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side will need to accept some ground rules for collaboration.
The first and most difficult step for some evangelical Christians is to
acknowledge the critical role that the establishment clause has played not
only in the development of our democracy but also in the robustness of our
religious practice. Contrary to the claims of many on the Christian right who
rail against the separation of church and state, their argument is not with a
handful of liberal sixties judges. It is with the drafters of the Bill of
Rights and the forebears of todays evangelical church.
Many of the leading lights of the Revolution, most notably Franklin and
Jefferson, were deists who-while believing in an Almighty God-questioned not
only the dogmas of the Christian church but the central tenets of Christianity
itself (including Christs divinity). Jefferson and Madison in particular
argued for what Jefferson called a wall of separation between church and
state, as a means of protecting individual liberty in religious belief and
practice, guarding the state against sectarian strife, and defending organized
religion against the states encroachment or undue influence.
Of course, not all the Founding Fathers agreed; men like Patrick Henry and
John Adams forwarded a variety of proposals to use the arm of the state to
promote religion. But while it was Jefferson and Madison who pushed through
the Virginia statute of religious freedom that would become the model for the
First Amendments religion clauses, it wasnt these students of the
Enlightenment who proved to be the most effective champions of a separation
between church and state.
Rather, it was Baptists like Reverend John Leland and other evangelicals who
provided the popular support needed to get these provisions ratified. They did
so because they were outsiders; because their style of exuberant worship
appealed to the lower classes; because their evangelization of all
comers-including slaves-threatened the established order; because they were no
respecters of rank and privilege; and because they were consistently
persecuted and disdained by the dominant Anglican Church in the South and the
Congregationalist orders of the North. Not only did they rightly fear that any
state-sponsored religion might encroach on their ability, as religious
minorities, to practice their faith; they also believed that religious
vitality inevitably withers when compelled or supported by the state. In the
words of the Reverend Leland, It is error alone, that stands in need of
government to support it; truth can and will do better withoutit.
Jefferson and Lelands formula for religious freedom worked. Not only has
America avoided the sorts of religious strife that continue to plague the
globe, but religious institutions have continued to thrive-a phenomenon that
some observers attribute directly to the absence of a state-sponsored church,
and hence a premium on religious experimentation and volunteerism. Moreover,
given the increasing diversity of Americas population, the dangers of
sectarianism have never been greater. Whatever we once were, we are no longer
just a Christian nation; we are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a
Buddhist nation, a Hindu nation, and a nation of nonbelievers.
But lets even assume that we only had Christians within our borders. Whose
Christianity would we teach in the schools? James Dobsons or Al Sharptons?
Which passages of Scripture should guide our public policy? Should we go with
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Leviticus, which suggests that slavery is all right and eating shellfish is an
abomination? How about Deuteronomy, which suggests stoning your child if he
strays from the faith? Or should we just stick to the Sermon on the Mount-a
passage so radical that its doubtful that our Defense Department would
survive its application?
This brings us to a different point-the manner in which religious views
should inform public debate and guide elected officials. Surely, secularists
are wrong when they ask believers to leave their religion at the door before
entering the public square; Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, William
Jennings Bryan, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King, Jr.-indeed, the majority of
great reformers in American history-not only were motivated by faith but
repeatedly used religious language to argue their causes. To say that men and
women should not inject their personal morality into public-policy debates
is a practical absurdity; our law is by definition a codification of morality,
much of it grounded in the Judeo-Christian tradition.
What our deliberative, pluralistic democracy does demand is that the
religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than
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