The Cost of Freedom
A Christian group has proposed an amendment to our constitution. Here’s why: “Believing that Almighty God is the source of all power and authority in civil government, that the Lord Jesus Christ is the Ruler of Nations, and that the revealed Will of God is of Supreme authority in civil affairs;
“Remembering that this country was settled by Christian men, with Christian ends in view, and that they gave a distinctly Christian character to the institutions which they established;
Perceiving the subtle and persevering attempts which are made to prohibit the reading of the Bible in our Public Schools, … to corrupt the Family, to abolish the Prayer in our National and State Legislatures, and other Christian features of our institutions, and so to divorce the American Government from all connection with the Christian religion;
Viewing with grave apprehension the corruption of our politics, … and the disregard of moral and religious character in those who are exalted to high places in the nation;
Believing that a written Constitution ought to contain explicit evidence of the Christian character and purpose of the nation which frames it, and perceiving that the silence of the Constitution of the United States in this respect is used as an argument against all that is Christian in the us-age and administration of our Government.
To the Honorable, the Senate and House of Represen-tatives in Congress assembled:
We, citizens of the United States, respectfully ask your honorable bodies to adopt measures for amending the Constitution of the United States, so as to read, in sub-stance, as follows:
We, the people of the United States, humbly acknowl-edging Almighty God as the source of all authority and power in civil government, the Lord Jesus Christ as the Ruler among the nations, his revealed will as the supreme law of the land, in order to constitute a Christian govern-ment, and in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the inalienable rights and the blessings of life, liberty, and the pur-suit of happiness to ourselves, our posterity, and all the people, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
This “Christian Amendment” is not the work of Tom DeLay, Bill Frist or Rick Santoram. It was not proposed by Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson, or James Dobson. It came from the National Reform Association on January 27, 1864. This group of Christian ministers presented it to President Abraham Lincoln because they were convinced that the Civil War in which the nation was embroiled was not about slavery. But was an act of God. They believed that God inflicted this gruesome war upon the people of the United States of America in order to punish them for leav-ing Him out of the Constitution. They were not the first to make such a claim. During the War of 1812, Timothy Dwight, the President of Yale University, argued that the British bombardment of Washington was God’s punishment for having been omitted from the constitution.
They were a part of a movement which began when the Constitution was written. A movement that wanted this to be a “Christian” nation. That wanted God and Jesus Christ written into the law of the land. For you see we Americans have been fighting about the place of religion in politics from the very beginning.
But most of us slept through our American History classes. Or maybe they left the part out about the battle that was waged in the when representatives from the 13 colonies came together to write the Constitution of the newly created United States of America. As I prepared this message I discovered things that I did not remember about the conflicts that almost prevented the ratification of the Constitution by the thirteen colonies. For you see they were just as divided as a people as we are today. Nine of the thirteen colonies had to approve in order for the Constitution to go into effect. Proposed in September of 1787, it was finally approved by all thirteen colonies almost three years later.
Just ten votes decided the issue at the constitutional conventions of two states: New Hampshire 57-47, and Virginia, 89-79. Three votes carried the day for the state of New York, 30-27. And Rhode Island was the last to ratified on a vote of 34 to 32. And one of the major issues that divided the country was a religious one. Eleven of the thirteen colonies had a religious test for any person who would aspire to elected office. Only protestants were allowed to run. Catholics were excluded along with any other religion and those who professed not faith at all. With the power of the states government behind them, these officially sanctioned denominations often persecuted the members of various minority religions. Baptists, Quakers, Jews and others were denied the right to hold public office and were required to pay taxes to support the established church. By the time the Constitution was framed; many of its authors had come to believe strongly that state sponsored denominations was wrong.
The men who wrote the Constitution specifically pre-cluded such a test for any person who would run for public office. Article Six includes these words: “no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.” This was the source of much debate throughout the thirteen colonies.
The authors of our Constitution lived during a time when most of the colonies had either a single established denomination or multiple established denominations. At some point or other in their lives, they were required by law to support religion in general or a specific declared de-nomination.
Some of our fundamentalist brothers and sisters would have us believe that the men who wrote the Constitution unanimously agreed with them. But the truth that, like our leaders today, the founders, were a mixed bunch as far as their religious beliefs and practices.
Some were considered orthodox Christians that were very into religion. Some were orthodox Christians who did not practice or attend church. Many were considered by the orthodox approved denominations to be non-orthodox, not truly Christian: they were Deists, Quakers, Catholics, Unitarians. Some probably were closet atheists or "infidels"
John Leland was a Baptist preacher of that day whose life involved writing about and preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ and about the proper relationship between religion and government. In the latter passion, Leland agreed with the position of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, both of whom he knew personally.
In his “July 4th, 1802 Oration” John Leland said, “Never promote men who seek after a state-established religion; it is spiritual tyranny--the worst of despotism. It is turnpiking the way to heaven by human law, in order to establish ministerial gates to collect toll. It converts religion into a princi-ple of state policy, and the gospel into merchandise. Heaven forbids the bans of marriage between church and state; their embraces therefore, must be unlawful. Guard against those men who make a great noise about religion, in choosing representatives. It is electioneering. If they knew the nature and worth of religion, they would not debauch it to such shameful purposes. If pure religion is the criterion to denominate candidates, those who make a noise about it must be rejected; for their wrangle about it, proves that they are void of it. Let honesty, talents and quick dispatch, characterize the men of your choice. Such men will have a sympathy with their constituents, and will be willing to come to the light, that their deeds may be examined. . . .”
