The Long Struggle Against Theocracy

The Long Struggle Against Theocracy
by Jean Carnahan

            It’s hard to dispute someone as venerated as White House correspondent, Helen Thomas, the Mother Theresa of journalism, ancient of days and flush with wisdom.  Nonetheless, some blogger have questioned her recent claim that America was established as a secular nation, not a Christian nation. 

Thomas made the argument that Jefferson, Madison, Franklin, Hamilton, and Paine worked mightily to keep the nation free from religious bondage, as did Roger Williams, a Baptist and the founder of Rhode Island colony. 

Williams insisted that residents should not be punished for breaches of religious law—idolatry, Sabbath-breaking, and blasphemy.  He called for a “wall of separation,” between religion and government.   Jefferson would later pick up the cause, using the same wording.

  But religious freedom was not practiced everywhere in colonial New England.  Puritan dominated settlements opted for theocratic laws based on their stern beliefs.    Undoubtedly, influenced by the “wall of separation” concept and their own experiences in Europe, the Founders wanted no part of a government adhering to religious rules as interpreted by a church or an elected leader.  Our Constitution makes no mention of the Deity and only two passing references in the Declaration.

Surely, the Founders did not entirely want to discount the Creator, whom the major faiths—Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish—all acknowledged.  Yet, they wanted to insure that those who did not share such beliefs were protected from ecclesiastical requirements.  John Adams felt that if the religious were not restrained by law, they would “whip and crop, and pillory and roast” those in disagreement with them.

Jefferson feared “the impious presumption of legislators and rulers, civil as well as ecclesiastical, who, being themselves but fallible and uninspired men, have assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such endeavoring to impose them on others . . . .”

Jefferson considered his Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom one of his three grandest accomplishments—UVA and the Declaration being the others.  He noted after the measure was approved that it gave “freedom for the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and the Mohammenden (sic), the Hindu and infidel of every denomination.”

Religious liberty is always on the “razor edge of danger.”  It is a fine line we traverse and one that we have navigated cautiously until now.  Helen Thomas pointed out that while both Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter described themselves as “born again,” neither tried to publicly “proselytize or to spotlight [his] religion.”  But Bush “breached the wall” between church and state with his faith-based programs run from the White House basement, his funding of ineffective abstinence education, and deliberate pandering to the demands of the religious right.

Today, the “well-dressed” candidate wears religion upon his sleeve like a flashy political accessory.  Among the adorned is potential GOP presidential nominee, the Rev. Mike Huckabee, who many fear would  push the nation closer to theocratic government.  At a time when we already suffer from racism, classism, and homophobia at home and general distrust around the world, it might be good to find someone who could lessen those feelings, not fan them.

We can start by electing a president, who believes in religious liberty and values its survival.