Separation of church and state

The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution (“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion...”) and the Free Exercise Clause (“...or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”) provide a sparse framework for the proper relationship between the government and religion. These two clauses have been a source of controversy since the First Amendment, along with the rest of the Bill of Rights, was adopted on December 15, 1791.

The Establishment Clause has been interpreted to mean that Congress and other government bodies are prohibited from designating a national religion, legislating the practice of religious activity or endorsing any particular religious expression. The Establishment Clause is also understood to be the basis for the principles that the church and state should be separate, with neither one influencing the other, and that personal religious beliefs should be protected. The effort to maintain this independence over the years has resulted in court cases, legislative debates, and electoral battles.

In recent years, there have been renewed challenges to the concept of separation of church and state. Some critics maintain that the entire principle needs to be restructured. Others say that there is no such principle, and that the idea of separation of church and state is a myth.

Understanding the Discussion

Establishment: When a governing body designates a specific church as the official national church, the government is said to have established the church.

Established Church: The church designated as the official church of a nation is the established church or state church. The established church is supported by the taxes of all citizens. Often, certain privileges, such as public office, are restricted to members of the established church. For instance, the English monarch must be a member of the Church of England, and a Spanish monarch must be a Roman Catholic. Sometimes, adherents of religions other than the established church suffer restrictions or even penalties.

Disestablishment: The removal of special status for a state church.

Religious Test: A religious test exists if a person must be the member of a specific religion in order to qualify for public office or other position.

Religious Liberty: This condition exists when there is no established church and no religious test as a qualification for public office. All religions are considered equal and may freely conduct their activities, including proselytizing (winning converts to their faiths).

Secular: Not relating to religion; worldly.

Secularist: A person who argues that the United States was founded as a secular nation.

Separationist: Someone who supports the separation of church and state.

Theocracy: A state in which the clergy has official status in advising the government.

Tolerance: When a government allows religions other than the established church to exist without interference, that government is practicing religious tolerance or religious toleration.

History

Separation of church and state is a relatively new concept in the world of politics. Before the settlement of the British colonies in America, religious tolerance was rarely practiced. Until the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation, European nations were generally Roman Catholic. During the Reformation and the devastating religious wars that followed, subjects of each country were expected to adhere to the same religion as the country's ruler. Those who did not were routinely persecuted, tortured, or killed.

From its inception, America was founded upon the principle of religious freedom and the desire for individuals to be able to freely worship according to personal beliefs. However, this practice was not always followed. Before the concept of separation of church and state was expressed in the First Amendment to the Constitution and in the writings of Thomas Jefferson, the earliest settlers of the American colonies sometimes practiced religious intolerance. The Massachusetts Bay Colony established a Congregationalist theocracy and imposed severe penalties for Quakers, Catholics and Baptists who ventured into the colony. These penalties included whipping, mutilation and hanging.

The first colony to practice religious liberty was Rhode Island, founded in 1636 by Roger Williams. Williams, who had been banished from the Plymouth colony for denying the right of the state to control the consciences of individuals, extended liberty to people of any religion and no religion at all.

By the time of the American Revolution, which ended with the Treaty of Paris in 1783, the two largest organized denominations in the colonies were the Anglican Church in the South and the Congregationalist churches in the North. Neither denomination was strong enough to be considered the established church across the colonies, and members of both churches did not want to see the other become the dominant church. In addition, Jews and members of smaller Christian churches also opposed the establishment of a single church.

As the colonies unified into a singular nation, the protection of religious freedom was penned into its founding documents. Article VI of the Constitution, adopted in 1789, forbade a religious test for any federal office or public trust. At that time, six states still had established churches, and Virginia had just passed a law establishing religious freedom. None of the new states wanted federal interference in these matters.

In 1791, the Bill of Rights was adopted. The First Amendment states that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." While these words have been debated ever since, they have generally been understood to constitute a separation between church and state.

Thomas Jefferson’s 1802 reference to a “wall of separation between church and state” in his writings to the Danbury Baptists explaining the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses has also been variously interpreted. However, it has widely been accepted as establishing a pluralistic society by mandating that the government would neither interfere with the free exercise of religion nor establish a single, national religion.

In the years that followed, wide-ranging interpretations of these words began to emerge. Secularists point to this statement as evidence that the United States was founded as a secular, rather than an exclusively Christian, nation. However, some critics maintain that the context does not support this meaning, and that Jefferson was pointing out the separation between local church-state relations and the federal government.

In 1832 President James Madison wrote that it might be difficult to always maintain the “line of separation” between religious and civil authority. He added that he thought the best way to do so was to keep the government from interfering with religion in any way other than to “preserve public order” and protect the rights of each sect. Modern secularists point to this statement as proof of the Founders' intention to establish a secular state. Disestablishment within states occurred in the early nineteenth century, despite opposition from state governments and established churches. Massachusetts finally disestablished in 1833.

In 1947, the Supreme Court handed down a decision in Everson v. Board of Education that was the most significant interpretation of the Establishment Clause and that marked the beginning of an era in which courts invalidated many government programs and practices that were found to have a religious purpose. As a result of these decisions, parochial schools could no longer be supported by public funds, and mandatory religious observance (such as teacher-led prayer) was banned from public schools.

Separation of Church and State Today

Some critics of the courts' interpretations of the principle of separation of church and state have argued for the protections of some aspects of religion in government practices. Believing the United States to be a Christian nation, founded on Judeo-Christian religious beliefs, these critics argue that the federal government is only prohibited from establishing a religion at the national level and from interfering with the establishment of religion in the states, but not required to stamp out any hint of religious reference in governmental actions.

