First Unitarian Society of Minneapolis

Church and State: Can This Separation Be Saved?

Perhaps the greatest irony of the present age in human history is that one of the most fundamental principles of our American Constitution, religious freedom, traces its historical origins to the cultural legacy of Islam. The first edicts of religious toleration, promulgated in Transylvania in the mid 16^th century during the regency and short reign of King John Sigismund, himself by conviction a Unitarian, were modeled on similar edicts issued by the Ottoman empire as it came to power in regions where Islam was not the majority faith. It was in the very practical struggle to create a workable society in the midst of religious reformation and diversity that innovative rulers first began to consider the possibility that it might not be the state’s job, either to determine theological truth, or to enforce doctrinal conformity among its citizens.

That insight followed a winding path through Protestant reform and Enlightenment philosophy, down to the Deism of colonial America and the founding fathers of our nation. As we have heard, liberal religious leaders like Joseph Priestley in England, and statesmen like Jefferson in the newly independent United States, had only to look to their own very recent history, or to struggles still underway in continental Europe, to see what Priestley called the ‘inconveniences’ of state-sponsored church authority. These included the obstruction of scientific discovery when it threatened mythological doctrine; the torture and execution of individuals proposing alternative religious ideas or practices; violent conflict between dissenting religious minorities and forces of the crown; clergy motivated by political ambition to the neglect of their pastoral responsibilities; and a general popular distrust of both the established church and the divine right of kings. It would be better for both institutions, the thinking ran, if their functions were separated, in such a way that genuine spiritual conviction might govern the religious beliefs and practices of each individual, and the government might confine itself to overseeing matters of the present world, and actions rather than opinions.

Until the drafting of the Constitution and its amendments in the Bill of Rights, religious liberty where it was practiced was a haphazard accommodation to the reality of theological diversity, a sort of least-common denominator compromise, usually advocated by those minority movements large enough to cause trouble, but not sufficiently numerous to take over as the established church themselves. It is worth noting that even the liberal congregational descendants of the New England pilgrim colonists resisted the disestablishment of the Standing Order until, in the light of the Second Great Awakening, they began to realize that their convictions were not, in fact, those of the majority. At that point, they rapidly became advocates for the virtues of religious liberty.

Yet the idea that the human conscience cannot be forced, and that true piety must necessarily arise out of voluntary assent, goes all the way back to Transylvania and its encounter with Muslim influence. When Jefferson drafted the Commonwealth of Virginia’s statute for religious freedom, and James Madison secured its adoption in 1786, they proposed not only that for the state to sponsor any particular religion was impractical, but also that: "…truth is great and will prevail if left to herself, that she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict, unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons, free argument and debate; errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them." This concept, that religious liberty is not only the just expedient in a culture of diversity of opinion, but also that the ultimate best interests of truth are served by unfettered examination of all alternatives, by all participants, all the time, was the philosophical basis for the First Amendment principle of separation of church and state in America. Two centuries of jurisprudence have examined the implications of this notion in practice, and it has actually survived the process rather well.

As members of a religious minority ourselves, it should not puzzle us to understand the continuing importance of this principle to our own security and the well-being of our congregations and our heritage. We recall that at the historical worst, when religion becomes a function of the state, and government becomes the arbiter of god’s will, people die. They die in military crusades, when armies become the legions of the lord, to impose one nation’s religious ideas upon the infidels of another land. People who dare to question the spiritual teachings approved by the state die, either in public flames at the stake in order to terrify their fellow citizens into conformity; or in the dungeons of the inquisitors, tortured in the name of god’s love; or in want and privation, being bereft of their property and livelihood and the rights of society’s protection. I suspect that none of us – you and myself included – almost none of us has the modesty and spiritual maturity to be able to hold the power that goes with both king and god, and not to abuse it. We would, of course, always be doing this with the highest of motives, for other people’s own good. But few of us could resist the temptation to impose our own vision upon those too stubborn or indolent to grasp our superior wisdom. When the two great powers, the coercion of the state, and the conviction of faith, come together, the result is always toxic, and people die.

