McCulloch wrote:It has been asserted by various Christians that there is no Separation of Church and State in the Constitution of the USA. The Supreme Court of the USA, who's job it is to authoritatively interpret the constitution, has ruled that there is separation of Church and State in the constitution.
At issue, I think is the interpretation of
Amendment I of the Constitution which states
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.
Here is a document,
FIRST AMENDMENT RELIGION AND EXPRESSION from the US government's
Constitutional information web site which provides more detail on this issue.
Not until the Supreme Court held the religion clauses applicable to the states in the 1940s did it have much opportunity to interpret them. But it quickly gave them a broad construction. In Everson v. Board of Education, the Court, without dissent on this point, declared that the Establishment Clause forbids not only practices that ‘‘aid one religion’’ or ‘‘prefer one religion over another,’’ but also those that ‘‘aid all religions.’’
It is interesting to note that the Court had no dissent on this point.
In 1802, President Jefferson wrote a letter to a group of Baptists in Danbury, Connecticut, in which he declared that it was the purpose of the First Amendment to build ‘‘a wall of separation between Church and State.’’ In Reynolds v. United States, 18 Chief Justice Waite for the Court characterized the phrase as ‘‘almost an authoritative declaration of the scope and effect of the amendment.’’ In its first encounters with religion-based challenges to state programs, the Court looked to Jefferson’s metaphor for substantial guidance.
Questions for debate:
- Have the constitutional experts been misleading us all along and the separation of Church and State is not supported by the US constitution?
- Is separation of Church and State a good thing? Should modern states establish religion? Should modern religious organizations exercise political power?
From a
liberal Christian organization:
*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."
*The Treaty of Tripoli, signed by Founding Father President John Adams and unanimously approved by the Senate in 1797, stated, "The Government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion."
*In Federalist No. 10, James Madison warns how faction can “…kindle (their) unfriendly passions and excite their most violent conflicts.” Madison also describes how “A religious sect may degenerate into a political faction…”
*In Federalist No. 52, Madison reminds us that our Constitution has no religious qualification for public office in that, “…the door of this part of the federal government is open to merit of every description… and without regard to poverty or wealth, or to any particular profession of religious faith.”
But here's what I wonder:
*Jefferson was in France when the Bill of Rights were written, adopted, and ratified. It would be a very difficult argument to make that he influenced the Bill of Rights.
*9 of the 13 colonies had official state churches after the First Amendment were ratified. They collected and levied taxes to support these churches.
*The US Congress prayed to God before every session. They still do.
*In 1796, in
Runkel v Winemiller, Chief Justice Samuel Chase wrote "By our form of government, the Christian religion is the established religion."
*Justice Joseph Story, appointed by Madison, the author of the Bill of Rights, to the Supreme Court wrote, "The real object of the First Amendment was not to countenance, much less to advance Mohammedanism, or Judaism, or infidelity, by prostrating Christianity, but to exclude all rivalry among Christian sects and to prevent any national ecclesiastical patronage of the national government".
*In 1890, in
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints v United States, the Supreme Court ruled, "These, and many other matters which might be noticed, add a volume of unofficial declarations to the mass of organic utterances that this is a Christian Nation."
It seems to me that the Separation of Church and State, as it is understood today, is largely a 20th century phenomenom. I tend to agree with Justice Story that the purpose of the First Amendment was to prevent any "ecclesiastical patronage" by the federal government.
To answer your last three questions, I'd say separation of Church and State is a very good thing, modern states should not establish religion, and modern religious organizations should not exhibit political power.
However, there are two sides to this coin: I think it is ridiculous to think that the First Amendment means that Congress should not pray to God, that it means that government and religion were meant to stay separated, or that we cannot put "In God We Trust" on our coinage. Such things do not violate the intended principle of ecclesiastical patronage by our government.
