We've all heard about the
controversy surrounding San Diego's Korean War memorial, a 29-foot tall cross on a hill above the city. A citizen of San Diego - a Vietnam War veteran and an atheist - has sued the city to remove the cross, on the basis of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. The
ACLU is involved in the case, fighting for the First Amendment rights of
all Americans, not just Christians.
Thousands of miles away, in a rural central Pennsylvania county, my hometown newspaper has entered the debate, sparked by an astonishing letter to the editor. Copyright law prohibits posting the letter in its entirety, and the newspaper's website does not publish the opinion page. So I will reproduce only the most interesting tidbits from this shocking letter and fill in the gaps with my own response. The letter is entitled, "ACLU is Guilty of Unholy Alliances Supporting Our Enemies."
Follow me below the fold to discuss...
The ACLU (aka the American Taliban) continues to wage spiritual warfare against our populace.
The author decries the ACLU as anti-American, anti-military, and anti-God. He blames them for weakening the military by espousing a pacifist worldview, he blames them for harming America by "seek(ing) constitutional rights for terrorists" (???), and he blames them for destroying America's religious heritage by, among other things, becoming involved in the lawsuit to remove San Diego's cross from public property.
The author writes,
They don't like God. They don't like religion. Factually speaking, the ACLU and their splinter groups, People for the American Way, Planned Parenthood, Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, and Code Pink, all are determined to remove every vestige of God from our society.
The ACLU, PFAW, Planned Parenthood, Americans United, and Code Pink are organizations united by a common purpose: to protect the civil and constitutional rights of all Americans from those who would deny them. They are perceived by some to be un-American precisely because they vigorously defend the Establishment Clause - and the Free Exercise Clause - of the First Amendment. They fight on behalf of those who fear a creeping theocracy, who worry that their freedom to worship or not worship without fear and to live according to the dictates of their conscience is being trampled by those who wish to make America into a "Christian Nation."
The author closes with a call to action:
God needs your help and you should not pay any attention to the ACLU's now tiresome mantra of separation of church and state, which I can tell you constitutionally doesn't exist.
I urge every church to form a religious defense committee to inform its congregation of who the enemy is and expose their intent. We should take whatever action necessary against that enemy to subdue it. We should promote, proclaim and protect our religious liberties and symbols throughout this great land.
[Snip]
One last question, can a pacifist truly serve Christ?
I am constantly struck by the irony permeating such rhetoric: this type of passionate plea for reclaiming America's Christian character is itself decidedly un-American. Yet again, it must be repeated: America is NOT a Christian nation. America has NEVER been a Christian nation. Even the fact that for most of its history the majority of Americans have been Christian does not make America a Christian nation. The United States of America is a secular constitutional democracy. The Constitution of the United States of America makes it unambiguously clear that the state shall not establish any religion. The Constitution of the United States also makes it unambiguously clear that the state shall not interfere with the free exercise of religion. Are these clauses antithetical? Is it possible to exercise one's religion freely while honoring the right of others to exercise their religion just as freely? Is it possible to exercise one's religion freely while honoring the right of another to practice no religion at all? Is it possible to exercise one's religion freely without requiring state sanction of that religion?
[On a personal note, I am a trained theologian, a lifelong Lutheran, and a member of my congregational council. I am also an American, and I vigorously support the freedom of all Americans to worship or not worship according to the dictates of their own conscience. I also fear the state's involvement in religious affairs. And I do not consider religion - Christianity in particular, as it is my tradition - to be so weak that it requires state sanction in order to flourish.]
If the American experiment has taught us anything, it has taught us that religious liberty and the freedom from state establishment of one religion are equally necessary for the flourishing of American democracy. When one or both of these freedoms are curtailed, democracy and freedom suffer. When one citizen's freedoms are infringed or curtailed, the freedoms of every American are curtailed.
The Dominionists never tire of exposing what they consider to be the "myth" of the separation of church and state. They are so convinced that their duty is to create a Christian nation that they willfully ignore the clear meaning of the Establishment Clause. In order to refresh our memories, let us revisit the "religion clauses" of the First Amendment:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. (Ratified 12/15/1791)
Even the most literal reading of these clauses will conclude that what is intended is a separation of church and state. There are questions of jurisdiction (for example, does the placement of a cross on public land in San Diego, CA, represent a law of Congress respecting an establishment of religion?), but the basic intention of the Establishment Clause is unequivocally to ensure that the state shall never establish one religion as "official" and shall never grant legal preference to one religion.
