Religious Liberty & Church/State Separation

Brother Robert, your post of 2/11/03, 8:38pm was very, very well said. It is encouraging to me to know that the defense of this historic doctrine is not my fight alone. I appreciate all my brothers in here who hold to these principles, but you certainly crystallized the emotion, the passion and the concept well. It shows the close relationship that this distinctive has to soul liberty.

Kudos.

 

How is this any different than the National Day of Prayer, I ask?

BTW, I think this is great.

 

The First Amendment was never intended to grant complete freedom to any religion except Protestant Christianity. Indeed, one french historian said the real founding father of the United States was John Calvin.

Catholicism certainly had to be restrained from burning heretics, and Islam must be restrained from drawing the blood of infidels. Neither could we let Mormonism in its initial stages go un-checked. It was the state militia that drove them from Independence, Missouri in the 1840's.

These are just a few examples of why a pluralistic society is unworkable. A pluralistic society is merely a society in transition from one set of values to another. Despite all the rhetoric, the United States is not a pluralistic society. It transformed from a Christian society to a secular society where secularism is given free expression and all forms of religion are kept in check.

 

The First Amendment was never intended to grant complete freedom to any religion except Protestant Christianity.

That just ain't so. The First Amendment was intended to grant freedom to people of all faiths. At the time the Constitution was penned, there were already a significant number of non-protestant folks, including Catholics, Greek Orthodox, Jews, Muslims, and several eastern religions like Buddhists. Had it been the intent of the framers to exclude these folks, they First Amendment would have been worded differently.

The intent was to prevent the creeping in of an official or national religion, like the Church of England, for example.

 

Check your baptist distinctives. Part of being Baptist is adherence to separation of church & state. It's as much a part of being a Baptist as immersion. The Baptist distinctives are not optional for the Baptist.

There are days where I feel like I'm the only one who takes my denominational affiliation seriously

 

Government should be so fixed, that Pagans, Turks, Jews and Christians, should be equally protected in their rights

I respectfully agree with this statement as it may have been intended. I doubt he meant that Jews should be allowed to stone adulterers or disobedient children.

So, you see, the prevailing application of God's law must be in accord with the Protestant Christian interpretation, or else be abridged by the state. Utah would have never gained state status had they kept polygamy legal.

My point is, that the way we look at the First Amendment today is not as it was intended to be seen. When the Bill of Rights was ratified, 12 of the 13 colonies had state churches, but not a state church as it existed in England. And when the Constitution became effective, none of those states governments dissolved their union with the churches.

I'll have to brush up on my American Government (it's been nearly 20 years) but I'm sure that the Bill of Rights was never intended to limit the state governments, but only the national government, and even then was only to say their could be no national church. The government was free to promote religion. I think it was the Everson vs New Jersey case (1947). The public schools bussed the kids to the local churches for religious observances. Everson objected and the first time in history the First Amendment began to be applied to the states and local governments. I believe this was also when the religion clause of the that amendment began to be interpreted to mean that government could not promote religion.

 

http://www.tjhsst.edu/~xke/legis.html

Had a moment to do a quick internet search. It was Everson vs Board of Education. There is a short history of the public schools and religion. It pretty much supports what I said above.

 

Moving on topic....

What about the Mayflower Compact, then???

Nothing in this about Jews, Turks, Indians, Hindus, wiccans, or anybody else but the Glory of God and Christian faith. Period. That was the intent & purpose for establishing this colony. A "missionary" colony.

 

The Mayflower Compact is not a part of the US system of laws. It was replaced by the Articles of Confederation, by the Massachusets State Constitution, and then in 1791 by the US Constitution.

The Mayflower Compact was authorized by the 101 Puritans who landed at Plymouth, Mass, in 1620. It did NOT adhere to the English colonists of Jamestown, VA that came to the US in 1607, or the Dutch colonists that came to Jamestown in 1619 (eventually moving to New Amsterdam in 1626). While the Dutch lost their colony to the English (hence, the territory of New Netherlands became the colony of New York), the Dutch Reformed Church, established in 1628, remained the leading authoritative body until New York adopted a secular Constitution.

The distinctives that we are required to adhere to as members of Baptist congregations have nothing to do with the Mayflower Compact (a Puritan-originated document). Unfortunately, it was the authority of the Mayflower Compact that gave the theocratic government of Mass. authority to conduct the Salem Witch Trials of 1692, in which 150 persons were arrested and 20 people were executed for the crime of witchery.

 

Just to let you know, rl, I'm doing an internet search on Leland.

 

My point is, that the way we look at the First Amendment today is not as it was intended to be seen. When the Bill of Rights was ratified, 12 of the 13 colonies had state churches, but not a state church as it existed in England. And when the Constitution became effective, none of those states governments dissolved their union with the churches.

That is true when the constitution was ratified. That was in 1788. The national government did not adopt a national religion, but many feared they would. So, for this ano other reasons, the Bill of rights (the first ten amendments) were written. The Bill of Rights was ratified in 1791, thus making the first Amendment a part of the Superme Law of the Land. The First Amendment not only meant that the federal government could not respect an official religion, but that all lower governments (state, local, etc) could not do so as well.

 

Leland's remarks are, I assume, what he considered Biblically correct, and yet he lobbied for that Biblical principle to be written into the laws of this nation.

So not even Leland saw the separation of church and state as some here have expressed it.

Leland actually agrees more with me than with many of you!

 

That is simply not true, John, as the long history and practice until 1947 proves.

 

I agree there was a variety of groups in the United States when the Constitution was ratified. However, I don't think there was a significant number of muslims or buddhists or even Jews in 18th century America. Their rights should still be protected. But to say they had a significant number is being politically correct.