On the Separation of Church and State
But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.
Matthew 6:5-6
On this page:
The First Amendment, Separation of Church and StateQuotes - there are quite a few:
In God we TrustPledge of Allegiance
Public School Prayer
The First Amendment:
Outside of the date at the end of the document which is stated as the "year of our Lord," which is a usage that is about as secularized as one could get, there is no reference to any God in the United States Constitution. Jefferson's letters from Paris clearly and strongly insisted on an amendment to the Constitution that would create, as he put it, a wall of separation between church and state. This would ensure both freedom of, and from, religion.Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof ...
The founders were well aware of the grave dangers of church/state entanglements. They were mainly from England, a country rife with oppressive religious laws. In Great Britain, those who were not members of the Church of England could not vote, hold office, buy or inherit land, practice law, or organize religious schools, among other things.
Although the church always had a strong influence in England, things changed for the worse when Henry VIII proclaimed his authority over the church with the divine right of kings (all this to get a divorce!), and muscled in on the racket with his own church. Those who refused to accept his authority, or the teachings of the Church of England, were executed. Jefferson in particular was all too aware of the dangers of mixing religion and politics, and took steps to prevent it.
The Declaration of Independence does indeed mention "Nature's God" and a "Creator." But those words are specifically the language of Deists of that era, not Christians. The inclusion of those words could be said to be a slap in the face of the British traditionalists, which would be very much in line with the overall tone of the document. However, the bottom line is that the Declaration is a letter to the British, and aside from the flowery introduction, it is basically a list of complaints. It does not strike me as odd that a letter to a country whose government is inseparable from its religion would contain such language. Communication with other countries, such as the Treaty with Tripoli mentioned below, make it clear that at minimum, the United States is not based on Christianity. Additionally, while the Declaration is an important document in a historical context, it is in no way the document that tells us how to run the country.
So what else do we know about how the founders felt about this whole God thing? "At the time of its Founding, the United States seemed to be an infertile ground for religion. Many of the nation's leaders - including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin - were not Christians, did not accept the authority of the Bible, and were hostile to organized religion. The attitude of the general public was one of apathy: in 1776, only 5 percent of the population were participating members of churches." [Ian Robertson, Sociology, 3rd editions, Worth Publishing Inc.: New York, 1987, page 410]
Our early leaders were products of that era's intellectual enlightenment, and were amazingly agnostic, especially considering that the work of scientists like Darwin was yet to come. As you will see below, Jefferson was a guy who said "question with boldness even the existence of a God." And based on one of the quotes, Washington was clearly okay with the idea of having atheists around. Do these sound like people who would have wanted things like "in God we trust" printed on our currency?
That to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical. - Bill for the establishment of religious freedom, State of Virginia, 1779.
No man can conform his faith to the dictates of another.
I cannot be saved by a worship I disbelieve and abhor.
I concur with you strictly in your opinion of the comparative merits of atheism and demonism, and really see nothing but the latter in the being worshipped by many who think themselves Christians. -Letter to Richard Price, January 8, 1789.
I know that Governor Morris ... has often told me that General Washington believed no more of that system [Christianity] than he himself did.
Certainly, no power to prescribe any religious exercise, or to assume authority in religious discipline, has been delegated to the General Government. -Letter to Samuel Miller, 1808.
A short time elapsed afer the death of the great reformer [Jesus] of the Jewish religion, before his principles were departed from by those who professed to be his special servants, and perverted into an engine for enslaving mankind, and aggrandizing their oppressors in Church and State. -Letter to Samuel Kercheval, 1810.
I never will, by any word or act, bow to the shrine of intolerance or admit a right of inquiry into the religious opinion of others. - Letter to Edward Dowse, 1803
[Jefferson also refers to religion as opinion in his letter to the Danbury Baptists]
In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own." -Letter to Horatio G. Spafford, 1814.
A professorship of Theology should have no place in our institution [the University of Virginia].
And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter.
[The book of Revelation] is merely the ravings of a maniac, no more worthy, nor capable of explanation than the incoherences of our nightly dreams.
But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg. - Notes on Virginia, 1782.
Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half the world fools and the other half hypocrites. - Notes on Virginia, 1782.
Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because if there be one he must approve of the homage of reason more than that of blindfolded fear. - Letter to Peter Carr, August 10, 1787
The whole history of these books [the Gospels] is so defective and doubtful that it seems vain to attempt minute enquiry into it: and such tricks have been played with their text, and with the texts of other books relating to them, that we have a right, from that cause, to entertain much doubt what parts of them are genuine. - Letter to John Adams, January 24, 1814
If we did a good act merely from love of God and a belief that it is pleasing to Him, whence arises the morality of the Atheist? ...Their virtue, then, must have had some other foundation than the love of God. - Letter to Thomas Law, June 13, 1814
I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the world, and do not find in our particular superstition (Christianity) one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology. - Letter to Dr. Woods
The clergy, by getting themselves established by law and ingrafted into the machine of government, have been a very formidable engine against the civil and religious rights of man. -Letter to Jeremiah Moor, 1800.
Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise, every expanded prospect.
Religion and government will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together.
Let the human mind loose ... superstition and dogmatism cannot confine it.
Resolve that not one dollar of money shall be appropriated to the support of any sectarian school.
I would suggest the taxation of all property equally, whether church or corporation.
The divorce between Church and State ought to be absolute. ... for if you exempt the property of any church organization, to that extent you impose a tax upon the whole community.
The Bible is not my book, and Christianity is not my religion. I could never give assent to the long, complicated statements of Christian dogma.
I knew Lincoln as early as 1834-7; knew he was an Infidel [non-believer]. He and W. D. Herndon used to talk Infidelity in the Clerk's office in this city, about the years of 1837-40. Lincoln attacked the Bible and the New Testament on two grounds: first from the inherent or apparent contradictions under its
lids; second, from the grounds of reason. Sometimes he ridiculed the Bible and the New Testament, sometimes seemed to scoff at it, though I shall not use the word in its full and literal sense. I never heard that Lincoln changed his views, though his personal and political friend from 1834 to
1860. Sometimes Lincoln bordered on Atheism. He went far that way and shocked me.
I am approached with the most opposite opinions and advice, and by religious men who are certain they represent the Divine will. ... I hope it will not be irreverent in me to say, that if it be probable
that God would reveal his will to others, on a point so connected with my duty, it might be supposed he would reveal it directly to me.
I am for liberty of conscience in its noblest, broadest, and highest sense. But I cannot give liberty of conscience to the pope and his followers, the papists, so long as they tell me, through all their councils, theologians, and canon laws that their conscience orders them to burn my wife, strangle
my children, and cut my throat when they find their opportunity.
'I am not a Christian - God knows I would be one - but I have carefully read the Bible, and I do not understand this book'; and he drew from his bosom a pocket New Testament. 'These men well know,' he continued, 'that I am for freedom in the territories, freedom everywhere as far as the Constitution
and the laws will permit, and that my opponents are for slavery. they know this, and yet, with this book in their hands, in the light of which human bondage cannot live a moment, they are going to vote against me. I do not understand it at all.'
To discriminate against a thoroughly upright citizen because he belongs to some particular church, or because, like Abraham Lincoln, he has not avowed his allegiance to any church, is an outrage against that liberty of conscience which is one of the foundations of American life.
I believe in an America where the separation of Church and State is absolute.
I think the government should stay out of the prayer business.
Lighthouses are more helpful than churches.
The whole religious complexion of the modern world is due to the absence from Jerusalem of a lunatic asylum.
I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church.
All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish [Muslim], appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.
Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of a demon, than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness, that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind.
Take away from Genesis the belief that Moses was the author, on which only the strange belief that it is the word of God has stood, and there remains nothing of Genesis but an anonymous book of stories, absurdities, or of downright lies.
I do not believe that any type of religion should ever be introduced into the public schools of the United States.
In 1861, Reverend M.R. Watkinson pushed the secretary of the Treasury to introduce "In God We Trust" as a motto on coins. Fear and religious sentiment during the Civil War (no doubt in addition to Congress' awareness of the increasing size of the religious voting population) led to "In God we Trust" being added to our coinage.