This may be the worst upshot of the mingling of church and state for the average citizen, but it is not at all the only one. Most of us are either sensible enough, or craven enough – you take your pick – that we will say what the authorities demand we say in order to be left alone. Most of us will throw incense on the alter of the emperor, no matter what we may think in the privacy of our own consciences; most people will give lip service to the forms of established piety so as not to rock the boat, so as not to find themselves in the inquisitor’s grasp, or writhing in the flames. When church and state combine, not only do they produce toxic power, they also produce a conformist religious culture in which people follow instructions, whether or not they believe a word of it; in short, they produce a bumper crop of hypocrites. The average citizen learns not to question, not to think, not to explore the possibilities of genuine religious experience, but rather to say and do what is expected without regard to its authenticity. A corrupted conscience becomes the price of personal freedom from harassment.

In addition to the corruption of conscience, wherever the government attempts to enforce the beliefs of the church, free inquiry and creativity are frustrated, or at best, are driven underground. Galileo is only the most well known of scores or hundreds of scientists whose work was denounced or destroyed because it threatened received religious doctrines that had the backing of state authority. It is never theology alone that is bound to the traditions of the past when religion holds power; it is all forms of human endeavor and progress. Literature and the arts are eventually confined to conventional treatments of approved themes; medicine becomes constrained to methods found to be congruent with scripture. Ordinary individuals suffer from these barriers both because their own creativity is stymied, and because they are deprived of the benefit of what others might have invented or discovered, or given to the world.

The conformity and conservatism produced by the intertwining of church with state are bad for people not only in pragmatic and secular ways; they are damaging to our genuine spiritual lives as well. When we are spoon fed the conventions of a government designed religious system, we become either hypocrites, martyrs, or indolent conformists. We are not required to understand the faith delivered to us, in order to defend it, or to accept any responsibility for improving it, or handing it on to our children; the state will take care of all that. There is no need to reflect upon our values, or measure our conduct, or bear witness to anything transforming in our lives; if we are supposed to have such experiences, the authorities will let us know. Meanwhile, it is not our job to ask questions.

Moreover, in a society where religious practice is standardized, it will be difficult for people to find the community of like-minded, sympathetic souls within which their spiritual lives might best unfold and flourish. If churches cannot distinguish themselves by beliefs and practices unique to their distinctive identities, then individuals must be content with a one-size-fits-all form of public religious institution, more like to a post office than a temple of something divine. Wherever worship becomes a function of the government, people are deprived of the intimate connections that make voluntary religious community a precious gift and resource in our lives. In all of these ways, individual citizens suffer when church and state do not carefully maintain their distinct roles and separate arenas.

We have seen some of the ways in which violating this separation is bad for persons; I submit that it is equally deleterious to the genuine well-being of both the state, and the church itself. Legislatures are not designed to do theology, and asking elected officials to decide the rival merits of various religious propositions is cruel – both to the politicians, and to the questions of faith. Laws need to be judged by their impact on a population holding diverse opinions in the here and now; when the church is able to dictate concerning them, laws become instead a method to coerce people into observing in practice dogmas that they do not believe in principle. Moreover, when legislation is constrained by theories of holiness and morality formulated many centuries ago, it frequently becomes impossible to make it congruent with more recent scientific and sociological understandings. We can all think of instances when anachronistic religious ideas have been used to justify legal practices that must otherwise have been viewed with repugnance by the modern mind; slavery comes quickly to mind.

Moreover, when the government becomes responsible for the preservation of religious institutions, it takes on a significant financial and administrative burden, and relieves those churches of the need to innovate or reach out in ways that generate popular support. In fact, it seems to me that the surest way to kill a religion down to the root is to make it state-supported, as with many countries in Europe. Financed by tax revenue through the government, their established churches stand all but empty, forsaken by a public whose allegiance they never needed to earn. The more that money for salaries and tuck pointing is assured from government tax revenue, the more insular, self-congratulating, and extraneous the institutional church is likely to become. Even if members of the public have some vague general notion that a church is a good thing to have around, they need not concern themselves with it; like roads and bridges and water treatment plants, churches will appear wherever the state thinks proper. You pay your taxes, and expect religious sustenance to be there when you choose to avail yourself of it; there is no necessity to participate in nurturing a community or putting forth its distinctive message.

