Disestablishment Blog

I couldn’t help but contemplate the prior readings that we have had in class that prompted reflection on the role of Civil Religion and the history of politics in the United States. After learning about disestablishment it seems that Civil religion evolved out of conflict that exists between the separation of Church and State. It was created as a sort of compromise.
In 1786, after he wrote the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson wrote the Virginia Act for Establishing Religious Freedom. In this piece he argues that religion has tried to dominate men and their faith in the past. He even goes as far as to say that it has harmed the world. Jefferson believed that Civil Rights and religion are separate and it is against human rights to enforce or impose religion on the individual. He also makes the strong statement that Government should prevent Religion from regulating people’s lives, because everyone has the right to worship his own God and should not be compromised for his beliefs in the public sector.
Less than twenty years later, in 1802, one year into his Presidency, Thomas Jefferson wrote a letter to the Danbury Baptists, which was probably a powerful religious committee in the State of Connecticut. He has changed his approach dramatically. Jefferson is apparently pacifying the committee by assuring them that he was committed to addressing the needs of the spiritual community in conjunction with Congress. He makes a good point when he states that Congress believes that Man’s God is a very personal one therefore this is the reason that the separation of Church and State was created. The religious community need not worry about what the Government would do because he further argued that no righteous man wants to undermine religion.
Jefferson’s words apparently did not settle this controversy because more than 200 years later, what we now categorize as the religious right, continue to struggle with, and want to defy the separation of Church and State. A significant number of our current government officials like the former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in Alabama, Roy Moore, have very strong Christian religious convictions. Officials like these definitely want the State to have power to regulate religious activities and lifestyles. In their minds just like their religious predecessors during colonial times, Theocracy and the pluralistic ideals of Government do not mix. I don’t think there is a consensus yet on whether civil religion is really an answer to this problem. Some feel that civil religion could actually aid in eroding the boundaries that separate Church and State, and may actually give our religious right politicians, insider privileges within Government policy.

http://religiousfreedom.lib.virginia.edu/sacred/vaact.html
http://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/9806/danpost.html

Goldberg, Michelle, Kingdom Coming Copyright 2007, 2006 by MicheleGoldberg