Separation Of Church And State Is An Oxymoron

SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE IN THE UNITED STATES FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF ONE “CONSERVATIVE”

In General:

The idea that church and state can be separated is a chimera.  The term, separation of church and state, is not used in the Constitution of the United States nor is it especially hinted at.  For the most part it would have been, I believe, wholeheartedly rejected as a concept by many, if not most, of the founders of the nation.  

The phrase, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;” is contained in an amendment to the Constitution passed by Congress as part of the Bill of Rights about two years after the Constitution itself was passed as the foundation upon which our government stands.  Note the amendment does not forbid States from making such law, nor Presidents from making religious proclamations (Thanksgiving) and so on.

The founders of the United States were an extraordinary group of thinkers bringing something entirely new into the world.  Much of what they created was created in an effort to moderate the

impact of factions, including religious factions, but many others as well, on the governments and peoples of the newly created United States. 

At bottom it is evident many of the founders realized government is, intrinsically, every bit as much a “religion” as is any of the other tens of thousands of religions mankind has accepted as being true religion at various times in history. 

The founders realized that governments must be formed to avoid anarchy.  Each citizen of a government either gives up or is forced to give up some freedom to attain the benefits of a just government.  Absent a just government, the unscrupulous among us would have free rein to impose unjust governments.  If we must have government however, “That government that governs least governs best.” (Thoreau: On Civil Disobedience). 

All government is religious in nature. 

What The Founders Intended And Most Philosophical Conservatives Accept:

The Federalist Papers are generally recognized as “founding documents” because of their influence, as the fledgling nation sought to create a Constitution capable of providing both liberty and order through time.

In Federalist No. 10 (and elsewhere) James Madison, labelling factions “mortal diseases” leading to the deaths of popular governments wrote:

AMONG the numerous advantages promised by a well constructed Union, none deserves to be more accurately developed than its tendency to break and control the violence of faction. The friend of popular governments never finds himself so much alarmed for their character and fate, as when he contemplates their propensity to this dangerous vice. He will not fail, therefore, to set a due value on any plan which, without violating the principles to which he is attached, provides a proper cure for it. The instability, injustice, and confusion introduced into the public councils, have, in truth, been the mortal diseases under which popular governments have everywhere perished; as they continue to be the favorite and fruitful topics from which the adversaries to liberty derive their most specious declamations.

Madison described factions succinctly (bolding is mine in this as well as throughout):

“By a faction, I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or a minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adversed to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community.”

So how can factions be controlled?  Madison again:

“There are two methods of curing the mischiefs of faction: the one, by removing its causes; the other, by controlling its effects.”  Further, “There are again two methods of removing the causes of faction: the one, by destroying the liberty which is essential to its existence; the other, by giving to every citizen the same opinions, the same passions, and the same interests.”

Continuing, Madison put forward:

“It could never be more truly said than of the first remedy, that it was worse than the disease. Liberty is to faction what air is to fire, an aliment without which it instantly expires. But it could not be less folly to abolish liberty, which is essential to political life, because it nourishes faction, than it would be to wish the annihilation of air, which is essential to animal life, because it imparts to fire its destructive agency.

The second expedient is as impracticable as the first would be unwise. As long as the reason of man continues fallible, and he is at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed. As long as the connection subsists between his reason and his self-love, his opinions and his passions will have a reciprocal influence on each other; and the former will be objects to which the latter will attach themselves…. The latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man; and we see them everywhere brought into different degrees of activity, according to the different circumstances of civil society. A zeal for different opinions concerning religion, concerning government, and many other points, as well of speculation as of practice; an attachment to different leaders ambitiously contending for pre-eminence and power; or to persons of other descriptions whose fortunes have been interesting to the human passions, have, in turn, divided mankind into parties, inflamed them with mutual animosity, and rendered them much more disposed to vex and oppress each other than to co-operate for their common good. So strong is this propensity of mankind to fall into mutual animosities, that where no substantial occasion presents itself, the most frivolous and fanciful distinctions have been sufficient to kindle their unfriendly passions and excite their most violent conflicts.”

Madison’s few words are at the very heart of what most philosophical conservatives today hold to be true; our government was founded to provide the greatest portion of liberty possible to all citizens.  Providing that liberty requires respect for the liberty of individuals – minorities must be protected from the excesses of majorities of all stripes; every action government takes violates the inalienable right to liberty of someone, or many some ones, so government should only act when a clear need to violate the “unalienable” rights of an individual or group of individuals is present, and, as Madison goes on to explain, because all government is accomplished by force, a form of government that makes it very difficult to bring about radical change in a short period of time must be maintained; factions must be controlled in a way allowing them to bring about change but, change should not come as the result of a quick flaring of public temper but rather as the result of building agreement over time that radical change is needed. 

What About What Is Purported To Be The “Separation Of Church And State?

If you think the founders of the United States had any ideas regarding a strict separation of church and state,” you should read the nation’s founding document; the Declaration of Independence.  There is no lack of clarity there. 

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

The founders, some of whom were openly religious and some of whom were not, understood that all just governments are based on religious principles.  The founders were not alone in understanding that maxim.  Perhaps the best “sound bite” on the subject comes from the French philosopher Voltaire who famously said, “If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.”  Quite an interesting little statement that can be understood in a number of ways by someone actually thinking about the philosophy of religion especially given that Voltaire was skeptical of Christianity as well as being an advocate of the separation of church and state.