Meanwhile, here in America churches thrive, compelled by the demands of survival to offer ministries that meet the needs and command the loyalties of members, whose money, time, and leadership are given to support the congregation that is doing something they believe in. When the national budget must address the needs of crumbling cathedrals and aging clergy, money is siphoned off from other projects of more general concern, and the government becomes a curator of spiritual antiquities. As the founding fathers realized, the state does not benefit from becoming the handmaiden of religious orthodoxy.

What then of the church itself? I want to suggest that it, too, is diminished when religion is made, as it was for so many centuries of Christian history, and in other cultures too, a function of empire. In the first place, such entanglement makes spiritual leaders into civil servants and political appointees, forever at the mercy of the shifting fortunes of kings, presidents, parliaments, and policies. At worst, the clergy and the institutional church become so ambitious for their own power that they lose sight entirely of that care of souls which was meant to be their vocation. At best, even when they strive to be faithful to their pastoral duties, it is still all but impossible that they should prophetically challenge or criticize the government’s actions, or failures to act. What political administration has the forbearance not to muzzle its most outspoken critics, if their professional futures lie within its control?

But ultimately, what is destructive about collusion between the church and the state is the attempt to subject one of the most delicate and uniquely personal of human experiences to coercion. Our sense of spiritual connection, however we conceive it, whatever we think it consists of, simply cannot be forced. You can never threaten someone into loving this god or that god; you cannot insist that a person find comfort or inspiration in an ancient story if they don’t. A government can define what actions people are allowed or not allowed to do, but it can’t make anybody want to be good. You can force someone to take part in a ritual, but you can’t make them believe in it, and you can’t stop them from trusting whatever transcendent reality is real to them. In the end, the state has no power over an individual’s conscience; it never has had, and it never will. The only question is whether or not we are free to tell the truth about what we believe, what we value, what we trust, and there is not, and never has been, and never will be, anything legitimate to be gained by making anybody lie about that. The religion that depends upon government enforcement will only hear from people what they are told to say; it will never touch the real aspirations of the human spirit, never comfort their most real anguish, never help them to create the true community of love and justice that in varying forms we all long for. Nothing spiritually true is ever built upon any foundation but that of freely given assent, and no god worthy of the title wishes to be lied to.

In the long run, it seems to me that the separation of church and state is not an American constitutional invention; rather, it is a kind of natural law that we seek to violate only at our peril. Nothing positive comes of any government trying to legislate belief; nothing but arrogance and hypocrisy results from any cadre of believers trying to co-opt the power of the state to enforce their convictions upon their neighbors. And despite all the pain and bloodshed invested in such efforts over the millennia of human history, it has never worked. Every single time, the human spirit of adventure, of curiosity, of independent thought, has arisen out of every tyranny over mind, heart, and conscience to proclaim at any price, even the price of life itself, a new message, a new holy word, a new possibility for what it means to be alive in this amazing world. If I were a believer, I’d have to think the evidence suggests that in fact god wants it that way.

And yet, this is a truth that we easily forget, in our individual and collective itch for order and power, and the chance to make the world go the way we know it ought to go. The founding fathers of this nation had taken to heart a bitter lesson from the deadly religious conflicts they witnessed around them; they tried to bequeath to us this awareness; that it never works; that it’s bad for people, and for the government, and for genuine religion, when the church and the state get tangled up together. May we in our time be wise enough to understand their wisdom, and to preserve with care the freedom they intended us to have.

Barry Lynn

I want to be clear: it is not, and never has been, my goal to stop Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, James Dobson, et al from worshipping and promoting God as they see fit. My goal is much simpler: I will not join in that endeavor. It has become obvious to me over the course of several decades that we don’t worship the same god. Falwell’s god is so alien to me that he might as well be worshipping Baal.

But again let me stress this: while I disagree strongly with the Religious Right’s version of Christianity, I fully support anyone’s right to follow it. Falwell’s god is distasteful to me, but Americans have an absolute and unqualified right to worship him. Those who worship Falwell’s god, however, have no right to use the machinery of the government to impose that unpleasant deity on everyone else. Yet Falwell has devoted much of his career to this goal.

Culturally, most Americans are Christian. From a constitutional standpoint, this is irrelevant. Under our Constitution, all religions are equal. Numerical superiority, from a legal standpoint, means nothing.

It’s a simple concept, but the Religious Right either cannot or will not grasp it. Time and again, when I have debated Religious Right leaders, they have fallen back on some version of the "majority rules" argument. If a majority wants organized prayer in schools, they argue, there should be organized prayer in schools.

