Defining Our Terms For Peace With The progressives
 

An American Freedomist

If you wish to add your list of grievances, based on a specific article or amendment, please post it at http://freedomist.org

Billl Collier

An American Freedomist

Why Even Rightwing Christians Should Be For Separation of Church and State

In 1636 John Cotton, a Puritan apologist, stated in a simple phrase what we can now recognize as the beginning of the idea of “separation of church and state.” Cotton said, “God’s institutions (such as government of church and of commonwealth be) may be close and compact , and co ordinate one to another, and yet not confounded….no man fashioneth his house to his hangings, but his hangings to his house. It is better that the commonwealth be fashioned to the setting forth of God’s house, which is his church, than to accommodate the church frame to the civil state.”

Thomas Jefferson, in his famous letter to the Danbury Baptists, asserts that where it is established that Congress shall make no law establishing a religion this is to be understood as a “wall of separation” between church and state, with the object being to preserve the sanctity both of individual conscience and of the rights of individuals to assemble and worship as they choose to worship. His letter was in response to concerns by this congregation over what they saw as state interference in their rights of worship, and clearly Jefferson was on the side of the church, not the state.

Neither the content of the letter from the Danbury Baptists nor Jefferson’s brief response went beyond the basic question, which was, could the state interfere with the functions of the church. Jefferson sets a standard in his response which is truly informative: he says that “the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions.” If then we include within the purview of “separation of church and state” and these legitimate actions of government, we find that government cannot interfere with religion, and nor can any religious sect use government’s power as a means of suppressing other sects or groups: the government has powers that relate to ACTIONS, not to opinions, and cannot establish a program by which one opinion, in this case the issue was religious opinion, to the disadvantage of other opinions and, especially, it could not interfere with the internal workings of the church.

The Bill of Rights, as to their intent, were written in response to an outcry for a defense of INDIVUDAL RIGHTS and local rights as against the power of the Federal Government. If the Federalists had their way with the Constitution, the Anti-Federalists sought to hem that new power in with the Bill of Rights. The object, the subject, the intent, and the focus of these Amendments was to clearly establish a “wall of separation” not only between church and state, to protect individuals and churches from the state interfering in such matters, but between the individual and the state as well. The “wall of separation” was meant to answer the anti-Federalist’s objection to the possible abuses of power they feared would occur by hemming in the federal power through means of a Bill of Rights which would keep the Federal government OUT OF the individual’s private life as much as possible.

In the day when this was written, almost nobody was a professed atheist or agnostic and religion itself was the prime engine of discourse in terms of opinions, indeed the pulpit was as much a font of spiritual wisdom as it was of political opinion. While most people focus on JUST the religious aspect here, remember the 1^st amendment did not just cover religious freedom, it covered free speech in general. The idea of “separation of church and state” as a means of limiting the power of the state over the church and preventing the government from compelling people to adhere to or follow a belief or an opinion, can be logically extended to religious belief, ideological belief, philosophical belief, and the like.

The Federal government cannot interfere in private associations of individuals in their pursuit and practice of their own opinions, it can regulate “actions”, which are matters of prohibiting this or that, requiring this or that, so long as in so doing it does not interfere with the church, does not favor one opinion over others, and does not suppress any other opinion which is a matter of individual conscience. The government CAN suppress certain acts which the electorate deems to be hazardous to the common good or it can require certain acts which the electorate deems to be positive or necessary for the common good, but it cannot regulate the private associations, or churches and what have you, that practice their BELIEFS according to their conscience.

The Democratic Party has gained almost total and quasi-official control over the primary agencies of societal development, namely the shaping of opinion by controlling the flow of information, and its church-like adherence to a set of OPINIONS which it holds as fanatically and absolutely as any religious person. This new form of “agnocracy”, in which a sort of idealist agnosticism is the new state religion, is enforced by the use of that Party of its powers within it’s Press, it’s entertainment media, it’s union-controlled (as opposed to parent controlled) schools, its state controlled colleges and universities, its Party dominated “Bar Associations” (for lawyers) and Law Schools, its Party Controlled Courts, and its deep entrenchment by Democratic Fundamentalists who brook no disagreement with the Party’s “theology” within every government agency, and its political control over many of the offices of the government at all levels.

The “Agnology” (the doctrines of their agnostic idealism) of the Democratic Party has been slowly promoted by the state, as much as its fanatical adherents can gain control over the state, as if it is the only opinion, or even just the best opinion, to the exclusion, and outright illegal suppression, of all others. The willful discrimination against individuals who do not adhere to the new state religion of the Democratic Party in the areas of education, the media, entertainment, and government agencies is a civil rights crime that must be seen in its proper light as the greatest crime within America in the whole of the 20^th century and now into the 21^st century.

The establishment of a wall of separation between the OPINIONS of the people in their convictions, which are to be expressed publicly and practiced privately in free association one with another, has been broken down. The Church of the Democratic Party, which disguises its religious nature, even if that “religion” has a cosmology and a moral ethic that is godless, is well on the way to becoming the State Church of the Federal Government, and of many State Governments. The OPINIONS of that church are now treated as absolute truths and the rights of churches, to be free in their own internal affairs from all government interference, as for instance suppressing the political opinions of pastors and preachers when they do not adhere to the State Religion of the Democratic Party Church, are being violated every day.

It is true that churches, indeed all individuals and all free associations of individuals, can benefit from a strict enforcement of the doctrine of separation of church and state. This would end the suppressing of political speech over the pulpit, this would end the attempts by the government to provide social and other assurance services where churches and free associations are quite capable of doing so, this would require full disclosure by the Democratic Press of their partisan bias and require that they either stop advertising themselves as news media or submit to a full-scale civil rights investigation into their discriminatory hiring practices and policies, and this would require that every law or regulation that is based on OPINION be examined and repealed if that OPINION is not based on FACTS and consented to by the People.

This article may be reprinted so long as this link is included:

Bill Collier- http://www.freedomist.org

NEWSTWEETERS.COM

Bill Collier

 RSS Subscribe         Join Our Community         Freedom Network         Radio         Follow Our Tweets

This article may be reprinted freely as long as this link is included