Every Reader Of This Little Paper Is Likely To Be Religious But May Not Know It

In a really broad brush sense, any discussion of the part religion should have in government must begin with some thinking about what is good, and what is “not good.”   For good and evil, moral and immoral to exist, God must exist.       

Discussion of the distinction between good and “not good” is a different animal than any discussion about what good and evil might be.  Pascal’s famous wager is one of the best explanations of the conundrum those who deny the existence of God must face.  A more or less glib explanation of the wager follows.   

Pascal says each and every one of us must, willingly or unwillingly, make a bet with our lives.  If we bet on God and we are right, we gain eternity.  If we bet on God and we are wrong, we lose nothing, we’re just worm food in the end anyway.  If we bet against God and we’re wrong, we pay for being wrong for all eternity.  If we bet against God and we are right, we’ve neither lost nor gained and we’re still just worm food in the end.  The only rational bet is to bet on God.

The above explanation is extremely foreshortened.  Pascal’s argument is one with true depth and makes for fascinating reading.  You should give it some attention at some time in your life if you believe yourself to be a serious thinker; especially regarding social issues.

In terms of this little effort, I’d be willing to bet nearly each and every one of you almost assuredly harbor, in your innermost thoughts, the idea that some things are moral and some things are immoral. So what does that all mean, what gives you the authority to decide some thing is moral or some thing is immoral?   

If we are just the end result of something that spontaneously combusted in the primordial slime then crawled out and over the span of millions of years become all sorts of flora and fauna there can be no thing that is moral and there can be no thing that is immoral.  There can only be rules and regulations imposed upon us by someone, or some thing, with the power to do that (God) or, rules and regulations we impose on others because we are more powerful than those others.      

So the separation of church and state discussion fundamentally comes down to the question, “Does God exist.”

If God, however defined, exists, then God decides what is morally good and what is not morally good.  The opposite of what God defines as “good” is “evil.”  Evil can only exist in the context of good.

If God does not exist, the person with the most destructive weapon or with other means to impose their will on others (control of a government for example) defines what is good and evil; but only for the time that person can hold on to power.  That person (or group of persons) becomes, for all practical purposes a self-made God wielding power over the rest of us; neither an atheist, nor an agnostic, can consider a Hitler or a Stalin, or a Mao, “evil” nor can they label any of those leaders “good.”   

Government and Religion

For whatever reason, some have a tremendously difficult time with the idea that God must exist.  Many of those people want to bring “good” into the world but, as I’ve contended in the above, “good” is a concept that relies on the existence of a god or godlike power with the ability to determine what is good and what is evil.  Some “gods” impose that determination, others invite acceptance with the penalty for turning down the invitation being exclusion from life with that God. 

Enter the convenience of government as a substitute. Remember Voltaire?  If God didn’t already exist we would have to create him?  The past two or three decades have seen the ascendance of a long existing religion titled “Secular Humanism.” 

As accurately explained by that all knowing fount of knowledge, Wikipedia, “Secular humanism is a philosophy or life stance that embraces human reason, ethics, and philosophical naturalism while specifically rejecting religious dogma, supernaturalism, pseudoscience, and superstition as the basis of morality and decision making.”  In other words, mankind can be its own God.

Secular Humanists see their god each day when they look into a mirror, but the question they fail to consider is this; “Who decides which person’s concept of human reason, ethics, and philosophical naturalism is correct and thus should be imposed on even those who do not agree?”  If there is disagreement who decides which side is “right.”  Who decides what is religious dogma, supernaturalism, pseudoscience, or superstition?  And who decides which ideas of morality and decision making should be imposed on the rest of us who may not accept the conclusion arrived at?

Consider Madison’s words again:

“A zeal for different opinions concerning religion, concerning government, and many other points, as well of speculation as of practice; an attachment to different leaders ambitiously contending for pre-eminence and power; or to persons of other descriptions whose fortunes have been interesting to the human passions, have, in turn, divided mankind into parties, inflamed them with mutual animosity, and rendered them much more disposed to vex and oppress each other than to co-operate for their common good. So strong is this propensity of mankind to fall into mutual animosities, that where no substantial occasion presents itself, the most frivolous and fanciful distinctions have been sufficient to kindle their unfriendly passions and excite their most violent conflicts.”

The rise of Secular Humanism as a powerful religious idea has coincided with the rise in the use of the term “Separation of Church and State.”  The term does not appear in the Constitution.  Secular Humanists, of course, support strict separation of church and state because, as they supposedly eschew religion, they can justify having their own religious precepts passed into law as being the result of rational thinking, while opposing other ideas on the basis of “separation of church and state!  Nice to have your cake and eat it too!

The protections to the God given unalienable rights mentioned in the Declaration of Independence are built into the Constitution.  One of those protections is the prohibition regarding Congress establishing, either directly or by its actions, a state religion, of any kind.  Congress cannot support a particular religion nor can Congress forbid the free exercise of any  religion.  A religion must be afforded the same treatment any other faction is afforded; nothing more and nothing less.    

That requirement is not “separation of church and state,” it is integration of church and state in a way meant to allow the state to benefit from the good things religion might offer as well as allow the state to control the excesses of religion. 

When any group of citizens rips  away at foundational ideas in order to achieve selfish aims it tears away at the foundation built to control, to the extent possible, the excesses of faction.  When the foundation finally erodes away we are all closer to the day when the powerful among us, whether liberal, conservative, right wing or left wing, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Green Party, Progressive, Socialist, or any other group ultimately seeking control of the rest of will finally gain what they want; the ability to determine, and impose on the rest of us, their own definition of what is right and/or wrong; their own religious views.