Even scarier was a movement at that time to change the preamble of the Constitution. A group of eleven protestant denominations calling themselves the National Reform Association petitioned for the following as the introduction to our most important document: "We, the people of the United States, humbly acknowledging Almighty God as the source of all authority and power in civil government, the Lord Jesus Christ as the Ruler among the nations, His revealed will as the supreme law of the land, in order to constitute a Christian government..." Thankfully, that movement, a direct affront to everything that Thomas Jefferson and the Bill of Rights stood for, failed.
Then Senator Joe McCarthy came along. Back in the fifties, this power hungry maniac accused high ranking government officials of subversive communist activities. This eventually led to something of a national paranoia and sparked division along racial and ethnic lines. One of the results of this era was that the phrase "In God We Trust" was added to our paper currency as well. During the height of Cold War tension, other laws that forced religion on the population were enacted, including a statute for all federal justices and judges to swear an oath concluding with "So help me God."
McCarthy was accused of seeking special privileges for a consultant of his senate committee. He was cleared of charges and his influence began to wane, but we are left with his legacy.
All these little introductions of God into are government are not harmless. To many lay people, they are proof that our nation is Christian. In fact, justices have begun to cite these very things in court as evidence of a "civic religion" or that these sayings are of a secular nature.
This was the debut for the pledge, written by Bellamy. The original draft had considered using some additional words such as "equality" but because of the sentiment of the time (i.e. blacks and women could not vote) this was left out. Bellamy later commented that the Pledge campaign was probably the first to combine modern public relations and publicity techniques with national advertising.
The original Pledge was performed with a raised and extended right arm. This was changed during WWII due to its obvious similarity to the Nazi "seig heil." Additionally, the words "my flag" were changed to "the flag of the United States of America," so that young immigrants could not pretend they were pledging to the flag of their fatherland.
In 1954 the country was in the midst of McCarthyism and the era known as "the Great Fear." With the prevailing fear of communism, the Hearst newspapers (again the power of press) pushed to have the phrase "under God" added to the Pledge. The Knights of Columbus (an Irish-American Catholic organization) and others joined the campaign which led to approval by Congress and President Eisenhower.
It is mind boggling to me that this is the actual history of the pledge, apparently created for capitalistic, political, religious and propaganda reasons.
Even aside from the "under God" controversy and the embarrassing omission of "equality," I find the whole idea of it rather strange. Perhaps it's a nice sentiment and kind of okay to do once in a while, but what is the deal with having little children repeat this by rote, every single day they go to school? This doesn't make sense to me. You have little kids who can scarcely pronounce or spell "indivisible", much less understand what it means.
It just seems like propaganda to me. It is almost exclusively performed by school children. Outside of a few groups like the American Legion, and yes, the Ku Klux Klan, it is virtually never performed by adults. It appears to be almost exclusively for the indoctrination of young minds. I just don't get it. Is the phrase "under God" somehow supposed to magically innoculate us against Communism? Is the changing of the words from "my flag" to "the flag of the United States of America" somehow going to change someone's alliance if they are from some other country?
I personally have memories of doing the pledge as a child. I ought to, as I performed it in excess of one thousand times before I moved on to private school. I can remember exactly how we said it, the cadence, everything. This was not something said with great enthusiasm and meaning. It was performed like a job, like a chore you had to do before you could actually get to the real business of learning. Kind of a mindless, bored, "let's get it over with" singsong repetition. I see the founders as being great promoters of freedom and free thought, and I just can't imagine in any way that they would want for us this kind of mindless recitation.
2002 update: The responses to the 9th Circuit Court of appeals declaring the Pledge unconstitutional because of the "under God" phrase have been entirely knee-jerk and unreasoned. Senator Robert Byrd threatened that he would blackball any judges declaring the Pledge unconstitutional. Senator Trent Lott said, "This is obviously an unbelievable decision, as far as I am concerned, and an incorrect ruling and a stupid ruling." Senator Tom Daschle said, "This decision is nuts." No reasons, no discussion of the first amendment, nothing.
* A couple of good sources for this material are at the ACLU and this Martha's Vineyard historical site.