In his concurrence in the 2004 Supreme Court case of Elk Grove Unified School District v. Newdow, Justice Clarence Thomas said that precedent makes the "under God" phrase of the Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional. He added, however, that the entire structure of church-state relations should be redesigned. Justice Antonin Scalia labeled separation of church and state as “passé.” In 2006, Representative Katherine Harris (R-FL) said that the separation of church and state “is a lie” and that the Founding Fathers never intended a secular government.

Secularists, on the other hand, argue that many, if not most, of the Founding Fathers were not even Christians; instead, they were deists, who believe that God exists but is not actively involved in the day-to-day workings of the world and its people. A number of these Founders, such as Thomas Paine, dismissed organized religion entirely. Secularists point to the fact that the word “God” does not appear in the Constitution as support for their argument that the United States was founded as a secular nation.

Adding to the controversy of government's support of religion was President George W. Bush's establishment of faith-based initiatives and the creation of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives and Centers for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. Conversely, many churches raised concerns in the late 2000s over perceived government interference in their affairs relating to the Obama administration’s health-care plan. Provisions that require health insurance coverage of contraceptives were met with fierce opposition from different religious organizations. The federal mandate included an exemption that applied to church organizations, but not to affiliated nonprofits like church-sponsored hospitals. In the 2014 case Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, however, the Supreme Court ruled that closely held private companies were also entitled to a religious or moral exemption.

Other controversies involving the separation of church and state include the display of religious monuments on state or federal property. For example, courts have approved displaying the Ten Commandments as part of a broader exhibit on legal traditions at a courthouse in Kentucky, and the Supreme Court decision in The American Legion v. American Humanist Association (2019) allowed a Latin cross (generally considered a Christian symbol) that was erected as a World War I memorial to remain on public property. The US Supreme Court ruled in Town of Greece v. Galloway (2014) that prayers were allowed at government meetings, including prayers of specific sects, under the rationales that such prayers were for the benefit of the officials themselves and that requiring nonsectarian prayers would amount to religious censorship. The court has also found religious institutions could receive funds from neutral state-run grant or scholarship programs in Zelman v. Simmons-Harris (2002) and Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia Inc. v. Comer (2017).

Further government-religion controversies in the twenty-first century have involved public education about religion; enforcement of the 1954 Johnson Amendment, which prevents tax-exempt nonprofits like houses of worship from directly endorsing and funding political candidates; restrictions on abortion and reproductive treatments; and so-called religious liberty laws that allow LGBT discrimination on moral or religious grounds. The administration of Donald Trump, which was dominated by fundamentalist Christians, was roundly criticized for banning visitors from a number of majority-Muslim countries and for using biblical scripture to justify its migrant family separations at the US-Mexico border.

Those who support traditional separation of church and state reject religious interference in matters of politics, and vice versa, including government funding of faith-based social programs. They argue that secular government assures religious freedom for all.

These essays and any opinions, information or representations contained therein are the creation of the particular author and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of EBSCO Information Services.

Bibliography

Books

Audi, Robert. Democratic Authority and the Separation of Church and State. New York: Oxford UP, 2014. Print.

Brenner, Lenni, ed. Jefferson and Madison on Separation of Church and State. Ft. Lee: Barricade, 2005. Print.

Dreisbach, Daniel L. Thomas Jefferson and the Wall of Separation Between Church and State. New York: New York U, 2003. Print.

Hamburger, Philip. Toppling the Wall: Beyond Separation of Church and State. Cambridge: Harvard, 2002. Print.

Kramnick, Isaac and R. Laurence Moore. The Godless Constitution: A Moral Defense of the Secular State. New York: Norton, 2005. Print.

Periodicals

BeDuhn, Jason. “Corporate Conscience?” Church & State 67.9 (2014): 19–20. Print.

Boston, Rob. “Rights or Restrictions?” Humanist 74.2 (2014): 34–35. Print.

Curry, Thomas. “Separation Anxiety.” America 203.15 (2010): 10-14. Print.

Engel, Jonathan. “Mere Words?” Church & State May 2015: 21. Print.

Gorski, Philip. “Religious Pluralism and Democratic Inclusion: The American Recipe for Peace.” Society 51.6 (2014): 623–35. Print.

Jacoby, Susan. “Opinion: The White House Is Tearing Down the Wall between Church and State.” The New York Times, 5 July 2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/07/05/opinion/sunday/church-state-supreme-court-religion.html. Accessed 24 Mar. 2020. ‌

Lankford, James, and Russell Moore. “The Real Meaning of the Separation of Church and State.” Time, 16 Jan. 2018, time.com/5103677/church-state-separation-religious-freedom. Accessed 24 Mar. 2020. ‌

Lynn, Barry W. “Religious Groups Want Faith-Based Funding with No Strings Attached.” Church & State. 63.2 (02/01/2010). 23-23. Academic Search Complete. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.Aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=48075321&site=ehost-live.

Novak, Michael. “The Truth about Religious Freedom.” First Things: A Monthly Journal of Religion & Public Life (Mar. 2006): 17-20. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. 13 Jan. 2009 http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=19862543&site=ehost-live.

Pavlovitz, Theodore. “Don’t Tear Down This Wall.” Humanist 74.1 (2014): 8. Print.

Robinson, Marilynne. “Awakening.” Commonweal 142.17 (2015): 10–17. Print.