We
have a long tradition in America of Separation of Church and State
that prohibits government’s promotion of religion on the one hand, and
interference with its free exercise on the other. In their refusal to
establish a state church or to favor one religion over another, the
Founding Fathers didn’t think that religion was bad but that there was
something amiss in human nature, a certain tendency, a will to power and
a lust for domination, that always bore watching.
It was a virus
that lay dormant until its host came to power, whereupon that person or
group became suddenly rabid with a mania that sought to convert, punish
or persecute anyone not of their fold or persuasion. Paradoxically, the
guise under which this malady manifested itself, as the history of
Europe made only too plain, was religion.
The Founders thought
that religion, something good in itself, could be used toward either
good or bad ends, and, unless preventive measures were taken, could
induce in the susceptible a madness so malignant and vicious as to
destroy the very essence of religion itself. By persecuting whoever
refused to accept their religion or whose lives were deemed
insufficiently righteous, those in power could impose a religious
tyranny so suffocating in its grip, scope and intensity that one
involuntarily thinks of barbed wire and concentration camps.
Various
theories have tried to account for this bizarre aberration — the fall
of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, the ascent of man from beasts,
innate human depravity, the Freudian “id,” defective genes, or bad
social engineering. But more important than those theories themselves is
the lesson to be drawn from those institutions that promise heaven on
earth.
Given the weak human vessels in which this religious
feeling resides, even this noble sentiment could become tragically
twisted and unleash on the world unspeakable horror. Immanuel Kant’s
words come to mind when considering such would-be utopians and their
spiritual gulags: “Nothing was ever made straight with the crooked
timber of humanity.”
In government, the need for transparency,
accountability and investigative journalists — assuming they haven’t
been censored, banned, imprisoned or shot — is not a casual
suggestion, but the sine qua non for maintaining even a
pretense of institutional integrity. Human nature is self-contradictory
and prone to temptation, especially when the camera’s not running or the
press isn’t present. And, no matter the institution, it’s always wise
to audit the books — both the official ones and the real ones hidden in
the back-office safe.
Politicians, as the saying goes, "Campaign
in poetry but govern in prose," so that we had better distrust whatever
they’re saying and doing by an ironclad system of checks and balances,
fact-checking and vigilant oversight. As soon as they pass a law,
they’ll invite a lobbyist to insert a loophole, recalling Juvenal’s
admonition, “Who shall guard the guards themselves?”
Even religion
can be dragged in the mire by persecuting those of another faith or of
no faith at all until, weakened by torture, the unfortunates would end
their suffering by conversion or death. So, to prevent these abuses of
power as had occurred in Old Europe when Catholics persecuted
Protestants, Protestants persecuted Catholics, Protestants persecuted
other Protestants, and both Protestants and Catholics persecuted the
Jews, the Founders erected a “wall of separation” between Church and
State as a safeguard against such outrages.
They wanted to put an
end to intolerance, bigotry and sadism that wore the flattering garb of
religion and spoke in the sanctimonious accents of self-promotion. They
believed that what they were doing was ushering something new into this
world, novus ordo seclorum or “a new order of the ages” (see the back of a one-dollar bill).
America
was to be a radically new experiment in government which, like ancient
Athens itself, would show the world that free men had no need of princes
and kings, but could govern themselves. No wonder the royal courts of
Europe hoped this fledgling experiment wouldn’t succeed lest the
contagion of democracy spread to their people.
The Founders
refused to involve government in religion, religious quarrels or
animosities that for centuries had convulsed Europe’s political
landscape. Under stressful conditions, similar hostilities might also
threaten our newfound nation, already a powder keg of sectarian
tensions. Lending the power of the state to favor any one denomination
or religion over another could exacerbate those mutual suspicions still
further that might suggest the beginning of an established State Church.
A
wall of neutrality would keep government from pitting one church or
religion against another, a policy that had fanned the flames of
centuries-old hatreds. Every religion must therefore be allowed to
worship in its own way with neither interference nor support from the
state. Everyone must be protected from “religious enthusiasm,” as that
quaint 18th-century phrase understatedly put it. The only service
government could render religion was to stay out of its way as long as
one religion didn’t interfere with another.
This was an insight
only painfully arrived at after generations of bloodshed, as monarchs
imposed their religion on all their subjects (cuius regio, eius religio:
whose realm, his religion) to unify and transform their dominions into
virtual theocracies to facilitate rule. The Old World was replete with
examples of such murderous fury, as competing factions virtuously
butchered one another in the conviction that they were “doing God’s
will.” Intending to bring their countries together, kings only managed
to tear them apart.
The Founders were only too well acquainted
with this blood-drenched chronicle, and they resolved to keep such
hatreds far removed from our shores. History had taught them that
bringing religion into the public arena was to let loose a monster.
Still raw in their memory were the anti-Catholic Gordon riots of 1780
that only 11 years earlier had shocked all of Europe as parts of London
were left in flames. It was a vivid reminder, if any were needed, of the
deadly contagion of “enthusiasm.”
If Gordon had prevailed against
the British government, there was no telling whether the outcome would
have turned back the clock two centuries when Protestants murdered
Catholics only to be followed by Bloody Mary’s retaliation upon her
Protestant subjects. It would have been the same sad old tale of
religion’s debasement by score-settling, persecution, torture, and
death. Religion was nitroglycerin that had to be contained for
everyone’s safety.
