First Amendment 101
AMENDMENT I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Passed by Congress September 25, 1789. Ratified December 15, 1791.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Passed by Congress September 25, 1789. Ratified December 15, 1791.
The critical issue of our day is the relationship of Christ and His Word to our political and legal system in the United States. Who has jurisdiction over every aspect of American society, Jesus Christ or the State? The Christian must refer to the Bible for his answer. If Scripture speaks to civil government then civil government must be called upon to acknowledge the Lord of Scripture and be constructed according to His demands. The Scriptures do speak to civil government, and thus we cannot look at anything without looking through the grid of God’s Word. After the United States Constitution was drafted in 1787, a series of Amendments were attached in the following years. The first, and perhaps the most misunderstood, was ratified in 1791. The First Amendment contains a principle which is commonly called the ‘Separation of Church and State’. It is generally understood that the First Amendment advocates partitioning religion from politics such that Biblical principles cannot and should not be brought to bear on social or political issues. However, the phrase “Separation of Church and State’ has come to mean something completely different than the First Amendment originally meant. The Founding Fathers of the United States never intended the First Amendment to be the basis for atheism in America.
First, the Founding Fathers embraced Christianity as the unofficial yet universally acknowledged religion of the land. History is clear on this point, and it is evidenced by Benjamin Franklin’s appeal for prayer at the Constitutional Convention of 1787, in George Washington’s Inaugural Speech and Abraham Lincoln’s proclamation for a day of “national humiliation, fasting and prayer.” Christianity’s influence was pervasive throughout our nation’s history. To quote James Henley Thornwell in his ‘Sermon on National Sins:’
“When we insist upon the religious character of the State, we are not to be understood as recommending or favoring a church establishment. To have a religion is one thing, to have a Church Establishment is another; and perhaps the most effectual way of extinguishing the religious life of a State is to confine the expression of it to the forms and peculiarities of a single sect…The state realizes its religious character through the religious character of its subjects; and a State is and ought to be Christian, because all its subjects are and ought to be determined by the principles of the Gospel.”
Second, the First Amendment never prohibits religion in the realm of politics. The First Amendment states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…” Rather than banishing religion, the Amendment dictates that Congress is not to make any laws regarding the Church. The First Amendment separates the Church as an institution from the State as an institution. To maintain that there must be a separation between Church and State does not necessarily mean that there must be a separation between religion and State. It is impossible to separate religion from anything, because culture is religion externalized. Religious (or ‘moral’) systems give meaning to all court laws and decisions: There is no such thing as religious neutrality! If a political system rejects God’s authority, it will embrace another: man and human reason.
Third, the United States Constitution is not silent concerning Christianity. It is assumed that the United States was never Christian in its basic values because the Constitution does not specifically mention Christianity. But the Constitution was not meant to give religion to the nation, rather it was intended to protect and perpetuate the existing religious values. Still, the Constitution is not devoid of Christian references. It acknowledges Sunday as a day of rest:
‘If any bill shall not be returned by the President within ten days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the same shall be a law.'*
The Constitution also recognizes Jesus Christ directly, and His authority over time and the world:
‘Done in convention by the unanimous consent of the States present, the seventeenth of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty seven and of the independence of the United States of America the twelfth…’
Further, several State Constitutions were explicitly Christian, and some even established Churches! For example, the Delaware Constitution (until 1792) required the use of the following oath of office:
“I…do profess faith in God the Father, and in Jesus Christ His only son, and in
the Holy Ghost, one God, blessed for evermore; I do acknowledge the holy
scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be given by divine inspiration.”
‘Done in convention by the unanimous consent of the States present, the seventeenth of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty seven and of the independence of the United States of America the twelfth…’
Further, several State Constitutions were explicitly Christian, and some even established Churches! For example, the Delaware Constitution (until 1792) required the use of the following oath of office:
“I…do profess faith in God the Father, and in Jesus Christ His only son, and in
the Holy Ghost, one God, blessed for evermore; I do acknowledge the holy
scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be given by divine inspiration.”
The North Carolina Constitution (until 1876) stated:
“That no person who shall deny the being of God, or the truth of the Protestant religion, or the divine authority of the Old and New Testaments, or who shall old religious principles incompatible with the freedom and safety of the State, shall be capable of holding any office or place of trust or profit in the civil department within this State.”
“That no person who shall deny the being of God, or the truth of the Protestant religion, or the divine authority of the Old and New Testaments, or who shall old religious principles incompatible with the freedom and safety of the State, shall be capable of holding any office or place of trust or profit in the civil department within this State.”
These State Constitutions provide evidence that the First Amendment was not intended to remove all Christian influences from the civil government
The phrase ‘Separation of Church and State’ was coined by Thomas Jefferson in a letter to a group of clergymen from the Danbury Baptist Association. He was assuring them that there would be no establishment of any one denomination over another. The Supreme Court has taken Jefferson’s phrase and used it to create a new, skewed interpretation of the First Amendment. The battle today is over lordship: Is Jesus the King of kings or not? The political choice before us is Christ or chaos. The issue is anything but trivial.
The phrase ‘Separation of Church and State’ was coined by Thomas Jefferson in a letter to a group of clergymen from the Danbury Baptist Association. He was assuring them that there would be no establishment of any one denomination over another. The Supreme Court has taken Jefferson’s phrase and used it to create a new, skewed interpretation of the First Amendment. The battle today is over lordship: Is Jesus the King of kings or not? The political choice before us is Christ or chaos. The issue is anything but trivial.
*Article 1, Section 7, United States Constitution
2 Comments:
Hey that's good. Did you write that Heather? It's funny, I my self am writing an essay along very similar lines. It has to do with the Chief Justice Roy Moore issue, and whether the Ten Commandments should be allowed to be displayed in public places. It was good seeing you all Saturday. Yall have a good week.
One thing that kinda ticks me off whenever I hear someone talk about this is the fact that some of our founding fathers weren't strickly christian.
Famous and important people such Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson were in fact deists, who, while believing that there had to have been a God who created the universe (because it was the only option at that time. Oh and as a side note, that's really the only reason why Darwin's theory is still around today, because it's the ONLY other option) but denied that he had any involvement with humankind, at least not in a supernatural way. Thomas Jefferson in fact made his own version of the Bible, with all miraculous things taken out. Must've been a pretty thin Bible, if you ask me.
And another thing that a lot of people don't realize is that the separation of Church and state is just as much for the CHURCH as it is for the state. Very often in medieval times, the governing ruler would give large sums of money and land to the church, as a way of paying tribute to them. What ended up happening was people going into the church solely with the intent of obtaining power. Many of them didn't read, care about the Bible, or even believed in God.
The separation of church and state ensures that this doesn't happen. And one wonders what happens when the government starts giving money to churches and church-based organizations. Will the churches become dependent on the government? Will the government begin dictating what the churches can and can't do? Will people begin to rise to leadership in the church without a desire to do God's will, but rather just for the power and prestige?
and the even scarier question... is this already happening?
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