Stop the 'Christian nation' quotation war
I congratulate the Rev. Tim Vivian for the very clear presentation of the constitutional history and content which guides our understanding ("It's right there in the Constitution," Dec. 27), though I know that what he wrote makes it somewhat uncomfortable for those who would wish an active relationship between faith and government. As a colleague of Tim's, I know the thoroughness of his scholarship.
I have been concerned about the degree to which the conversation has recently become something of a quotation match over what the founders' religious practices really were. Few of the founders were hostile to religion. Thomas Jefferson, as the writer of the Declaration of Independence, and Ben Franklin both had a very respectful admiration for religion as a guide for ethical living. But their understanding of God from a Deist perspective was quite different from what most Christian evangelicals would find sufficient today.
Until prompted by others, Jefferson made no mention of any deity in the Declaration as first written. But to argue about the founders' degree of friendliness for religion (Christianity) and to promote it as advocacy for public religious witness in government misses the point.
What led the founders to take government out of the "establishment of religion" business? They were driven by their experience of religion and government in England. Their overriding concern was over what had happened to those who dissent against the majority, against followers of the king's faith. You remember they had just come through the peril of dissent against the king over democratic home rule.
What was fresh in their mind was that England had in recent history three tragic experiences with an "established" version of Christianity -- Roman Catholic, Anglo-Catholic and Puritan, and the subsequent exclusion and persecution of those who understood their faith differently. Those coming to America seeking escape from persecution came not to establish a place of toleration, but a place to practice their own "true" version of Christianity to the exclusion of others, a point not well understood about our own early history.
The behavior of the Massachusetts colony is but one good example of this. Quakers, Roman Catholics, Jews and others all suffered from exclusion in the colonies. The colony of Rhode Island represented one of the few places of toleration as we know it today.
The founders wished to avoid this religious warfare by removing government from the advocacy of any particular religious expression of faith and guaranteeing the free practice of religion or even non-practice. Even despite this commitment at our founding, the persecution of religious groups has continued throughout our history, as the "majority" attempt from time to time to exempt themselves from the Constitutional protections. Today, when we read some of the more virulent attacks on this notion of separation or even read the suggestion that we are a "theocratic" nation, we are experiencing the precise reason the separation is necessary. Protection from the well-meaning citizenry is a key element of the separation.
One other thing that has been proposed in the opinions coming to The Californian has suggested that religion at a government venue can serve a didactic function. Prayer at civic or school functions is important, it is argued, to serve as a reminder and call for ethical behavior and just actions by our leaders.
A cynic might suggest that since prayer has been the practice in many places, it has not been particularly effective. I would suggest that if there is a need to provide an "educational" moment at civic or school functions rather than turning to a particular religious expression of public witness, the turning to some of the significant writings from those who shaped our country's understanding of government, the law and liberty would be a more effective and appropriate witness, which is very much a part of our common heritage.
The Rev. Vern Hill is a retired school teacher and assistant priest at Grace Episcopal Church.
