God in Government

Every so often, I hear about some incident that reaffirms my belief that church and state should remain separate. The case of the Saudi imam who raped, tortured, and murdered his five-year-old daughter but was freed after spending a short time in jail and paying "blood money" is a perfect, if extreme, example of why law and religion should not mix. Saudi Arabia doesn't have a legislature or constitution; its government relies solely on sharia to determine crime and punishment. Since sharia permits parents to kill their children, the courts decided that he could not be held in prison after paying restitution to the rest of his daughter's family.

I don't limit my opinion to Muslim law and countries: I firmly believe that all countries should keep religion out of their lawmaking as much as possible. This is not to say that governments should be unethical or immoral, because I think it's important to recognize that moral codes are found in not only in religions. I recently read a book by Brooke Allen entitled "Moral Minority" that explored the religious and philosophical beliefs of the American founding fathers, and Allen determined that many of our iconic founders were not the devout Christians they are so often made out to be.

The U.S. Constitution was written during the Great Enlightenment, and many of the representatives were well-educated freethinkers. This is not to say they weren't religious or practiced religion, but based on their personal and public writing Allen determined that their church dogma came second in their minds to the new science and philosophy developing in Europe and America. This is evident in the fact that delegates of the Constitutional Convention of 1787 agreed not to open the convention with a prayer, which was highly unusual for governmental bodies of the time. It is also notable that religion is mentioned only twice in the Constitution, in Article VI and the First Amendment, and both strictly limit the presence of religion in government and vice versa. Furthermore, the only mention of a deity is the phrases "Our Creator" and "Nature's God," which would appeal not just to Christians, but followers of all religions. 

Despite the very intentional absence of Jesus or God in the Constitution, many advocates of religion's presence in government point to religious mottoes placed on currency and in the Pledge of Allegiance. The answer to this is, simply, that the architects of our Constitution didn't invent or implement such mottoes. "In God We Trust," was placed on our currency after the Civil War, when remorse inspired a period of religious rebirth. The phrase "Under God," was added to the Pledge in the 1950's, during Sen. McCarthy's Communist witch hunts, when Americans were experiencing a sense of moral superiority to the rest of the world and feared the influence of new ideas.

Another point religious advocates make is that the American colonies were founded by Christian groups escaping persecution in England. It's true that some colonies were founded as communities for specific denominations, but not all were. Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina were founded as commercial enterprises, and Georgia was a penal colony for English criminals. These colonies, along with Maryland, Delaware and Rhode Island established the Anglican Church as their primary religion. Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Hampshire were founded by the Puritan Congregationalists, who were highly intolerant of other religious sects. Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Rhode Island had no established religious order; Rhode Island promised full rights to all Christians and Pennsylvania was considered a Holy Experiment and all Christians were invited to take part.

There was a great deal of religious intolerance in many of the colonies, especially between Anglicans and Congregationalists, and the Founding Fathers knew that it would be impossible to reach an agreement that established any denomination as the state religion. Even maintaining Christianity as the state religion would have been difficult, as each Christian sect declared certain other denominations non-Christian. To avoid this mess and the kind of great religious struggles that plagued European governments for centuries, the architects of the Constitution intentionally laid the groundwork for a religion-free government.

It is true that while the Constitution limits religion in government, it also protects it from government interference. However, many individuals have stretched the idea of religious freedom to include the ability to make laws based on religious dogma, and then cry "Discrimination!" when they are prevented from doing so. But preventing such laws to be passed is not discriminating against and particular religion, it is being fair to all religions by not allowing any single belief system to gain power in the government and thus power over the American people. We should be grateful for this, as the Founding Fathers were completely justified in their belief that religious struggles would continue to affect our country.

We can learn a lot from our Founding Fathers, and I plan to continue reading their writing and exploring their beliefs. Perhaps I will learn something that will change my mind, but I think the authors of the Constitution were incredibly far-sighted and attuned to the way our society would progress. Readers, what do you think of separation of church and state? Leave a comment or send me a personal message!