The founding fathers, though most were Christian men, fought hard to keep religion out of our Constitution because they believed that separation of church and state was the best course of action for both the church and the state. Indeed, that is why the very first amendment to the Constitution says “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;”
This was of primary important in the protection of those inalienable rights of every individual along with “the freedom of speech, freedom of the press; the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances,” which are also stated in the first amendment.
Throughout the history of our country this religious bat-tle has been waged time and time again. And time and time again our elected representatives have agreed with the founders of our nation and supported the separation of church and state. The “Christian amendment” has come before the congress 5 times since the Constitution was ratified & been defeated each time. It was defeated in 1874, 1894, 1910, 1947 & in 1954. The first article of the Bill of Rights has stood the test of time to preserve freedom of religion in this great county of ours.
Our fundamentalist brothers and sisters who make up what the media call the “Christian right,” are wrong when they claim that our forefathers would agree with their ef-forts to make this an officially “Christian nation.” Indeed, if Jefferson, and Madison and Adams and Washington were here today, I suspect that they would be labeled persecutors of the faith for their stances on the separation of church and state.
You and I are free to believe anything we choose to be-lieve or to believe nothing at all. Although he stirred up quite a war of the worlds in the last week, Tom Cruise is free to be a Scientologist, just as you and I are free to be United Methodists. If every other person in America was a Christian and Tom was the only remaining Scientologist, our Constitution would protect his right to be one. That right to choose one’s religion is not up for a vote. The ma-jority cannot take it away from the minority. That is why the Bill of Rights was quickly added to the Constitution, to protect the “inalienable rights” of the minority from the majority. Without those protections, democracy is a dangerous thing. Without those protections, the majority could not only rule over the minority but could get rid of the minority. When you hear people say, “America, love it or leave it,” you are listening to a person who does not believe in the Bill of Rights. For that person really means, if you don’t agree with me and I am in the majority, you should leave this country.
The Declaration of Independence says “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unal-ienable rights…” This is the only reference to God and theology in the documents which established this nation. God is not mentioned in the Constitution. Yet this reference to the creator is clearly consistent with the Judeo-Christian understanding of God and humanity. Most every Christian and Jew believe that God is the source of human life and that every human life is of equal value to God. That is why Jesus quoted the Book of Deuteronomy when he said that the greatest commandment is “to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.” That is why he quoted the book of Leviticus when he said “the second is like unto the first, Love your neighbor as yourself.” Our Constitution is based on that understanding of God and that understanding of the worth of every human being.
Two hundred and twenty-nine years ago, “We, the peo-ple…” of this great land declared our freedom from the tyr-anny of those who would tell us who and how to worship. That was the easy part. The difficult part came when “We, the people…” began to define the responsibilities that came along with that freedom. The Constitution of the United States of America has for the past two century’s been the context in which we have debated the nature of our responsibilities to each other as a free people. Christian people have been on both sides of every debate that has occurred over those 229 years. Men and women who proclaim Jesus as their Savior and their Lord have consis-tently disagreed on every important constitutional issue that has come up.
The Apostle Paul seemed to know that this would hap-pen forever when he wrote this letter to the people who were the church in Galatia almost two thousand years ago. Apparently the people who were the church in Galatia were debating important issues way back then, just the way we are debating them today. That is why Paul warned them, and why he warns us today: “Just make sure that you don’t use this freedom as an excuse to do whatever you want to do and destroy your freedom. …If you bite and rav-age each other, watch out--in no time at all you will be annihilating each other, and where will your precious free-dom be then?” And apparently we Christians have been biting and ravaging each other for more than two thousand years. That is why Paul reminded the people who were the church in Galatia and why he reminds us today: “use your freedom to serve one another in love; that’s how freedom grows. 14For everything we know about God’s Word is summed up in a single sentence: Love others as you love yourself. That’s an act of true freedom.”
You know, when you think about it, this nation of ours is really still in its infancy compared the rest of our world. The civilizations of the middle east and the far east have been around for thousands of years, compared to our brief two centuries. When Thomas Jefferson died, Abraham Lincoln was a young man of 17. When Lincoln was assassinated, Woodrow Wilson was a boy of 8. By the time he died Ronald Reagan was a boy of 12.
There you have it. The lives of four men can take you all the way back to the beginning of our country, 229 years ago. We are so young. And yet we stand tall among the nations because of the principles on which we were established: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all people are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”
Separation between government and religion has given Americans more religious freedom than any other people possess. It has allowed religion to thrive in this country. And it has enabled the U.S. to avoid the types of bloody religious conflicts seen throughout history and in much of the world today. Church-state separation should be one of our most treasured national principles. And I believe that we, as Christians must defend it. We must be willing to fight for the right of Tom Cruise or Madeline Murray O’Hare or the Maharishi Hoochie Coochie, if we treasure our own freedom to believe and worship as we please. That is the cost of freedom.
