Brady Henderson (legal director of the ACLU of Oklahoma) would have us “keep beliefs free from government” and defends the work of the American Civil Liberties Union by claiming it must protect “…the simple but critical right of each to make his/her own choices in matters of faith or creed.” Henderson tells us that,
…we should be more wary than ever when local leaders now tell us that more government is the solution to what ails our churches, faith communities, or souls. Yet that is exactly what they are doing. The Ten Commandments monument at the state Capitol now literally and explicitly tells Oklahomans what is and is not to be worshiped and believed. The ‘Merry Christmas Bill’ seeks to enshrine government – not pastors, churches, or people of faith – as an exclusive protector of the spirit and meaning of Christmas. [Henderson, Tulsa World, p. A-19.]
Religious freedom was guaranteed by the First Amendment. When the machinery of government is used to protect those Constitutionally given freedoms, Henderson and the ACLU cry foul and claim that government shouldn’t interfere in issues of faith. In reality, it is government through legislation and the courts that is undermining the very religious freedoms they claim to protect. Put another way, Henderson’s assertion that we must keep our religious beliefs free from government interference is in direct conflict with his and the ACLU’s use of government to constrain expression of those religious beliefs in the public square. Driving beliefs from the public square does not enhance but destroys religious freedom in the name of some rapacious and undefined egalitarian ideal.
Choice in matters of faith or creed is an important component of our nation’s founding, but it is the incorrect interpretation of the meaning of religious freedom and the enforcement of this false understanding that does the real violence to religious freedom in 21st century America. This misinterpretation of the meaning of religious freedom occurs with regard to both our founding principles and to the requirements necessary for American culture to survive.
The United States was founded on Christian principles and was not created as a belief-free government or a government of over-reach in attempting to equalize expressions of religious faith in the public square. The overarching moral suasion of Christian principles under which our nation was founded made possible religious freedom for all faiths. Such moral suasion of Christian principles in government is not coercive to religious freedom as the ACLU would have us believe. Rather, it provided the nation with a central vision and resulted in stability and unity by working through the individual as he voluntarily chooses the manner in which he orders his soul. [Johnson, p. 224.]
This was the attitude of the Founders as evidenced by the words of Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story (appointed by James Madison, fourth President and Father of the American Constitution).
The real object of the [First A]memdment was not to countenance, much less advance Mohometanism, or Judaism, or infidelity by prostrating Christianity; but to exclude all rivalry among Christian sects (denominations) and to prevent any national ecclesiastical establishment which should give to a hierarchy (a denominational council) the exclusive patronage of the national government.” [Federer, p. 575.]
To confirm the existence of this strong religious sanction that still held sway over the nation forty years after the Constitutional Convention, we look to the words of Alexis De Tocqueville’s 1831 Democracy in America, one of the most influential political texts ever written about America. “Americans so completely identify the spirit of Christianity with freedom in their minds that it is almost impossible to get them to conceive the one without the other…” [Tocqueville, p. 343.] Tocqueville went on to say that the peaceful influence exercised by religion over the nation was due to separation of church and state. [Tocqueville. P. 345.] But unlike the modernists’ definition of the separation of church and state, Tocqueville’s separation was a separation of the spheres of power and not a separation of government from ethics and moral guidance supplied by the moral suasion of Christianity.
Henderson’s second misinterpretation of religious freedom in America regards the requirements of an enduring culture. Rather than a culture whose government is made barren of religious influence, a sustainable culture requires unity that may be attained only by a single central cultural vision. The very foundation of the cultural concept is unity that assumes a general commonality of thought and action, that is, to be informed by ethics and moral guidance. John Quincy Adams unequivocally identified America’s source for that moral guidance.
The highest glory of the American Revolution was this; it connected in one indissoluble bond the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity…From the day of the Declaration…they (the American people), were bound by the laws of God, which they all, and by the laws of their Gospel, which they nearly all, acknowledge as the rules of conduct.” [Federer, p. 18.]
For a culture to survive, its government must not stand in opposition to its central cultural vision or to attempt to meld together or comingle multiple cultures into one culture with multiple centers of vision. To do so is to create a powerless culture with little influence and place it on the road to disintegration. [Johnson, p. 399.] The cultural vision of America at its founding was centered on the principles of Christianity. To believe otherwise is a matter of ignorance or denial of the massive weight of the history of the colonial and founding era.
Henderson and the ACLU’s perceived dangers of big government on religious freedom are correct but not in the way they describe. Their remedies effectively impose big government denial of religious freedom and stand in opposition to our nation’s history and the requirements for an enduring culture.
Larry G. Johnson
Sources:
Brady Henderson, “Keep beliefs free from government,” Tulsa World, December 28, 2013, p. A-19; Brady Henderson, “Henderson – Keep beliefs free from government,” Tulsa World, December 28, 2013. http://www.tulsaworld.com/opinion/readersforum/henderson-keep-beliefs-free-from-government/article_60cf4f9f-2eee-517c-bbc6-9dc6051acb4e.html (accessed December 30, 2013).
Larry G. Johnson, Ye shall be as gods – Humanism and Christianity – The Battle for Supremacy in the American Cultural Vision, (Owasso, Oklahoma: Anvil House Publishers, 2011), pp. 224, 399.
William J. Federer, America’s God and Country, (Coppell, Texas: Fame Publishing, Inc., 1996), pp. 18, 575.
Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Trans. Gerald E. Bevan, (London, England: Penguin Books, 2003), pp. 343, 345.
