agree with his thinking that stems from it. He says, “If we insist on fighting the culture war as if it were a contest over who God is, both sides will be in their respective trenches for a very long time. But if we fight it on the question of who we are, then we really can end it. Religious liberty, properly understood as a human right, is something that can unite a wide variety of Americans against a common enemy — religious oppression.”
Second, Seamus Hasson holds that the framers of the Constitution never intended that there would be no relationship between government and religion, only that there would be no relationship between the Federal Government and religion. Somehow his interpretation of, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof …” is that, not only will congress keep its hands off religion, but that it would also keep its hands off the states, and not regulate the relationship or the lack of relationship that state governments might have with religions within their respective commonwealths.
It seems to me that much like his friend, Samuel Alito, Seamus Hasson believes that the intent of the law, as witnessed in many writings of the time, and the practice of the law, as as expressed through decades of court precedent, fails to mean anything more than, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…” As we proceed into this newly dawning era of an increasingly super conservative Supreme Court, I trust we will see more and more cases—perhaps regarding freedom of religion, perhaps other rights—where rights that have been established through an appreciation for intent and through case evolution, will be diminished. (Perhaps the time has come to work for the rewriting of laws in such a way that leaves less interpretation as to their intent.)
Finally third, and this is the most intriguing of Seamus Hasson’s ideas, as it asks us to look at the issue of religious freedom in ways that we, as religious liberals, are sometimes uncomfortable in looking. I’ll use Seamus Hasson’s own words as expressed in an excerpt from an interview with National Review this past October:
NR: In your book, you dub these two sides in the culture wars, the "Pilgrims" and the "Park Rangers." What's that all about?
Hasson: Well, I call the pilgrims after the Pilgrims. I realize they were a brave little band of Christians who helped give birth to our country and did other things we all have reason to be grateful for, but in terms of religious liberty, their halos need readjusting. The Pilgrims weren't in favor of religious liberty for all, they just wanted a refuge where they could live in perfect purity, apart from everyone else. From the very first they tried to suppress the religious expression of the non-pilgrim artisans who traveled with them
In fact, the Quakers were persecuted almost everywhere from colonial times through the Civil War. Their heroic patience in the face of over a century of legalized persecution in America eventually persuaded most of America that religious persecution is always a bad thing. The story of this intense moral struggle in American history is not well-enough known. But the Quaker persecutions gave birth to the idea of conscientious objection, an important component of religious liberty for all. It wasn't radical secularists who gave us that idea, it was believers.
NR: How about an example?
Hasson: Here's one of the more moving stories in my book: In North Carolina, during the Civil War, military officials singled out Seth Laughlin, a recent Quaker convert who objected to military service, for special attention. He was beaten daily and literally hung from his thumbs. When that didn't work, he was court-martialed. Finally they brought Seth before a firing squad. He asked for permission to pray. The officers thought he was going to pray for his own soul, but instead Seth Laughlin prayed for theirs: "Father forgive them, they know not what they do."
One by one the firing squad dropped their rifles.
Some things people of good conscience just know are wrong, even if the law tries to tell them it is O.K.
NR: What about [the] Park Rangers? How do they make it into your book?
Hasson: Oh, that's from one of my favorite stories. In The Right to Be Wrong, I call it, "The Case of the Sacred Parking Barrier."
In San Francisco, in 1989, a crane operator sloppily left a granite parking barrier in the formal tea garden in a city park. Like bureaucrats everywhere, park administrators just couldn't be made to move it. Until one day a group of New Agers noticed it looked like a Shiva Lingam (a manifestation of a Hindu god). The little band of believers rejoiced and began worshipping the parking barrier.
Whereupon, the bureaucrats suddenly roused themselves and announced they had a duty to prevent worship on (not to mention of) public property: The sacred parking barrier had to go.
Here's the thing: Nobody could have mistaken parking-barrier worship for an officially established religion, even in San Francisco. And if folks in San Francisco could come to the park to admire the shrubbery, why couldn't they come to worship the parking barriers?
But Park Rangers are people who think they have a duty, in the name of separation of church and state, to suppress other people's religious expression, no matter how harmless. As I said earlier, they're currently the greatest threat to religious liberty.
We know that there really be can be no total separation of religious and spiritual principles from the conduct of government. I dare say we wouldn’t want there to be. We are all spiritual/religious beings and we can ill afford to strive to be schizophrenic in our practice of government. The question we are most comfortable dealing with regarding the separation of church and state is the question of whether or not the government is sponsoring or favoring one religious tradition over another, or favoring religion over non-religion. We often have a lot to say about these subjects.
Here is the spiritual conundrum and the question posed to us by Kevin Seamus Hasson, though. Are we more concerned with being Rangers than we are being Pilgrims? Are we more concerned with the ethical expression of our own religion, which like Thomas Jefferson suggested, cannot be in opposition to our “social duties,” or are we more invested in limiting the expression by others of their religious sensibilities?
We Unitarian Universalists provide the world with an important but a minority religious view. Just like Kevin Seamus Hasson, we think we are right. I pray we aren’t as arrogant in assuming that we do indeed hold the lion’s share of truth and that others are simply wrong. Still the question is though, what is our responsibility in assuring that all religious viewpoints, even the dominant religious view in this country, have every right that we do in the expression of its beliefs, however threatening those beliefs might be to us?
I hope that we take our religious principles and values with us as we go out the door each week, and that we apply them in our daily duties. Should others do less? What is the level of our own spiritual integrity, if we deny the integrity of others?
There can be no clear and static solution to questions of separation of church and state. The issues are mired in a history of legal interpretation as well as in our own personal wrestling with ideas of the universe and ideas of right and wrong. What there can be is ongoing civic and civil conversation about what this separation might mean.
We would do well, as Unitarian Universalists, as this debate heats up and it is sure to do just that in the not too distant future, we would do well to be prepared to state for the world how our religious principles help us to respond to a very needy world. We would do even better to act on our principles in ways to meet those needs. And then after we have all of that, in a very religious, humble, and yet still determined way—in the public place and through civil conversation—we can go about assuring that our government is not sponsoring or favoring one religious tradition over another, or favoring religion over non-religion.
The issue of separation between church and state is not cut and dried. It is an evolving national conversation and we are indeed at liberty to determine what kind of participants we want to be in that conversation. |
