Rumors can be devastating to people and their lives.
I remember when I was a teenager. My father injured his foot. I don’t think he broke it, I think he just sprained it. But I do remember that he could not go into the office for several days, so instead, he just set up an office at our house. We had a very large foyer, and Dad had a desk moved in for the receptionist and another for his secretary, and he had an office set up for himself in the living room.
Now, we were living in a small town, and nothing we ever did ever went unnoticed by the townspeople. People noticed that my father was not going into the office, and they also noticed that there were lots of people going in and out of our house.
So rumor had it...that my father, who was the general manager of the town’s only textile mill had been fired.
Now, just a few weeks earlier, there had been some renovation work at the community center, which was owned and operated by the mill. Uncovered in the work was a cornerstone that contained a time capsule. Inside the time capsule were programs for a Fourth of July celebration, a newspaper, and several nostalgic items of that sort.
But ... rumor had it that there had also been a bar of gold. Everything in the time capsule had been put on display in the town library, except for the bar of gold. That’s when people figured out why my father had been fired. He’d stolen that bar of gold and refused to give it back to the company, so he’d been fired.
Well, a few days before Dad’s foot healed, we built a fire in the fireplace, and my Mother tired to burn some boxes to get the fire built up real good. The boxes, however, had been treated and didn’t burn very good, but pieces of the paper went up into the chimney and out onto our yard. We rushed outside and it looked like fireworks were going off from our chimney. Townspeople tended to notice this, and pretty soon, rumor had it that my mother had tried to melt the bar of gold into smaller pieces of jewelry that the police would not be able to identify.
My father went back to the office and the rumors died down, and we often laughed about how ridiculous they were.
William James, a father of American psychology, said that there is no idea that is so absurd that if repeated often enough, people will not believe.
Adolph Hitler once said that if you tell any lie long enough, often enough, and loud enough, people will come to believe it.
On this weekend of the Fourth of July, I want to deal with a rumor that has inflicted great harm to our nation. It is the rumor of the concept of the "separation of church and state."
People take this concept very seriously, and it has been in the name of the separation of church and state that attempts have been made to remove every vestige of religion from our schools and from all public ceremonies and places. Supreme Court decisions of 1963 and 1964, which said that prayer could not be required, have evolved to be understood as prayer cannot be allowed. Similar court decisions of the 1940’s and 1960’s said that learning faith could not be a required subject, and now many understand that as a prohibition against even mentioning philosophy and religion in a classroom.
I’m sure you know that our church owns and operates the Sunrise Christian Academy. It is a ministry of our church. When I came here 7 years ago, I suggested that I should meet with the students once each week so I could lead a little worship service with them, have prayer, give a devotional – but to my surprise I was told I couldn’t do this. When I asked why, I was told that we weren’t allowed to do have prayer in school – that it was against the law because of the “separation of church and state.”
You know, we misunderstand that concept of the separation of church and state – it is not to protect the state from the church. The church can have a voice in the affairs of the state just like any other group in this country.
Separation of church and state means just the opposite – it means we in the church are protected from the state, and that the state cannot inflict its will upon our faith.
The state cannot tell a private Christian school that we cannot pray – and for the past 7 years, one of your pastors meets weekly with the students of your Sunrise Christian Academy to lead in prayer and a devotional.
The concept that I cannot lead prayer in a church school is as ludicrous as the idea that my father got fired from his job because he stole a bar of gold from a textile company.
Today, we have several patriotic hymns in our service of worship. Every time I select such hymns, someone will question me about it, assuming that I am violating some civil law that prohibits the church and state from interacting. With all respect to those who have asked about this, the idea that the state can tell us what we can and cannot sing in a church is as ridiculous as the image of my mother melting down a bar of gold into jewelry so she could help my father with his stolen gold.
The rumor says that the church and the state are completely separate in this nation. That’s not exactly true.
Like a lot of rumors, it is not true, but it is not that far from the truth.
The rumor finds its basis in the phrase, "a wall of separation between church and state".
That phrase became popular as the result of a Supreme Court Case in 1947. In an opinion written by Justice Hugo Black in dealing with the Everson Case at that time, he wrote that our nation’s founders had created a (quote) "wall of separation between church and state."
Justice Black found this phrase in a letter that Thomas Jefferson had written to a group of Baptists in Danbury, Connecticut, some 11 years after the ratification of the Bill of Rights. Jefferson, in turn, was quoting Roger Williams, who was the founder of the Baptist Church in America.
But understand that when Jefferson and Williams used this phrase, they were talking about how the Constitution and the Bill of Rights had built a wall that protected the church from control of the government. They never understood that the civil government was to be freed from any influence of religion.
Keep in mind that these people were living in an age when our ancestors were coming to this nation seeking religious freedom. Many Old World nations had very limited religious freedoms and in many cases the state controlled religion. Even today, the head of the Church of England is the King or Queen of England.
Our American founders believed that the government should not control religion, and they put that concept into the Bill of Rights. Many people believe that the phrase, "Separation of Church and state" comes from the Constitution, but it doesn’t. What does appear in the Constitution is the First Amendment, which states, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."
The fact is that our American founders set up a system that protected the church from being influenced and controlled by the government. But the rumor is that the system protects the government from being influenced by religion.
And that simply is not the case. There is no law that isolates the government from religious influences, there is only the principle that protects the church from the government.
