Freedom of Religion?

Freedom of religion – What exactly is meant by that phase? Is it even in the constitution or is it a misinterpretation of our constitution? Read the article below to understand what the First amendment actually says.

By Robert E. Freer, Jr., President of The Free Enterprise Foundation

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof ..."

Thus, begins the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. For more than 150 years following its adoption, our political leaders felt no inhibition in professing the importance of religion to the health of our republic. There was little dispute as to the benign impact of this provision on the right of the public to worship as they would, nor as to the wisdom of permitting the state to encourage religious belief of some sort. The Northwest Ordinance, the first statute in the new Congress was in part dedicated to assuring that Native Americans be educated in the Christian faith and further provided that no territory could join the Union if that territory failed to teach both religion and morality as the foundation of knowledge. Until well into the 20th century, this amendment was viewed as primarily keeping the federal government from interfering with the states, a number of which did have official churches well into the 19th century.

George Washington, in his inaugural address, reaffirmed that Heaven can never be expected to smile on "a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which Heaven itself has ordained." Benjamin Rush, who devoted a great deal of time after the Revolution to education, stated, "[T]he only foundation for a useful education in a republic is to be laid in religion." Even 75 years later, Abraham Lincoln could say, "The only assurance of our nation's safety is to lay our foundation in morality and religion"

What's going on here? Is this the same history our children have been taught? And what ever became of the impervious wall of separation of church and state that Jefferson proclaimed in his letter to the Danbury Congregation? Our founders were practical and serious men. They had rolled the dice and won. They had the responsibility to create an enduring state so that they and their posterity could enjoy the fruits of the tumultuous period through which they had just passed. They were educated in the classics and particularly were attracted to the Republican form of government. Being students of history, they were conscious that republics had come and gone throughout history. Its fragility lay in the character of its citizenry.

Coming out of Independence Hall in September 1787, Benjamin Franklin was referring directly to this fragility when he responded to the question, "What have you got for us?" with, "A republic if you can keep it"!

John Adams was similarly referring to the moral consensus of the governed that held us together when he addressed our military in 1798: "We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."

Jefferson, often referred to as a theist, may have written that oft quoted letter, but three days later he knelt in prayer in the old Senate chamber in the Capitol and throughout his term as president certainly issued his quota of proclamations for prayer days and days of thanksgiving. Such pressures as may have existed to practice a particular religion may have been local and societal. They weren't governmental. The government wasn't going to tell you what to believe, but those who held office and the body politic as a whole felt it was essential to our survival to be educated in morality and religion.

Only through a moral consensus would the Republic survive. School prayer, in fact prayer before almost any official meeting of many organizational bodies, both governmental and private, was the order of the day. Oaths, days of prayer and thanksgiving, as well as supplications to God for the care of the nation have been part of the fabric of this nation from its beginning.

The fiction that has built up since the late 1940s as to what is meant about this amendment places this nation in peril as real as that presented by terrorists.

Most recently we have seen grace before meals at VMI struck down by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in a decision that will affect a similar longstanding practice at The Citadel. This decision joins others in other courts questioning our pledge of allegiance, display of the Ten Commandments on courthouse walls, and if followed to their conclusion, we can expect "In God We Trust" to be removed from coinage.

While the Supreme Court has not ruled on this latest case as yet, Chief Justice Rehnquist has said, referring to the notions from which they are spawned, "It is impossible to build a sound constitutional doctrine upon a mistaken understanding of constitutional history. The wall of separation between church and state is a metaphor that has proved useless as a guide to judging. It should be frankly and explicitly abandoned." I agree.

Copyright © 2007 by Robert E. Freer, Jr. All rights reserved

About the author: Robert E. Freer, Jr. is President of The Free Enterprise Foundation. He is a Visiting Professor, at The Citadel and elected in 2005 to be their first John S. Grinalds Leader in Residence. A regular contributor to the Mercury, He can be reached by E-mail at The Citadel . Copies of his earlier columns can be found The Free Enterprise Foundation.

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