Jeannie Babb
say you’re from the greatest land.
Right or wrong, they teach you the song
of your people.”
Angie Aparo, from “Child, You’re the Revolution”
The myth of American origins taught in grade schools includes pilgrims seeking “religious freedom.” In the textbook stories, these heroic European ancestors sail across the ocean to escape persecution. They risk life and limb to find a place where they will be free to practice their beliefs without the interference of the state or the heavy hand of the Church of England.
High school students read “The Scarlet Letter” and some of them begin to connect the dots: The pilgrims did not come to America to be free of religious persecution, but to be in charge of it. They very much wanted to live in a society governed by religious authority — theirs, to be exact. They came to Virginia not directly from England but from Holland, where Protestant Christians had long been free to worship as they pleased. Holland did not suit these English Separatists, perhaps because they could not control their neighbors, who were entirely too Dutch.
In America, the Separatists created a society in which a person could be severely whipped for denying the scriptures. Settlers could be fined for missing church, working on Sunday, or harboring a Quaker. Ultimately, this kind of thinking led to the travesty we know today as the Salem Witch Trials. More than 150 people were imprisoned for allegedly making pacts with the devil. Twenty were executed and several more died in jail. Connecticut experienced its own witch trials, and several other places from Virginia to New Mexico executed at least one alleged witch.
Regions where church and state were less conjoined escaped the madness unscathed. William Penn, the devout Quaker who founded Pennsylvania, asked accused witches if they flew on broomsticks at night. Weary from interrogation, the women said yes. Penn replied that he could find no law on the Pennsylvania books that prohibited flying on broomsticks.
As terrible as the witch trials were, the phenomenon may have contributed to the American concern of keeping church and state separate. The hysteria of the 1600s yielded to the relative sanity of the late 1700s. James Madison, who wrote much of the United States Constitution, cited Martin Luther’s doctrine of two kingdoms (eternal and temporal) to support the wall of separation. He wrote to a minister friend, “A mutual independence [between religious and civil polity] is found most friendly to practical Religion, to social harmony, and to political prosperity.”
Lately some people have forgotten why this separation is essential to American freedom. Like the Pilgrims, they do not seek religious liberty so much as religious dominance. Not content with the freedom to live out their own convictions, they want to force them on others. They pound their Bibles and state that the United States is a Christian nation. Since the U.S. has never had any state religion, the question remains, which Christianity?
Roman Catholicism remains the largest Christian denomination in the United States, and it is growing due to immigration. A hundred years ago, one out of six Americans professed to be Catholic. Today that number exceeds one out of five. With Catholicism growing and many Protestant denominations shrinking, those who clamor for prayer in school should prepare their children to venerate the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Jeannie Babb is a Ringgold native. You can find her on FaceBook or pedaling a neon green bike through the Sewanee fog to the School of Theology, black academic gown billowing behind like a sail. Send email to taylojb1@sewanee.edu.
The first is that religious liberty--the separation of the church from the state--was an American creation. It had floated around in theory fora while, but it was on these shores that it was first put into practice, and shown to be a better way. It is, in effect, a gift the U.S. has given the world, and of the species of the most precious gifts that can be given.
When it comes to this matter, there are three general groups that have done battle in the U.S.
The first is the church-state unionists. These appear, here, with those first settlers, who, as you correctly note, neither fled persecution nor came here for religious freedom. The established regimes wherein the only "freedom" was to strictly adhere to the official religion.
The second is advocates for a "toleration" regime, wherein the dominant religion rules, and whatever allowances are given to everyone else are just that--allowances condescendingly doled out by a magnanimous majority faction. William Penn, whom you reference, was of this school, as were the authors of the (failed) Maryland Toleration Act, and various other experiments.
These first two factions are the losers of history. The modern religious right contains generous helpings of both.
The third is advocates of religious liberty, who worked from the premise that every person has a fundamental, inherent right to their religion. This faction was born with Roger Williams, who did, indeed, flee persecution to found an American colony. The persecution, however, was from Massachusetts. The government he helped establish in Rhode Island was the first in history to be founded on the separation of the church from the state. The most important founders and the other Enlightenment thinkers who were their inspiration/collaborators/friends were of this faction.
The factions duked it out for years in the U.S. Religious liberty didn't simply become a uniform policy with the Revolution. It was a process that extended over a few decades. It, in fact, continues, in little pieces to this day, in things like the ridiculous efforts to impose government-endorsed prayer in school (which witness the Orwellian spectacle of alleged "Christians" arguing for a practice of school prayer Jesus himself explicitly condemned), and efforts to prevent gay marriage. One of the irreplaceable features of democracy is that people can agitate for whatever they like, and unfortunately, religious liberty simply doesn't rank as high, on the agenda of a lot of the contemporary right, as attempting to use the power of the state to forcibly insert religious dogma into the orifices of society.
Anyway, that's a start. Perhaps there are others who would like to chime in. Hopefully, more thoughtful others than those who initially replied to your article.
You see, when someone is as partisan as you, their mind is made up and they search for opinions that support their beliefs and, they never bother to search for the truth. The same can be said of loyal republicans. Both sides believe the world would be perfect if not for the other side.
However, true Christians do not put their faith in politicians or political parties. We all sin, which means their is no perfect person to rule this nation perfectly.
Align yourself with God, as that's where peace and truth can be found. I know you attend church, but as you make painfully clear, attendance is not enough. We all need a personal relationship with God, where you feel Him by your side night and day and His presence has you considering, Will this please God? That's how I have lived my life and how I raised my son. That alone helps me from putting my faith in a politician or party.
Keep believing that truth and justice can only be found in your democratic party and you're putting these things above God. Will this please God?
The answer is, no...
That's a lot of big talk with nothing behind it, mouth. Care to try to put some meat on those bones, or do you just get your jollies from libeling others?
Philip Williams
Pastor, LaFayette
First Church of God
That's an uncharacteristically wise suggestion, coming from you. If you ever decide to take it yourself, you aren't going to like what you find there. A good place to start:
http://classicliberal.tripod.com/radical/churchstate.html