Many of us studied the history of the Mayflower, and learned about the Mayflower Compact, in which the signers agreed to submit to a common system of laws. Let me read to you the opening statement of that brief text:
"In the name of God, Amen. We whose names are underwritten, the loyal subjects of our dread and sovereign Lord King James by the grace of God ... Having undertaken for the glory of God, and advancements of the Christian faith and honor of our king and country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the northern parts of Virginia, do by these presents solemnly and mutually in the presence of God and of one another, covenant and combine our selves together into a civil political body..."
It is clear that belief in God was influencing this first attempt at civil government in the New World.
In 1775, as the idea of independence was taking firm root, Patrick Henry made a speech to the second Virginia Convention in which he said, "There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations...Gentlemen may cry peace, peace, but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the North will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms!"
A year later, that just God who presides over the nations brought that clash of resounding arms in the form of the Declaration of Independence, which we celebrated this weekend. The very first sentence of that document refers to God, and the next mentions how our Creator has endowed us with certain inalienable rights.
When the Declaration was publicly read in Philadelphia, the Liberty Bell rang out in order to call attention to the people. The bell is inscribed with a verse from Leviticus 25:10, and quotes that Bible verse, "Proclaim Liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof."
After the Revolution, when George Washington became our nation’s first President, he said his oath over a Bible, and his first act as President was to bend over and kiss the Bible after completing his oath of office.
His second act was to lead the Cabinet and the Senate and the House to St Paul’s Episcopal Church where they had a two hour worship service, led by the chaplains of the Senate and the House.
The first Congress appointed chaplains to serve in the military to provide religious leadership to our soldiers and sailors.
As our nation expanded, it handled new territory differently from other expanding nations in that new territories could become states equal to the rest of the nation, rather than remain inferior expansion territories. The document that created that concept was the Northwest Ordinance. In article 3 of that document, which was ratified by the same congress that ratified the Bill of Rights, it says, "Religion, morality, and education being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools shall ever be encouraged and established in the northwest territories."
In other words, in the original view of our founding fathers, the purpose of the public school was to encourage religion, morality and education.
George Washington, after becoming President, said, "It is impossible to rightly govern without God and the Bible."
Another early President, John Quincy Adams, said, "The highest glory of the Revolution was that it united in one indissoluble bond the principles of Christianity and the principles of civil government."
James Madison, who not only served as President, but is also called the chief architect of the Constitution, said, "Religion is the basis and foundation of government."
To say that our nation was not founded on religious principles is to rewrite over 200 years of history.
Separation of church and state means that the church will be protected from inappropriate influence from the government. It does not mean that the church is not allowed to influence government.
It is a one-way street -- the government cannot influence our church, but our church can influence the government.
Even though some people have, for the last 40 or 50 years, tried to suggest otherwise, this nation is a nation that was founded on religious principles. We are a nation under God.
It is ridiculous for us to suggest that we are not a nation of religious values. Even our Motto, "In God We Trust" is printed on all of our money.
In our Old Testament lesson, Psalm 33, we are told, "Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord."
What exactly does that mean, however, to be a nation whose God is the Lord?
Our Old Testament lesson mentions several qualities of a nation whose God is Lord.
First, such a nation will praise God for the things he has done.
Psalm 33 begins by saying, "It is fitting for the upright to praise (God). Praise the
Lord..."
One of our nation’s most important holidays is Thanksgiving. We all learned as students in elementary school what Thanksgiving was all about. We probably even had to dress up in paper hats or fake Indian featherhead bands to re-enact the first Thanksgiving in a school play. While the meaning of Thanksgiving may be obscured with some individuals, the main point of that holiday is that from our earliest history, our nation has paused to give thanks to God for the gifts he gives us.
Another characteristic that the Psalm mentions in describing a nation whose God is Lord is that its people have reverence for God.
In verse 8, the Psalmist says, "Let all the earth fear the Lord; let all the people of the world revere him."
Historically, our nation does have reverence for God.
We have also always had individuals who have absolutely no reverence for God. We have freedom of religion in this nation. Even though we are a nation founded on religious values, our government gives us complete freedom to seek any or even no religion as individuals.
And many of those individuals who have no religious values at all have spoken out loudest over the years.
But over all, we are a nation that does have a reverence for God.
A final characteristic that Psalm 33 mentions in describing a nation whose God is Lord is that the nation will trust God. In verse 16, the Psalm says, "No king is saved by the size of his army; no warrior escapes by his great strength. A horse is a vain hope for deliverance; despite all its great strength it cannot save. But the eyes of the Lord are on those who fear him, on those whose hope is in his unfailing love."
Our nation has the strongest military in the world, but wise military leaders understand that ultimately it is God who gives the victory.
On December 7, 1941, our nation was drawn into war with the Japanese in a surprise attack against Pearl Harbor. The next day, the Commander in Chief of our armed forces, President Roosevelt, addressed congress and asked for a formal declaration of war. Near the end of his brief speech, the President said, "With confidence in our armed forces, with the unbounding determination of our people, we will gain the inevitable triumph, so help us God," recognizing that God himself gives the victory.
In these days of Post-911, as our nation continues to fight against terrorists, it is good for us to remember this nation’s heritage, and to recall that we were founded as a nation under God. We need to remain a nation under God.
Our nation has always been a nation based on religious values, but it has also always been a nation very close to being a nation that rejects God.
Our motto is "In God we trust." If we ever forget that motto, we will be on the verge of losing our nation.
But as long as we remember that motto, and as long as Christian people assert their religious values into our civil government, we will continue to be a great nation, one nation under God.
Copyright 2003 by the Rev. Dr. W. Maynard Pittendreigh
