HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_017393.jpg

4.2.12
WC: 191694

Is this an irony, or is there a causal connection between our constitutional separation of church and state and the high level of religiosity among our people? I believe the latter is the case.

The original theory behind the metaphor of “the wall of separation” was to protect the holiness of the church from the corrupting influences of the secular state. Roger Williams, who is credited with coining the metaphor, was a 17th Century Baptist minister in Providence, Rhode Island. He insisted that a “hedge or wall of separation between the garden of the church and the wilderness of the world” was necessary to protect religion, as well as to assure freedom of conscience. And this wall has worked wonderfully to do both.⁹¹

Churches are thriving in America, unlike in most European countries that have long traditions of established churches. When the state supports churches, resentment against government, which is inevitable, spills over to religion. Consider Israel, whose citizens are far more secular on average than Americans. Many Israeli Jews resent religion because the Rabbis have too much influence over marriage, divorce and other aspects of daily life. This turns people against religion. Israel does not have an established religion, despite its being a “Jewish state.” Muslim and Christian Israelis, who comprise nearly a quarter of the population, have equal status and equal rights, or at least as a matter of law, but Conservative and Reform Jews do not. Within the Jewish religion, Orthodoxy is the established branch. This has caused enormous resentment—against both the state and the synagogue—by reform, conservative and secular Jews and have driven many of them away from religion. In the U.S., on the other hand, resentment against the government (Congress’ approval rating is always quite low) does not translate into resentment against the churches. To the contrary, cynicism about politics, may well drive some people toward greater commitment to their churches.

I believe, therefore, that perhaps the single most important guarantee in our Constitution is one that is not explicitly enumerated: the separation of church and state. Although those words do not appear in either the body of the Constitution or in the First Amendment, there can be no doubt that the founding fathers constructed a system of checks and balances that required such separation. Without it, the church (representing organized religion) could not serve as an effective check on the secular excesses of the state; nor could the state serve as an effective check on the excessive involvement of the church in the business of governance and on the rights of religious and non-religious dissenters. The marvel of our unique system of checks and balances, is that is does not simply involve each branch of government—executive, legislative and judicial—checking on the others; it also encourages—through the freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment—other institutions to serve as checks on the government. In addition to the churches (broadly defined to include all religious institutions), these include the media, the academy, the business community, and especially the “people” who have the right to vote, to assemble and to petition for a redress of grievances.

Just before the 50th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence—the day on which two of its primary authors, Jefferson and Adams, both died—Jefferson wrote the following about the purpose of Declaration:

⁹¹ The irony is that the wall was essentially a contribution made by Baptists to America, is now being attacked by many Baptists.

306

HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_017393