Who Wants Theocracy?
22 March 2008
Yesterday I wrote about Jefferson and the separation of church and state. Today I want to address the question of theocracy more directly. As I mentioned yesterday, there are many on the left who seem to believe that the religious right really wants to institute a theocracy in America. Nothing could be further from the truth! I’m sure there is an insignificant minority who really would like theocracy but being insignificant, they really don’t need to be dealt with in any significant way.
For the overwhelming majority of evangelicals and anyone on the religious right, what we want is what the First Amendment guarantees. We want to exercise our religious beliefs without government interference. But because freedom of religion has been reinterpreted to mean freedom from religion, that has become increasingly difficult to do.
I was a double major in college. My majors were political science and religion. Typically people looked at me like a grew two heads when I told them this. But I made a concerted effort to deal with the intersection of religion and politics in my studies. One thing that was taught in Constitutional Law class was that there is a fundamental tension between the establishment and free exercise clauses of the First Amendment. I submit that this is simply not the case.
The tension has been introduced by activist courts who have placed greater weight on the establishment clause than the free exercise clause. Additionally, the courts have expanded the the notion of establishment well beyond the original meaning of an official state religion or church. That was, in fact, the original intent. Americans greatly feared a state church, many of them having fled precisely that in coming to America. The First Amendment, in part, guarantees there will be no state church in the United States.
Today the courts regularly claim that, for example, a teacher in a public school, by merely exercising his or her free speech and free exercise rights, is engaged in establishing a state religion. The very idea is preposterous but it is claimed none the less. So in this interpretation, the free exercise clause and the free speech clause of the First Amendment are trumped by the establishment clause, thus the tension that is claimed.
Rightly understood the First Amendment has no tension. Indeed it is quite simple. You and I are free to believe whatever we chose about God and religion or to believe nothing at all. At the same time the government is prohibited from establishing a state church, from regulating how we practice our religious beliefs and generally from interfering in religion in any way.
Amazing that clear meaning has been distorted beyond recognition today. The result is this tension where government violates the free exercise clause and the free speech clause in the name of the establishment clause. Interpreted that way there is, indeed, much tension but it is an imposed tension that did not exist originally.
The Constitution guarantees every government employee, whether a teacher or an office worker, and every elected official, the right to practice their faith in what ever way they see fit. And that includes proclaiming their faith in the normal course of their duties. While they may represent the state in some sense, they clearly do not have the authority to establish a religion or church in the name of the government.
The anti-Christianity disciples are clearly biased against Christianity. While claiming to want nothing more than to preserver what the founders intended, they go to great lengths to distort that intent. They twist it to their own ends so that it bears little, if any, resemblance to the original intent. And I believe they do so knowingly simply because they are hostile to Christianity. They see Christianity as a threat to their own belief system. And where Christians are generally willing to bring their beliefs to the table in the arena of ideas, the other side doesn’t think their beliefs can prevail unless they suppress Christianity. Certainly no idea has much chance to prevail if it cannot be heard in the public square and that is really what they are after.
For more on this subject and the efforts to combat Blogs Against Theocracy, visit Dakota Voice.
Sphere: Related ContentTags: ACLU, atheism, Christianity
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