Separation of Church and State — The American Legacy

Why is there no mention of or use of the words "Jesus Christ" or “Christian” in our founding documents? It must be that some of these men did not believe in Jesus. When you look at the religious life of the nation from 1630-1779, no matter what else, the nation was Biblical and Christian. During this period was the first of the “Great Awakenings,” which elevated Biblical preaching to great heights. There's no possibility that if the founding fathers wished people to consider this a Christian nation, they could easily have included same statements in the founding documents. Yet ... there are no such statements.

There is some evidence that some of the signers were Christians, including Charles Carroll, whose brother was the first Catholic Bishop of the country. Adams, Jefferson and Franklin, who had the most input into the Declaration were Freemasons or Deists.

One of the fundamental reasons for this lack of definition of Christianity in the founding documents is the support this religion provided for the concept of the "Divine Right of Kings/Queens." As we can contrast the notion of the Divine being the source (not of King's Rights) but of individual rights as stated in the Declaration, we can assert the opposition to this Christian ruling dogma and the affirmation of the Enlightenment view of prominence of individuals vs. government or religion.

In proposing the first 10 amendments to the constitution, it is not by chance that the first issue deals with the fact that government is not to favor any religion. The government is to be neutral in the matters of religion, neither advancing nor deprecating any of them. In some ways we can look to Jesus as a proponent of this separation when he tells his disciples to provide to Caesar that which is Caesar’s and to God that which is God’s. These two entities are not to be entangled with one another, in other words.

Keeping this separation has required much effort by the nation. For many years prior to the 1950’s saying the “Our Father” in public school classrooms proceeded the Pledge of Allegiance. By the time I was in public schools in 1968, the procedure had changed to observing a moment of silence, removing the utterance of any particular prayer. After more protests by opposition to state sponsorship of school prayer, it became necessary to remove the moment of silence as enforcing religion on non-believers. Why would a non-believer need a moment of silence since s/he had nothing to reflect upon religiously?

To this day, there are religious people, generally Christians, who are aggrieved by this removal of prayer from schools. Why is this? There is a belief on their part, one that is patently untrue, that the founding Fathers would approve of said prayers. Although many public assemblies, such as the US Congress begin their sessions with prayers, these have been reduced to the least common denominator to include the baseline beliefs of many religions.

There is a desire by many Christians to assert that the alleged devolution of American morality is caused in a significant way by the nation’s “turning away from [the Christian] God.” The people of the nation can possibly be accused of not praying as much as they used to, a claim difficult to assess. Yet, the government administers the nation. It is not the nation per se. Thus by the government not supporting prayer in public schools and other such gatherings, has no effect on the prayer lives of its people.

In many ways, the leadership of the government demonstrates by example or personal invocation of such statements like “and may God bless the USA,” their own approbation of praying for such blessings. Although I have some personal objection to the use of this terminology, the people of the nation cannot say that the nation’s leaders are dragging them down the primrose path of idolatry.

The problem that some Christians have is that they believe that their religions are superior to other religions, in some cases superior to other Christian religions. Some can argue these points, but will not attain agreement among the Muslims, Jews, Wiccan, Hindu, Latter Day Saints, Buddhist and other religions. There’s no evidence for their claims except from the leaders of these separate religions as to who has the keys to heaven/nirvana.

Rather than continuing to push for the government to support religions, the people of the USA ought to rejoice collectively in the Founding Father’s and later Supreme Court decisions which have strengthened this separate of religion and government. This is indeed part of our legacy to the world.