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Jesus don't mean to Chuck D
Wouldn't the Satanists get Halloween, while the Christians get Christmas?
Sounds fair to me!
Jesus don't mean to Chuck D
Oh damn...I just got through the primary opinions (no concurrences or dissents)...my head hurts...
I can't do this thread again.
So much of how we view the operation of religion in the public sphere -- that is to say, many of the arguments for and against sanctioned civic religion -- depends upon perceptions of the original intent of the Founding Fathers. In Establishment Clause issues, that has largely come to mean reliance on the writings of Thomas Jefferson (who metaphorically suggested the Wall of Separation between Church and State) and James Madison (who is the likely author of the First Amendment).
Lately, I've been hearing more and more arguments that because the nation is majority Christian, it's government should be permitted to engage in and govern by Christian traditions, in a general sense. That argument bothers me, because it seems to me that it runs counter to the Cons utional idea of protecting political, social, religious minorities -- even if it might have some historical underpinning. But, I just read something that makes me wonder if the argument has any historical underpinning at all. In Madison's 1785 "Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments," a writing that predates the First Amendment, he argued that even a governmental endorsement of Christianity was dangerous to the religious liberties of the public:
It is proper to take alarm at the first experimnet on our liberties . . . . Who does not see that the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all other religions, may establish with the same ease any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other Sects? That the same authority which can force a citizen to contribute three pence only of his property for the support of any one establishment, may force him to conform to any other establishment in all cases whatsoever?
Does anyone think that Madison's thought can be interpreted to support governmental entanglement with even a broad religious notion, like Christianity?
Thumbs up to the opinions of FWD, Travis, Spurster and Spurm (and Scott too).
Between those 5 opinions, I feel it's safe to say that the vast majority of Americans are in agreement over what role religion should play in our political lives. Alas, a minority of loudmouths attack relentlessly the majority from both the left and right and confound our common sense.
Still, it's reassuring that NBADan and Yonivore had nothing of worth to add to this thread.
Good thoughts, FWD.
Maybe I'm reading it wrong because I'm on hold with the damn cable company, but I read Madison's thoughts as kind of a Humean "How do you know" inquiry. I think I need more context.Does anyone think that Madison's thought can be interpreted to support governmental entanglement with even a broad religious notion, like Christianity?
Not sure where you're going with this? Are you speaking of things like government support to "faith-based programs" and the like?
I read quite a few interesting takes.
My question, really, is this: if we rely on Madison's meditations on the church-state relationship (and the Supreme Court does, routinely) isn't Madison saying that the majoritarian view can never carry the day in the church-state sphere and that any entanglement by the government, however slight and however non-sectarian, is too much entanglement?
I guess the other question is at what point, if ever, do we discount Madison's thoughts in favor of a new analytical tool, and what arguments would support a movement away from Madisonian logic?
No, I don't think so. Let's look at your quote again:
The key words (in my view, anyway) are highlighted.
Those words form the basis for any test for "excessive entanglement", at least in my mind.
So, does the Establishment Clause end at things like the creation of a national church or the development of particular prayers? or does it go further than that?
I see your point re: the definition of entanglement, but would note that the Supreme Court disagrees with you, to some extent. As it stands, there are essentially two tests for determining if state action violates the Establishment Clause. The old test, known as the Lemon test, asks three questions: (1) is there a legitimate secular (or nonreligious) purpose to the State's action?; (2) does the primary effect of the State's action neither promote or inhibit religion?; (3) does the State's action resist an excessive entanglement between government an religion. If all three questions can be answered yes, there is no violation.
In recent years, Justices have come to see that Lemon doesn't cover every cir stance and have started toying with new tests for those other cases. One such test simply asks if the State's action has the effect of endorsing religious beliefs (over other religious beliefs, or over non-religious beliefs). This test seems to apply best to mute displays. The other test asks whether the State's action has the effect of coercing others to take part in a religious activity. The "coercion" test seems to apply best to Establishment Clause issues in schools.
Relying largely on Madison's quote (and applying the tests set out above), the Court has explained that no Establishment Clause violation is ever too small to be disregarded. And the Court has never regarded the fact that an activity is non-sectarian as a justification for ignoring governmental entanglement with religion.
Is that what Madison intended? Is Madison's intent even relevant any more?
This is an excellent summary of the facts.
Our Godless Cons ution, CBS NewsIt is hard to believe that George Bush has ever read the works of George Orwell, but he seems, somehow, to have grasped a few Orwellian precepts. The lesson the President has learned best -- and certainly the one that has been the most useful to him -- is the axiom that if you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it. One of his Administration's current favorites is the whopper about America having been founded on Christian principles. Our nation was founded not on Christian principles but on Enlightenment ones. God only entered the picture as a very minor player, and Jesus Christ was con uously absent.
Our Cons ution makes no mention whatever of God. The omission was too obvious to have been anything but deliberate, in spite of Alexander Hamilton's flippant responses when asked about it: According to one account, he said that the new nation was not in need of "foreign aid"; according to another, he simply said "we forgot." But as Hamilton's biographer Ron Chernow points out, Hamilton never forgot anything important.
. . . snip
Here is Franklin's considered summary of his own beliefs, in response to a query by Ezra Stiles, the president of Yale. He wrote it just six weeks before his death at the age of 84.
"Here is my creed. I believe in one God, Creator of the universe. That he governs it by his providence. That he ought to be worshipped. That the most acceptable service we render to him is doing good to his other children. That the soul of Man is immortal, and will be treated with justice in another life respecting its conduct in this. These I take to be the fundamental points in all sound religion, and I regard them as you do in whatever sect I meet with them.
As for Jesus of Nazareth, my opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think his system of morals and his religion, as he left them to us, the best the world ever saw or is likely to see; but I apprehend it has received various corrupting changes, and I have, with most of the present dissenters in England, some doubts as to his divinity; though it is a question I do not dogmatize upon, having never studied it, and think it needless to busy myself with now, when I expect soon an opportunity of knowing the truth with less trouble. I see no harm, however, in its being believed, if that belief has the good consequence, as it probably has, of making his doctrines more respected and better observed, especially as I do not perceive that the Supreme takes it amiss, by distinguishing the unbelievers in his government of the world with any particular marks of his displeasure."
Jefferson thoroughly agreed with Franklin on the corruptions the teachings of Jesus had undergone. "The metaphysical abstractions of Athanasius, and the maniacal ravings of Calvin, tinctured plentifully with the foggy dreams of Plato, have so loaded with absurdities and incomprehensibilities" that it was almost impossible to recapture "its native simplicity and purity." Like Paine, Jefferson felt that the miracles claimed by the New Testament put an intolerable strain on credulity. "The day will come," he predicted (wrongly, so far), "when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter." The Revelation of St. John he dismissed as "the ravings of a maniac."
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