Should we have a State Religion ?
For the record, I believe that a state religion is bad. Anything approaching a Theocracy type of gov't should always be avoided.
I am just wondering why others feel it is bad or for that matter, good.
What an excellent question...and just the season for it!
I don't think that anyone on the board will acquiesce to a 'state religion'...but I would like to review the Founder's views on the matter.
1. "[O]ne does not have to be a religious observer to grasp that the core values of Western civilization are grounded in religion, and to be concerned that the erosion of religious observance therefore undermines those values and the ‘secular ideals’ they reflect." “The World Turned Upside Down,” Melanie Phillips, 2009 Preface.
2. Deist though he claimed to be, consider this by Benjamin Franklin: “…do not depend too much on your own industry, and frugality, and prudence, though excellent things; for they may all be blasted,
without the blessing of Heaven; and, therefore, ask that blessing humbly, and be not uncharitable to those that at present seem to want it, but comfort and help them. Remember, Job suffered, and was afterward prosperous.” John Bach McMaster, “Benjamin Franklin,” p. 125.
a. "I've lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing Proofs I see of this Truth -
That God governs in the Affairs of Men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his Notice, is it probable that an Empire can rise without his Aid? We have been assured, Sir, in the Sacred Writings, that except the Lord build the House they labor in vain who build it. I firmly believe this, - and I also believe that without his concurring Aid, we shall succeed in this political Building no better than the Builders of Babel: We shall be divided by our little partial local interests; our Projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall become a Reproach and Bye word down to future Ages." –Benjamin Franklin, Speech to the Constitutional Convention, June 28, 1787
3. As for the famous
“separation of church and state,” the phrase appears in no federal document. In fact, at the time of ratification of the Constitution, ten of the thirteen colonies had some provision recognizing Christianity as either the official, or the recommended religion in their state constitutions.
a. From the 1790 Massachusetts Constitution, written by John Adams, includes: [the] good order and preservation of civil government essentially depend(s) upon piety, religion, and morality…by the institution of public worship of God and of the public instruction in piety, religion, and morality…”
Massachusetts Constitution - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
b. North Carolina Constitution, article 32, 1776: “That no person who shall deny the being of God, or the truth of the Protestant religion, or the divine authority of either the Old or New Testaments, or who shall hold religious principles incompatible with the freedom and safety of the State, shall b e capable of holding any office, or place of trust or profit, in the civil department, within this State.”
Constitution of North Carolina, 1776
c. So, the Founders intention was to be sure that the federal government didnÂ’t do the same, and mandate a national religion. And when
Jefferson wrote to the Danbury Baptists in 1802, it was to reassure them the federal government could not interfere in their religious observations, i.e., there is “a wall of separation between church and state.” He wasn’t speaking of religion contaminating the government, but of the government contaminating religious observance.