Our Constitution simply does not work that way, and those who believe it does betray only their own ignorance of our governing document. When it comes to religion, the Constitution is explicitly anti-majoritarian. It does not grant special rights or privileges to whatever group happens to dominate in a certain area.

Religious Right groups dispute my basic premise because they see secularism as an evil and corrosive force. This, when all is said and done, may be my sharpest disagreement with the Religious Right: the movement does not appreciate the secular nature of our government and the religious diversity it has brought us. The Religious Right insists that only certain forms of worship are pleasing to God, which it has the right to do, and then assumes that, since this is the case, its preferred forms of worship should have a public policy expression. This dangerous tautology is where the movement goes off the rails. More often than not, the Religious Right’s political expression of faith takes the form of substituting fundamentalist religious dogma for sound public policy, policy that recognizes the secular nature of our government and the multifaith character of our society.

Real religious freedom cannot exist without a separation between religion and government. The union of church and state looks like it will offer unheralded benefits to religion, but that overlooks the long view. In the end, combinations of church and state result in one of two models: nightmarish theocracies like those spawned in much of the Middle East, or devitalized churches and empty cathedrals, like much of Western Europe today.

Fundamentalist Christianity’s alliance with the state may look like a friendly embrace at first. If history is any predictor, it won’t stay that way; in time, that embrace will become so stifling as to slowly strangle the life and vitality out of genuine faith in America.

The address of the Danbury Baptists Association in the state of Connecticut, assembled October 7, 1801. To Thomas Jefferson, Esq., President of the United States of America.

Our sentiments are uniformly on the side of religious liberty--that religion is at all times and places a matter between God and individuals--that no man ought to suffer in name, person, or effects on account of his religious opinions--that the legitimate power of civil government extends no further than to punish the man who works ill to his neighbors; But, sir, our constitution of government is not specific. Our ancient charter together with the law made coincident therewith, were adopted as the basis of our government, at the time of our revolution; and such had been our laws and usages, and such still are; that religion is considered as the first object of legislation; and therefore what religious privileges we enjoy (as a minor part of the state) we enjoy as favors granted, and not as inalienable rights; and these favors we receive at the expense of such degrading acknowledgements as are inconsistent with the rights of freemen. It is not to be wondered at therefore; if those who seek after power and gain under the pretense of government and religion should reproach their fellow men--should reproach their order magistrate, as a enemy of religion, law, and good order, because he will not, dare not, assume the prerogatives of Jehovah and make laws to govern the kingdom of Christ.

Sir, we are sensible that the president of the United States is not the national legislator, and also sensible that the national government cannot destroy the laws of each state; but our hopes are strong that the sentiments of our beloved president, which have had such genial effect already, like the radiant beams of the sun, will shine and prevail through all these states and all the world, till hierarchy and tyranny be destroyed from the earth.

Signed in behalf of the association

Nehemiah Dodge Ephraim Robbins Stephen S. Nelson

To messers Nehemiah Dodge, Ephraim Robbins, & Stephen S. Nelson

a committee of the Danbury Baptist association in the state of Connecticut.

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and 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.] 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.

(signed) Thomas Jefferson Jan.1.1802.

Instead of settling the disputes between the [Catholics, Lutherans and Calvinists] the usual way, by declaring all but one illegal, Queen Isabella did something extraordinary. In 1557 she decreed toleration for all three groups. She decreed:

Inasmuch as We and Our Most Serene Son have assented to the most instant supplication of the Peers of the Realm, …each person shall maintain the faith of his choice, together with the new ceremonies or the former ones, without offence to any, while We at the same time leave it to their judgment to do as they please in the matter of faith, just so long, however, as they bring no harm to bear on anyone at all…2 (David Bumbaugh)

Edict of Torda, 1568

In every place the preachers shall preach and explain the gospel each according to his understanding of it, and if the congregation like it, well; if not, no one shall compel them, for their souls would not be satisfied, but they shall be permitted to keep the preachers whose doctrine they approve. Therefore none of the Superintendents or others shall annoy or abuse the preachers on account of their religion, according to previous constitutions, or allow any to be imprisoned or be punished by removal from his post on account of his teaching, for faith is the gift of God, this comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

Ut quisque tenert eam fidem quam vellet cum novis et antiques ceremoniis, permittentes in negocio fidei eorum arbitrio id fieri quod ipsis liberet, citra tamen injuriam quorumlibet, ne novae religionis sectatores veterem professionem lacesserent aut illius sectatoribus fierent quoquo modo injurii.