So, the separation clause was added to the
Constitution as the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights. It was
imperative that government stay out of religion, neither encouraging nor
impeding its practice. It makes admirable sense since every religion or
even non-religion is thereby protected; every faith is of equal value
since government plays a neutral role — a neutral role, that is, except
when one religion or denomination harasses or persecutes another faith’s
members, who refuse to believe as that religion dictates. Government
then intervenes to protect the innocent.
This policy of separation
is still on the books, and with good reason: Human nature never
changes. There are still groups today whose agenda is converting and
persecuting, hating and perhaps even murdering those of other faiths,
denominations, or of no faith at all to save them from themselves and
the fiery furnace to come — unless these “lost souls” submit and “see
the light.”
Or, more exactly, “the light” by submitting to them
who claim to know the innermost secrets of God himself, as if the
Almighty were only the God of their particular denomination or faith
alone instead of the God of them all under different names!
What a
sorry little God he would be if he weren’t more open-minded than his
closed-minded children who insult him by their demeaning image of him
and use that caricature as their puppet who “reveals” to them alone what
he wants for their country or political party!
Whether such
proselytizing zeal is disguised aggression, megalomania, or repressed
self-doubt that feels both threatened and driven to convert others to
dispel that doubt, these are very dangerous people and should never be
part of government or have their theological views of the Second Coming
guide an administration’s foreign policy toward Israel and that
tinderbox of the Middle East.
And yet, unbeknownst to themselves,
these individuals render the nation an inestimable service by being a
constant reminder of the very reason for upholding this Separation of
Church and State. The Founding Fathers believed that religion was, and
must always remain, a private affair because bringing the volatility of
“religious enthusiasm” into the public arena would only trivialize
religion and destabilize a nation. They feared the political effects of
interdenominational feuding, the polarization caused by doctrinal
differences, the demonization of dissenters, and the eruption of
religious intolerance and hatred.
There was also a second reason
why the Founders feared religion in politics — the rise of religious
opportunists who would inflame political passions to promote themselves.
Religion would become in the hands of these charlatans a theatrical
performance and political tool to hypocritically showboat their “piety”
to manipulate voters for political gain.
An unscrupulous
politician could disguise his lack of convictions by holding his finger
to the wind to determine which way the wind was blowing and telling his
audience whatever he thought it wanted to hear. This individual well
understood the art of inciting “enthusiasm” or hysteria toward some plan
of action and call it “the Will of God.”
The Founders would have
blanched at politicians returning to their constituents and pandering
to their sincerely held religious convictions to gain a following or
court popularity — not that they couldn’t take part in religious
services as private citizens, but not as representatives of their
government lest people think they were lending the prestige of their
office to their particular church or religion.
These Founders also
knew their Bible, as it played such a pivotal role in their
18th-century world. They knew about
not playing the hypocrite by standing on the street corner and making a
public display of one’s piety, for one would have already received
one’s reward. Instead, one should withdraw to one’s room, close the
door, and in privacy pray to God as grandstanding didn’t count as prayer
with the Lord! As experienced men of the world, they knew only too well
how politicians might cynically abuse religion to seek power and votes.
They
were also highly educated, even erudite, men, especially Thomas
Jefferson, whose library contained a Who’s Who of “great authors,” one
of whom was the celebrated French playwright Moliere, author of
“Tartuffe,” the embodiment of religious hypocrisy. It is both an
uproarious romp into the glacial regions of inner emptiness, as well as a
manual for observing the bobbings and weavings of unctuous sanctimony
raised to high art.
In that great patrician school of Parisian
sophistication, it was thought that the only way to effect moral change
was never by sermons but by ridicule. Many don’t mind being considered a
scoundrel, but never a fool! Castigat ridendo mores (“Comedy corrects manners”) was the essence of Moliere’s art that skewered human folly by laughter alone.
This
caustic mockery of his characters and the gales of laughter that broke
forth from the audience were much more effective in pillorying vice than
sermons delivered from Notre Dame’s pulpit. Moliere, the French
Aristophanes, was and always has been a moral institution for the
French, who can laugh at themselves in his characters with no loss of
face.
Jefferson and his colleagues well understood that some
members of government might be tempted to play Tartuffe on the political
stage. One Tartuffe, or a group of them, could do untold harm to a
nation by using religion for political ends. To the educated, the 18th
century was an age of taste and decorum, moderation and dignity, and
everything had its proper place. Religion especially could never be
allowed to be vulgarized or cheapened by demagogues toying with people’s
religious emotions.
There would be no limit to their unbridled
ambition and religious hypocrisy in saying whatever would ingratiate
themselves to the favor and trust of an audience. So profound was their
cynical abuse of religion for being elected that they would wax
rhapsodic on the metaphysical subtleties of Hottentot theology if they
thought it would secure them a “leg-up” over their political rivals at
election time.
Our Founders felt that religion was something
sacred and should always remain so by being kept off-limits to political
wolves in sheep’s clothing.
https://www.commondreams.org/christian-nationalism-separation-of-church-and-state?xrs=RebelMouse_fb&ts=1674598351&fbclid=IwAR2nO4l7fKvQckvCIYchsuCbbtqJAghkc1rHIMVpzaISEm3UX_CGcrMG1bA
