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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/3377375
I read an essay by a christian a while ago that pointed out that the separation of church and state wasn’t about protecting the state from religion - it was about protecting religion from the state.
The gist of the argument was that religion should be concentrating on the eternal, and politics, by necessity, concentrates on the immediate. The author was concerned that welding religion and politics together would make religion itself political, meaning it would have to conform to the secular moment rather than looking to saving souls or whatever.
The mind meld of evangelical christianity and right wing politics happened in the mid to late 70s when the US was trying to racially integrate christian universities, which had been severely limiting or excluding black students. Since then, republicans and christians have been in bed together. The southern baptist convention, in fact, originally endorsed the Roe decision because it helped the cause of women. It was only after they decided to go all in on social conservatism that it became a sin.
Christians today are growing concerned about a falloff in attendance and membership. This article concentrates on how conservatism has become a call for people to publicly identify as evangelical while not actually being religious, because it’s an our team thing.
Evangelicals made an ironically Faustian bargain and are starting to realize it.
Without knowing the author or their reasons for saying that, I would say that they have it wrong entirely. The majority of governments before the US almost always had some level of theocracy attached to it. We took our independence from a man who quite literally was pretending to be God’s representative on earth.
Within that context, its very hard to see the constitution as intending anything other than a full divorce between politics and religion.
It’s more that it was about protecting both from each other. If you read Thomas Jefferson’s Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, most of it is about how it’s wrong to use state power to enforce religion, but he does throw in this section as well:
“[Mixing religion and politics] tends to corrupt the principles of that very religion it is meant to encourage, by bribing, with a monopoly of worldly honours and emoluments.”
That single sentence in a body of work you acknowledge agrees with me isn’t a very good smoking gun.
Jefferson was the ideological head of a conspiracy to steal land and autonomy from a theocratic state. I also believe some of the first laws enacted by the warring colonies was that Anglican churches were no longer allowed to swear allegiance to the king.
I don’t know why its 2023 and there is still this active fight to reframe the creation of the US itself as a Christian act.
As a European, even though I know of the separation of church and state in the US, I feel that religion in politics still is very important in the states.
I mean that most candidates are very publicly religious and I have the idea that religious affiliation is still very important in the electoral vote, more so than where I live.
Correct me if I’m wrong, by the way, but I don’t know what religion most of our politicians abide by, except those in a religious party. Where I would think that in America, if a candidate were non religious it would affect electability.
You are 100% right, here is a study from 2016 which shows being atheist hurts worse than being muslim.
Yes, but in the US we don’t make our leader the head of a state religion when they take office.
That is what the Brits do. And, quite frankly, when Henry VIII made that move to get out from under papal control, I’d say it was a pretty progressive act.
But my comment was about how important the religiosity of political candidates is in an electoral correct. I have little insight into the importance of religious status of candidates in Britain, but I don’t think the British electorate really cares is someone is Catholic.
I don’t know if a king starting his own religion to avoid following the rules of a different religion is that progressive.
Much debate can be had. It is obviously self-serving and not ideological.
However for the time denouncing the pope was kind of radical. I kind of forgot that the refomation was going on in the mean time, so that he was probably using that as example and excuse. So that makes it a bit less progressive still…
Well I’ll retract my statement, though a bold move it was.
I’d say that the separation is a little bit of both. It protects government from religion, but it can also protect religion from government. Back in England, the head of the church was the king of England. If the king decided that everyone needed to pray while balancing on their right foot, that’s what would be done. So how you prayed was dependent on the government (the king).
Now, the people pushing Christian theocracy are fine with tearing down the wall between Church and State because they all assume that THEIR religion will be the one in charge. But imagine how much they’d howl if a Select Congressional Committee On Prayer determined that all prayer books needed to be rewritten to add in some new prayers and remove old ones.
They’d go berserk over the government interfering in their religious practices. The separation prevents the government from mucking about in religion unless there’s a major issue. (Sorry, no human sacrifices.)
The Christian right doesn’t consider this at all and they could seriously regret it if they ever reach their goal. (We’d definitely regret it more, of course.)
At the time of the Constitution there were several states with official state religions (Pennslyvania, Maryland, RI etc…) Separation of Church and state was more of making sure that the Federal Governent didn’t impose a religion upon the states themselves.
Odd because Madison who wrote the establishment clause formed it specifically to stop his state from having government funded religious schools.
The founding fathers had a significantly more progressive, more secular view of what the American society and government could and should be than the general population or even the general upper class.
Additionally I believe Madison ended up using a Virginia state religious freedom law to oppose religious school in the state.
While the language of the first Amendment should have banned state religion based solely on it’s text. It didn’t based on it’s interpretation.
Your argument is changing.
I pointed out that it was specifically designed on the state level.
That’s not a changing argument. The 1st Amendment didn’t outlaw religion in state government. It’s goal was to prevent a Federal government from being able to impose a religious mandate upon a state that didn’t want it.
Citation needed about it’s goal. Because I gave you a proof from the man who wrote it.
Pennsylvania and Rhode Island never had established churches; both were founded in part as havens for religious dissenters.
There’s a list here on Wikipedia.
Were any of those States allowed to keep their state religions after the ratification of the constution or did they immediately start following the law and separated their recognition of a church being the state religion?
But yes, the constitution outright was outlawing the formation of theocratic arms of the state.
All of them kept them. For example Mass had a state religion until 1833. Most kept them until the mid to late 1800s when the amount of Irish Catholic and German/Lutheran immigrants made it clear that if they kept a state religion that it wasn’t going to remain theirs.
Most of the state churches were disestablished before the Bill of Rights was ratified in 1791; Connecticut and Massachusetts being the exceptions.
It appears 1833 is when Massachusetts formally adopted their state constitution, so that is likely the reason in.that case, hut I will look more into it.