The Constitution does not exist in a vacuum, of course. It must be interpreted, and those interpretations must be applied in specific cases. In 1802, the Danbury Baptist Association of Danbury, CT, wrote a letter to President Thomas Jefferson in which they expressed concern that there was no explicit prohibition of state establishment of religion or explicit protection of their religious liberties in the Connecticut state constitution. Jefferson's reply contains his famous reference to the wall of separation between church and state:
Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man & his god, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between church and state. (Emphasis in original)
It is especially interesting that Jefferson emphasizes the role of the voting public in the creation of this wall of separation between church and state: "that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should make no law," etc. The Establishment Clause ultmiately was not the product of a "rogue and tyrannical judiciary"; it was the will of the people of the United States.
This is not the only example of the Founders' clear rejection of the definition of America as a "Christian Nation." Article 11 of the Treaty of Peace and Friendship between the United States and Barbary, signed in 1796, during George Washington's presidency, and ratified in 1797, during the presidency of John Adams, also includes a clear denunciation of the idea of America as a Christian nation:
As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion, as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen [Muslims], and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan [i.e. Muslim] nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.
James Madison, in a 1785 letter to the General Assembly of Virginia entitled A Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments, noted the danger of a "slippery slope" developing on the basis of even the most minor official state involvement in religious matters:
Who does not see that the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all other Religions, may establish with the same ease any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other Sects? that the same authority which can force a citizen to contribute three pence only of his property for the support of any one establishment, may force him to conform to any other establishment in all cases whatsoever?
And again in the same letter:
Whilst we assert for ourselves a freedom to embrace, to profess and to observe the Religion which we believe to be of divine origin, we cannot deny an equal freedom to those whose minds have not yet yielded to the evidence which has convinced us. If this freedom be abused, it is an offence against God, not against man: To God, therefore, not to man, must an account of it be rendered. As the Bill violates equality by subjecting some to peculiar burdens, so it violates the same principle, by granting to others peculiar exemptions. Are the Quakers and Menonists [sic] the only sects who think a compulsive support of their Religions unnecessary and unwarrantable? can their piety alone be entrusted with the care of public worship? Ought their Religions to be endowed above all others with extraordinary privileges by which proselytes may be enticed from all others? We think too favorably of the justice and good sense of these denominations to believe that they either covet pre-eminences over their fellow citizens or that they will be seduced by them from the common opposition to the measure.
[The entire letter is well worth a careful read, especially for those interested in the history of religious liberty in the United States.]
Finally, we return to Thomas Jefferson and The Virginia Act for Establishing Religious Freedom of 1786:
Be it therefore enacted by the General Assembly, That no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burdened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in nowise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities.
If we pause to consider Jefferson's own summarization of his life's work, we realize just how highly he valued this contribution to Virginia's religious freedom. Jefferson wrote his own epitaph for his tombstone at Monticello:
HERE WAS BURIED THOMAS JEFFERSON: AUTHOR OF THE DECLARATION OF AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE, OF THE STATUTE OF VIRGINIA FOR RELIGIOUS FREEDOM, AND FATHER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA
Finally, the author's final question in his letter is frightening in its implications: "Can a pacifist truly serve Christ?" The question is curious considering the fact that the letter as a whole is a critique of the ACLU's involvement in the San Diego war memorial case. It is not a discussion of Christian involvement in or support of the war in Iraq or of war in general. Why question the Christian bona fides of pacifists in this context? Only two conclusions can be drawn, as I see it: either the author intends for this question to be understood figuratively or literally. He is either asking whether it is possible for one to call oneself a Christian and yet refuse to fight for one's faith in the public square, or he is asking whether now is finally the time to take up arms in a holy war against perceived enemies of Christ. The former is a legitimate question; the latter is terrifying.
The Founders were clear in their intention that the United States of America be a secular democracy guided by the Enlightenment principles of reason, natural law, and liberty. There was never any intention to enshrine Christianity as the national religion, nor was there any insinuation that the American experiment was grounded in the Christian religion. That this is so is clear from the historical record as it has come down to us. Wishing it to be otherwise does not change the history.
It is our duty as citizens to remember our history and to reassert our constitutional rights against those who wish to undermine them. We have history on our side.
While this is not part of my series, "Deconstructing the Dominionists," it is related. For previous installments of this series, see:
Deconstructing the Dominionists, Part I
Deconstructing the Dominionists, Part II
Deconstructing the Dominionists, Part III