If you've gotten this far, I hope you agree with me that the words of the Constitution, combined with the words of the founding fathers, make it abundantly clear that religion has absolutely no place in our government. And with respect to the topic at hand, I might mention in passing that the power to create a Board of Education is not mentioned in the Constitution and so such a creation would fall to state or local government according to the 10th Amendment. But let's forget about that for a moment. Here's the problem as I see it - with respect to public school prayer, just whose prayer are we talking about?
Do we start with the Krishnas, the Buddhists, or the Sufis? Or maybe the Taoists, or something from the Kabbala? Maybe Tuesday through Friday should be reserved for the Norse gods for which they are named. Maybe a little salutation to Ra, Isis and Osiris? How about celebrating the rich pantheon of Hinduism - Shiva, Vishnu, Brahma, Hanuman, Ganesh, and others. How about digging up something about Zeus or Zoroaster? Or maybe something from the Native Americans, or something Wiccan, or Celtic-Pagan? How about the Atheists? Or the Satanists, how would you like that for your kids? Or the New Age "cult of the month?"
Oh, but you just want Christian prayer? Come on, what is government sanctioned religious preference but religious prejudice? Since religion tends to be a strongly cultural phenomenon, what we're really talking about is racial and ethnic prejudice. Them versus us. And we know (go back and read the quotes) that the early founders were not even orthodox Christians. Some didn't identify with any religion.
I'm strongly in favor of people doing what they please at home, or at a privately funded school. However, if tax dollars are paying for it, the Constitution rules.
Quotes
Some of the following is from Quotations that Support the Separation of State and Church, copyright 1995, Edward M. and Michael E. Buckner and the Atlanta Freethought Society, P.O. Box 813392, Smyrna, GA 30081-3392. Other quotes are from Salvation for Sale, by Gerard Thomas Straub, or miscellaneous sources.
Treaties and State Consitutions
The United States is not in any sense founded upon the Christian Religion.
No person within the said colony ... shall be any ways molested, punished, disquieted, or called in question for any differences in opinion in matters of religion.
No one religious society shall ever be established in this state in preference to another.
Thomas Jefferson
Jefferson's words should be particularly important to us because his mind is the source of the idea behind the first amendment and in any question of interpretation of the first amendment we should look to his words to determine the intent. In Virginia he wrote a bill for religious freedom and later pushed for the bill of rights in the U.S. Constitution. Madison penned the first concise version of the first amendment based on Jefferson's ideas.
... 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. -Letter to the Danbury Baptists, 1802.
Other Presidents
If they are good workmen, they may be of Asia, Africa, or Europe. They may be Mahometans [sic], Jews, or Christians of any sect, or they may be Athiests [sic].
[Unfortunately, we've come a long way since then. Contrast Washington's quote with that of George H.W. Bush from the 1987 Presidential campaign, who seemed to have confused the Pledge of Allegiance with the Constitution: "No, I don't know that Atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered as patriots. This is one nation under God."]
The blessed Religion revealed in the word of God will remain an eternal and awful monument to prove that the best Institutions may be abused by human depravity; and that they may even, in some instances, be made subservient to the vilest of purposes.
Other Prominent Folk
As to Jesus ... I have ... some doubts about his divinity.
In God we Trust
Our currency once carried only the noble inscription, "e pluribus unum" (suggested by Thomas Jefferson). From many, one. A worthy statement of unity and equality for a nation described as a melting pot of people from many different races and backgrounds who came to live together in freedom.
The Pledge of Allegiance
In 1888 the most popular magazine in the country, directed towards a readership of family and children, began something of a secondary business, promoting the idea of displaying American flags in public schools and, as it turns out, selling the flags as a promotional item. In 1891, with the 400th anniversary of the Columbus' discovery of America approaching, the owner of the magazine saw this as an opportunity to further promote flag use in school. He hired Francis Bellamy, a christian socialist, and together they got the National Education Association involved as sponsors of a Columbus Day celebration of the the flag. By mid 1892 they had gotten Congress and President Harrison on board for an official proclamation making this public school flag ceremony the center of the national Columbus Day celebration for 1892. It is perhaps notable that 1892 was an election year, Harrison was up for re-election, and "Youth's Companion" was the number one selling magazine in the country.
About Public School Prayer
Adolf Hitler, April 26, 1933
Superintendent Chalmers, "The Simpsons"