Round 1 — Separation of Church and State

Well folks, this is an election year.  This guarantees we will disagree on many things but please heed this bit of advice – wear boots!  The Republican Party likes to claim that they are “originalist” and that they know the intentions that the Founding Fathers had when they penned the US Constitution. This is frequently their justification for doing EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE from what the documents actually say.  They like to try to scare us into believing that the country is on the verge of destruction and that we are straying from the Founders’ intentions but lets really look at some of these claims.

Did the Founding Fathers believe that God had a role in government? Perhaps.   Thomas Jefferson’s words are best here:

“Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative 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…’

-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Danbury Baptist Association, CT, 1/1/1802

The founders were, by and large, religious men BUT they saw the threat that STATE RELIGION held over the people.  In England, the King and the Church were one and the same.  To question the King, was in effect heresy.  But the Founders believed that the King and Parliament did make mistakes and did misgovern.  Why else have a revolution and declare independence.  Furthermore, as an agency of the Crown, the Church of England had the power to tax forcing everyone to pay tithes – even those who were barred from the church for their religious convictions.  And Americans had serious religious diversity, not just Jews and Muslins but serious (ie viewed heretical) differences within the Christian faith (like issues on Trinity, Apostolic succession, even which books belong in the bible).  The Founders knew these issues were beyond the purview of government and that separation between church and state preserved the integrity of BOTH the church and the state.

But the Republican Party likes to invoke “God” is every speech as if it makes their claims credible.  They justify their positions on homosexuality, abortion, immigration, and a host of other issues on religious grounds seeking to tear down the barriers between church and state. 
Today’s Republican Party likes to talk about God more than they like to govern.  They talk about the left interfering with the religious freedoms of “average Americans[i].” They claim the Christian majority is somehow the victim of persecution because their religious beliefs then attempt to pass laws the actually restrict the religious rights of others, effectively becoming the persecutors they claim to fear.  Ironically, the stalwart conservative ideals, Ronald Reagan, firmly believed in staunch separation between church and state. You see, if no one legislates religious issues, people are free to believe, express, and uphold any religion they like.  When the government gets involved, the only acceptable religion is government and there is no freedom.

Oh, and while we are on the topic of religion, did the Founding Fathers intend for the United States to be a “Christian” nation as many in the GOP like to claim?  All the Founding Fathers were, after all, Christian[ii].  Well, once again, the GOP simply makes this claim without evidence.  Donald Trump went so far as to call for the outright ban on Islam in America.  What would the Founding Fathers say to this?  Well, it they would likely not be pleased. 

In 1793, at the urging of President Washington, Congress amended the US Constitution ten times.  Portions of the First Amendment makes a very clear statement:  “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”  If this were not enough, when America entered its first real conflict with ANY foreign power it reaffirmed it position as a non-religious nation.  The Treaty of Tripoli (1796 ) states “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 Mussulmen [Muslims],—and as the said States never entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mahometan [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.” NO, the founders did not intend for America to be a nation for just Christians.  They wanted a government informed and inspired by the moral and religious beliefs of our elected officials but not restricted to specific creeds and dogma.   

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[i] On average Americans have become agnostic and less religious rather than more over the last 50 years.

[ii] People like to claim that people like Ben Franklin were non-Christian and “Deist” but Franklin’s definition of deism was a heavily (if unitarian) Christian in its character.  Furthermore, since all of England and most of the states after the Revolution restricted political life to members of the Christian faith, there is no credible argument for them being non-Christian

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