<\"Religious Pluralism and America's Christian Nation Debate\">
The link is to an article by Gregory W. Hamilton in \"Liberty Magazine\", a conservative Christian magazine devoted to the idea that \"The God-given right of religious liberty is best exercised when church and state are separate.\"
A few excerpts:
The constitutional system of the United States of America remains the envy of much of the outside world, despite the growing unrest of our European allies toward our country's administration, and the continual provocation against it by terrorists and a few hostile Arab nations.
The greatest threat to our constitutional system comes from within. Most particularly from those who seek to reinterpret our nation's constitutional history in a way that suits their own desire for raw political power.
The first casualty in this struggle to create a history that supports a contemporary march toward power is the demolition of the distinction between the Puritan and Constitutional founding periods. This has caused many unwary American citizens to believe that the United States government was specifically intended by our nation's Founders to be constituted on the basis of a narrow form of Christianity and literal scriptural commands.
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Constitutionally speaking, then, the United States remains a secular nation with secular laws that are neutral toward religion, religious individuals, and religious entities, where no religious belief system, tenet, or church is established through legal enforcement. If America were a Christian nation by law, and Christianity were to dominate and suppress any other faith expression, and this was specifically spelled out as such in our Constitution, then our government would be no different than some Muslim countries whose constitutions are based on Sharia law and Hadith writings - laws derived, interpreted, and applied from the Koran, the sacred Scriptures of Islam. The only difference, of course, would be that our laws and the enforcement of our laws would derive authority, interpretation, and application from the Holy Bible, the sacred Scriptures of Christianity. Given the ardor of power-seeking Christians today who leave little room for plurality or dissent, the practical application of those laws would surely shock many.
If America were a Christian nation on a legal and constitutional basis, religious freedom in this country would be virtually nonexistent. The nation might be tolerant of Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Spiritists, and even some Christian minorities (i.e., Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Seventh-day Adventists, all American-born religions), but religious groups that did not comply with fixed legal objectives would be at a distinct disadvantage.
This is why, in our country's historical formation, Christian men such as John Leland, an itinerant, hell-fire preaching colonial Baptist from Virginia, was motivated to write that \"the notion of a Christian commonwealth should be exploded forever.\" He argued that \"government should protect every man in thinking and speaking freely, and see that one does not abuse another. The liberty I contend for is more than toleration. The very idea of toleration is despicable; it supposes that some have a preeminence above the rest to grant indulgence, whereas all should be equally free, Jews, Turks, Pagans and Christians.\" In these words Reverend Leland echoed the thoughts and words of many other Christians of his day. Indeed, no reasonable historian could accuse Reverend Leland of being a modern secular humanist.
From this, a true American imperative emerges: the principled need for religious freedom in a diverse land of many people of varying faiths and faith experiences. John Tyler is one of the least remembered presidents in the history of the United States. Yet on July 10, 1843, he penned one of the most eloquent letters ever written applauding the American constitutional experiment in religious freedom. He wrote:
\"The United States has adventured upon a great and noble experiment, which is believed to have been hazarded in the absence of all previous precedent-that of total separation of Church and State. No religious establishment by law exists among us. The conscience is left free from all restraint and each is permitted to worship his Maker after his own judgment. The offices of the Government are open alike to all. No tithes are levied to support an established Hierarchy, nor is the fallible judgment of man set up as the sure and infallible creed of faith. The Mohammedan, if he will to come among us would have the privilege guaranteed to him by the Constitution to worship according to the Koran; and the East Indian might erect a shrine to Brahma if it so pleased him. Such is the spirit of toleration inculcated by our political institutions. The Hebrew persecuted and down trodden in other regions takes up his abode among us with none to make him afraid and the Aegis of the government is over him to defend and protect him. Such is the great experiment which we have tried, and such are the happy fruits which have resulted from it; our system of free government would be imperfect without it.\"
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Working from a constitutional and legal standpoint, the Framers had the wisdom to adopt secular laws with the express intent of ensuring that all faith traditions would be welcomed and protected. Religious and political pluralism - not a Christian nation - was the principled foundation that was chosen by America's Founders to perpetuate religious and political freedom for succeeding generations.
The article isn't short, but I thought it might be interesting to anyone here who was concerned with the topic.
Religious Pluralism and America's Christian Nation Debate
Moderators: Tunnelcat, Jeff250
