Observations©

By Donald S. Conkey

Date: November 12, 2009 - # 9946 - Title: Strong religious debate is vital to America’s freedoms (826)

Let’s begin with a question! When was the last time you read the first amendment of your Constitution? Actually read it and then pondered it? It’s only 45 words and reads: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

            Note how those 45 words are arranged in this amendment dealing with the four freedoms that are the very essence of our American liberties: religion, speech, assembly, and petition. Were these words randomly arranged or were they arranged by divine design with emphasis on freedom of religion?

I choose to believe there was a divine purpose in placing religion first among equal freedoms. I do so because of these four primary freedoms mentioned in this amendment religion associates more closely with what religious people consider to be the greatest gift God has given to mankind: agency – the right to choose. Remember, America was settled, with the exception of Jamestown, by people escaping from religious tyranny in their homelands. Only later did economic opportunities become a factor for leaving one’s homeland and traveling long weeks across an ocean to a land where economic freedom was also possible.

The political debates over religious freedom by the colonists would be tantamount to today’s debates in congress over health care. Even Patrick Henry, the one who shouted in the halls of the Virginia legislature “give me liberty or give me death,” favored having a ‘State Religion,’ as was the custom in Europe. But James Madison won that debate and today America is a strong pluralistic religious nation. But religious freedom was not a part of the original Constitution. It took three men to stand up and say no to the initial Constitution before Washington and Madison would listen.

Today’s Tea Bag Patriots are akin, at least in my mind, to those three men: George Mason and Edmund Randolph of Virginia, and Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts. They stood up at a critical time and said no – we want our freedoms spelled out so those in power can’t take them from us. Thus we have not only the first amendment but nine more which together we call America’s Bill of Rights – ratified and made a part of the Constitution on December 15, 1791. Last week my brother and sister-in-law were among the thousands of Tea Bag Patriots that surrounded the capitol building and shouted “kill the bill” (HR3200). For me they were akin to Samuel Adam and his party who dumped British tea into the Boston Harbor.

How important is religion and religious thought and dialog to a prosperous nation?  Washington thought it important enough to say in his farewell address: “And let us [America] with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education … reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principles.” Richard John Neuhaus, the noted theologian, once said, “In a democracy that is free and robust, an opinion in no more disqualified being ‘religious’ than for being atheistic, or psychoanalytic, or Marxist, or just plain dumb.” Congress also declared, in 22 USC 6401(a), that: “The right to freedom of religion undergirds the very origin and existence of the United States [of America].”

America can not allow the suppression of religious thought and dialog in the public square. It is, as the Founders suggested with its “pre-eminent place” in the first amendment, “a cornerstone of American democracy.” Madison was fully aware that Jefferson had first identified the ‘cornerstone of America’s liberties’ in the Declaration of Independence, paragraph one, as “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God,” thus he placed religion in its rightful place at the head of America’s essential freedoms.

But today there is a strong push to remove religious thought and dialog from the public debate. It is subtle but determined. Dallin H. Oaks, a former state Supreme Court justice and a noted theologian today, in a recent speech to college students, said: “The greatest infringements of religious freedom occur when the exercise of religion collides with other powerful forces of society. Included among these infringements today are: 1. the rising strength of those who seek to silence religious voices in public debate, and 2, perceived conflicts between religious freedom and the popular appeal of newly alleged civil rights.”

America’s religious community must remember it is under attack today by those who would take religious thought out of the public debate. Religious thought is vital to our continued freedom and the religious community must stand firm and remind Congress they once said: “The right to freedom of religion undergirds the very origin and existence of the United States.” Also remember, it is “In God we Trust.”