Theistic or Secular Government?

What is the underlying issue in the current debate on church-state relationship in this country? It is not, though it sometimes is made to sound that way, between those who believe in a state church and those who do not. The first amendment settled that. It is rather over what the first amendment means. The two positions which have developed are the historic interpretation and a new interpretation which is still somewhat fluid. The historic interpretation is that our government recognizes the existence of God and is favorable to the cause of religion generally. The new interpretation asserts that our government is entirely neutral, that it is neither for nor against religion.

The Issues Before Us

Let us look at the scene in the United States to see if we have correctly stated the issue that our people and our courts are trying to solve. Last year, the Supreme Court struck down as unconstitutional a general prayer composed by officials of the public school system in New York State, and recited with their approval. When President Kennedy was asked in his press conference for his reaction, he replied, “We can pray a good deal more at home and attend our churches.” This was excellent advice, but it does not deal with our problem. People in Russia can also pray at home and in their churches. Francis B. Sayre, dean of Washington Cathedral, said, “I thought President Kennedy missed the point when he advised us to pray at home, for this nourishes only our private lives as individuals, but what of our corporate life as a nation?”

Now this seems to highlight the question: Does our government as a government have any religious quality? It has had such a quality in the past. The assertion that it now does not is a novel theory, and the burden of proof is on those who assert it. Justice Douglas, in a concurring opinion, writes, “I cannot say that to authorize this prayer is to establish a religion in the strictly historic meaning of these words.” This is a frank admission, and we would do well to think about it. What does the statement in the first amendment (“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”) mean in its historical context?

A somewhat similar issue arose in connection with the relationship of the Constitution to slavery at the time of the Douglas-Lincoln debates. The issue then concerned the extension of slavery to the territories, and, as Lincoln feared a new interpretation of the Constitution would permit, to the free states themselves. Senator Douglas expressed indifference to the moral questions involved and stated that he personally did not care whether the question was “voted up or down.” In reply Lincoln appealed to the original intent of the Constitution and of the Founding Fathers; he appealed to history to confirm his view and to refute that of Senator Douglas and of the Dred Scott decision of the Supreme Court. He said, “I always believed that everybody was against it (slavery) and that it was in the course of ultimate extinction. The adoption of the Constitution and its attendant history led the people to believe so, and such was the belief of the framers of the Constitution itself, else why did those old men, about the time of the adoption of the Constitution, decree that slavery should not go into new territory?”

Now, let us try to do what Lincoln then did, to discover what meaning the first amendment had for those who wrote it and for the government that enforced it. Our first president, George Washington, not only was enormously influential in adopting the Constitution, but, in enforcing its provisions, believed most strongly in the necessity of religion for our national health and future prosperity. In his farewell address, the father of our country wrote: “Religion and morality are the indispensable supports of political prosperity. Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Reason and experience both forbid me to expect that national morality can prevail in the exclusion of religious principle. Morality is a necessary spring of popular government. Who that is sincere friend to it, can look with indifference upon attempts to shake the foundation of the fabric?”

But let us ask Thomas Jefferson, generally and rightly regarded as the chief architect of the idea of separation of Church and State, how he understood the relation of faith in God and the government. Jefferson was a Deist, and he was opposed to any church, such as the Episcopal, being established as the official church, but judging from his own actions he knew nothing of a secular government. In the Declaration of Independence he plainly speaks of God as the Creator of all men and the Author of our lives, our liberties, and the right to pursue happiness. He closes this document which declared us to be a nation with these words: “with a firm reliance on the Protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.” Does our government recognize God today? It certainly did in the hour of its birth.

Since the adoption of the Constitution and of the first ten amendments shortly thereafter, the Congress has recognized the existence of God in various actions and has been friendly to religion generally as held by our citizens. It has been not indifferent to, nor neutral to, but friendly to religion. This is what we should expect if our government is “of” and “by” and “for” the people, for our people have ever been, what a recent decision of the Supreme Court has recognized, “a religious people.” The Congress has employed chaplains to open the business of both houses regularly with prayer. Chaplains have been employed to serve in the armed forces of our nation. The Bible has been used in our courtrooms to enforce the oath, and the Supreme Court has regularly opened with a prayer. In the public school system, which was accepted by our country when the Protestant churches held the balance of power, it was understood that while narrowly sectarian religion would not be taught, the great moral truths of religion would be. Horace Mann, who at the very least is one of the fathers of public school education, believed that the two great commandments of love to God and love to neighbor would be part of public school education. Tax exemption to the churches was granted by a friendly government which confidently expected that good churchgoers would be good citizens. In short there was a religious consensus on the part of the great mass of our citizens which caused our government to recognize the presence of God in our national affairs.

This is the point at which those in favor of the new secular attitude on the part of our government speak up. We now live, they say, in a pluralistic society; no religious agreement any longer exists, and therefore the government must assume the attitude of strict neutrality. But is this really true? We are no longer as strongly Protestant as in the past, but the growing strength of Roman Catholicism is not hostile to the expression of faith in God on the part of our government. The proportion of Jews is larger than in colonial days, but it was a Jew who wrote, “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord.” The forces of secularism are larger or at least more aggressive than in the past, but they existed then also. If when we were born as a nation we could express a reliance on “the Protection of Divine Providence,” can we not do so today? Statistically today we have more people formally united to religious organizations than we did then. In various sample religious polls taken to establish the religious beliefs of our nation, the results are startlingly similar. Over 95 per cent of our population regularly profess to have some sort of faith in God, and less than 5 per cent assert that they do not. In a republic such as ours, since we cannot at the same time please both of these groups, whom should we please—the great majority or the minority? In 1865 our government caused the motto “In God We Trust” to be stamped on our coinage. So the right of men to disbelieve is granted, but the right of the majority of our citizens to express their faith in God has also been granted.

There are various minorities in our nation. A minority of our citizens believe in socialism. They have a right to do so and to try to persuade others to their point of view, but they do not have the right to inhibit the great majority of our citizens from expressing faith in capitalism through appropriate actions of our government. So the convictions of a minority of our citizens should not be allowed to coerce our government into a false and harmful neutrality to the One whom Jefferson called “Creator,” nor towards that religious life that Washington thought indispensable for our political institutions.

But an even more important consideration should be borne in mind by our people. We are engaged in a life-and-death struggle with Russia. We head up the free world, and Russia heads up the world of Communism. Each side has enormous armies, navies, and air forces, hundreds of millions of people, and atomic power. Each side thinks it should win. Russia has said that it will bury us. Which side should win? Is it not evident that the scales will be tipped by some outside power? The power that will decide is God, for he has promised the victory to those who serve him. In the past our government has publicly acknowledged God, at our birth and in every great struggle. But if the secular view of the first amendment wins, this will no longer be so. The issue then will be between Russia, which is hostile to God but permits worship, and the United States, which officially is indifferent to God but allows liberty. How much difference is there between hostility and indifference?

All of our presidents have invoked divine aid, and President Kennedy has in this year asked for “God’s help.” May our nation, as a nation, ever do so in the great arena of our national and international life.

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