New Speaker Mike Johnson seems to have offended everyone by suggesting he get’s his worldview from the Bible, the horror. Which is a good sign. Steven Colbert, supposedly some sort of Christian, mocked him as though applying your faith to your job as a political leader violated the ‘wall of separation’, between church and state. The strange fact is that our culture holds the tradition of this idea though it’s wrong and based in no fact. In a sense the tradition is more powerful than the written law.
The phrase isn’t actually in the Constitution, it comes from a letter Thomas Jefferson wrote in response to a letter from the Danbury Baptists. They were concerned that their state didn’t have a codified protection for religious freedom. As was the case with 11 of the original 13 colonies, they had in effect state churches. Interesting that Connecticut didn’t really even have a constitution as this point 1802. What they had was a colonial charter dating back to 1638, which contains a lot of phrases which would make most Christians blush and Colbert would soil himself.
FORASMUCH as it hath pleased the Almighty God by the wise disposition of his divine providence so to Order and dispose of things that we the Inhabitants and Residents of Windsor, Harteford and Wethersfield are now cohabiting and dwelling in and upon the River of Connecticut and the Lands thereunto adjoining; And well knowing where a people are gathered together the word of God requires that to maintain the peace and union of such a people there should be an orderly and decent Government established according to God, to order and dispose of the affrays of the people at all seasons as occasion shall require; do therefore associate and connive ourselves to be as one Public State or Commonwealth; and do, for ourselves and our Successors and such as shall be adjoined to us at any time hereafter, enter into Combination and Confederation to gather, to maintain and pressure the liberty and purity of the gospel of our Lord Jesus which we now profess, as also the discipline of the Churches, which according to the truth of the said gospel is now practised amongst vs; As also in our Civil Affairs to be guided and governed according to such Laws, Rules, Orders and decrees as shall be made, ordered & decreed, as followeth:
In addition the governor had to be a member of a church and had to swear an oath in the name of Jesus Christ. Connecticut also passed a number of laws which always sited Old Testament verses. Including the death penalty for sodomy. This was their basis of law until 1818, when the adopted a constitution of the type we are more familiar with. That’s 180 years of theocracy.
But back to Jefferson’s response to the baptists. Jefferson points out that the U.S. Constitution forbids government from establishing a religion or interfering with someone’s practice of religion, and this is the wall. It does not prevent Christians from applying their faith to their duty as elected representatives. As if this phrase from the Bill of Rights was meant to keep religiously things out of the government. If this were the case it would be a violation of the Constitution.
Let’s look at another phrase from Jefferson’s letter: “that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions”.
So if you think government is supposed to prevent people who believe certain things from being in government for their opinions you are going against Jefferson’s whole point. But this is exactly what Colbert is demanding and what your governments down to the local level enforce every day. We can’t have religion in government. Well at least not orthodox Christianity. Their secular religion is fine, Mohammedan religion is fine, other paganisms are fine. Which is the point, by placing tests on opinion they are setting up a religion. A secular religion, which most Christians are stupid enough to think is not a religion and is somehow divinely and Constitutionally established.
Let’s look at how Jefferson views religion and how he bookends the letter: “Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship . . . convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.”
Religious duty is a natural right and has no conflict with social duty. Social duty, the civil government’s task, as the Apostle Paul points out is to punish evil, not to adjudicate religious doctrine. The doctrine goes back to Scripture and comes through the tradition of Calvin. The Baptists echoed this tradition in their letter “that the legitimate power of civil government extends no further than to punish the man who works ill to his neighbors”
Which is to say a lot of things Jefferson doesn’t have to say that were taken for granted. We an English speaking people who basically live in 18th century Christendom and are tired of all the wars of religion in Europe for the last 200 years, establish a government that has minimal power because apparently we need government so the British don’t wipe us out, go and practice whatever denomination of Christianity you want, work hard and don’t do evil.
But we love evil now and mock anyone who dares tell us other wise as unloving. Or just one of those crazy Christians who actually belives the Bible. At least Jefferson believed in the moral teachings of Jesus. These people are apostate in every way and we will see them in hell. A phrase which applied incorrectly woudl have got me flogged or fined in a more Christian Connecticut.
https://billofrightsinstitute.org/primary-sources/danburybaptists