Priestley:

The most important question concerning the extent of civil government is, whether the civil magistrate ought to extend his authority to matters of religion; and the only method of deciding this important question, as it appears to me, is to have recourse at once to first principles, and the ultimate rule concerning every thing that respects a society; viz. whether such interference of the civil magistrate appear to be for the public good. And as all arguments a priori, in matters of policy, are apt to be fallacious, fact and experience seem to be our only safe guides. Now these, as far as our knowledge of history extends, declare clearly for no interference in this case at all, or at least, for as little as is possible. Those societies have ever enjoyed the most happiness, and have been, ceteris paribus, in the most flourishing state, where the civil magistrates have meddled the least with religion, and where they have the most closely confined their attention to what immediately affects the civil interests of their fellow citizens. We know that infinite mischiefs have arisen from this interference of government in the business of religion; and we have yet seen no inconvenience to have arisen from the want, or the relaxation of it. Are not both Christianity and Mohammedanism, in fact, established (the former at least fully tolerated) in Turkey; and what inconvenience, worth mentioning, has ever arisen from it? Pity it is, then, that more and fairer experiments are not made; when, judging from what is past, the consequences of unbounded liberty, in matters of religion, promise to be so very favorable to the best interests of mankind.

Besides, it is universally true, that where the civil magistrate has the greatest pretence for interfering in religious and moral principles, his interference (supposing there were no impropriety in it) is the least necessary. If the opinions and principles in question, be evidently subversive of all religion and all civil society, they must be evidently false, and easy to refute; so that there can be no danger of their spreading; and the patrons of them may safely be suffered to maintain them in the most open manner they choose. It is for the interest of truth that every thing be viewed in fair and open day light, and it can only be some sinister purpose that is favored by darkness or concealment of any kind. My sentiments may be fallacious, but if nobody were allowed to write against me, how could that fallacy be made to appear?

LET US GIVE THANKS

Let us give thanks for a bounty of people:

For the children who are entrusted to their parents all the time,

and entrusted to us in this church on Sundays.

Though they grow like weeds and the wind too soon blows them away,

may they forgive us our cultivation and fondly remember where their roots are.

Let us give thanks:

For generous friends with hearts and smiles as bright as blossoms;

For feisty friends as tart as apples;

For continuous friends, who, like scallions and cucumbers,

keep reminding us that we've had them;

For crotchety friends, as pungent as ginger and just as indestructible;

For handsome friends, who are as gorgeous as eggplants

and as elegant as a row of corn,

and the others, as plain as potatoes and just as good for you;

For funny friends, who are as silly as Brussels sprouts

and as amusing as Jerusalem artichokes,

and serious friends, as complex as cauliflowers

and as intricate as onions;

For friends as unpretentious as cabbages,

as subtle as summer squash,

as persistent as parsley,

as delightful as dill,

as endless as zucchini,

and who, like parsnips, can be counted on to see you throughout the winter;

For old friends, nodding like sunflowers in the evening-time,

and young friends coming on as fast as radishes,

For loving friends, who wind around us like tendrils and hold us,

despite our blights, wilts, and witherings;

And, finally, for those friends now gone,

like gardens past that have been harvested,

and who fed us in their times that we might have life here after they are gone;

For all these we give thanks.

Max Coots (adapted)

Opening Words:

For the sun and the dawn, which we did not create;

For the moon and the evening, which we did not make;

For food, which we plant, but cannot force to grow;

For friends and loved ones we have not earned, and cannot buy;

For this gathered company which welcomes us as we are from wherever we have come;

For all our free churches, that keep us human, and encourage us in our quest

for beauty, truth, and love;

For all things which come to us as gifts of being from sources beyond ourselves --

Gifts of life and love and friendship --

Let us lift up our hearts in gratitude,

And give thanks this day.

In token of which, we kindle this chalice;

May its light summon us to a more profound recognition of our mutual dependence,

And ever greater gratitude for the gift of life, and the opportunity to share it.