Emily Yarr said: “If you don’t like saying our pledge, and it personally offends you, simply get outta here and say someone else’s pledge.”
First, “Hey, Jesus, if you don’t like the way we’re running the church right now, simply get outta here.” Now, I’m not equating myself with Jesus, but I’m guessing that you’re Christian, and what you’re saying would not be approved of by Jesus. Jesus wasn’t trying to form a new religion; he was trying to “fix” Judaism.
Second, your statement does not summarize how democracy works. If you don’t like the way the current representatives are running things, then you vote for someone else, you don’t simply get outta here. Read my Answering a Second Comment Regarding the Pledge entry for a little bit more information.
I have finally heard enough persons who lack the proper information, expound on the so-called doctrine of “separation of church and state”, and use it as a basis to strip America of it’s moral code as applied to legal and governmental affairs and the rights of it’s people to follow their beliefs freely (examples here and here), that I have decided to respond comprehensively to this madness.
For too many years the politicians and courts of this country have been able to perpetrate the false idea of “separation of church and state”. They claim that they founding fathers of this nation designed this to be a basis for our form of government. Nothing could be further from the truth. They did intend to keep government out of the religious arena by disallowing a national religion such as existed in England with the Church of England, however the intent was never to keep the church out of government:
US Constitution: Amendment I – Freedom of Religion, Press, Expression. Ratified 12/15/1791:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
On the contrary, the very nature of our laws, Constitution, and governing system are rooted in Christian precepts. It is common to hear even well versed people say that the constitution establishes the doctrine of separation between church and state. It is so well accepted that it is even taught in our schools, but that is completely incorrect. The doctrine of the modern concept of “separation of church and state” are based solely on words taken out of context from a letter written by Thomas Jefferson in 1802 to the Danbury Baptist Association, in which Jefferson was answering a letter from them, in which they were concerned that the government might one day establish a particular denomination as the nationally recognized belief. The letter contains the phrase “wall of separation between church and state” – the “wall” of the Danbury letter was not to limit religious activities in public, whether practiced by government official or regular citizen; rather it’s meaning was to limit the power of the government to prohibit or interfere with those expressions, and assure the Danbury Baptists that the their government would never establish a national religion.
The course we are currently heading and the cultural problems we face, in my opinion, are not born out of a natural progression towards more liberty, but by the disregarding of the very moral framework which provided for that liberty. The First Amendment says that congress shall make no law establishing (not regarding) a religion. It doesn’t say that the government should not or cannot publicly acknowledge religion. It doesn’t say that states cannot establish a religion or observe religious holidays in their own constitutions. It doesn’t say that cities, counties, or school districts cannot show respect for the Bible or Christianity (or any other religion for that matter). The First Amendment doesn’t imply in even the vaguest way that it is unconstitutional for a city to erect a manger scene in the town square at Christmas or for a school teacher to offer up a prayer to God at a graduation ceremony or before daily classes begin. You cannot get that out of the First Amendment, even if you stretch. The First Amendment only limits Congress; no one else.
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Some proof outside of the constitution that our founding fathers and their legacy had no intention of stripping religion from society the way the ACLU, activist judges and the no secular-humanist movement would have you believe:
When you become entitled to exercise the right of voting for public officers’ let it be impressed upon your mind that God commands you to choose for rulers just men who will rule in the fear of God. The preservation of a republican government depends upon the faithful discharge of this duty; if the citizens neglect their duty and place unprincipled men in office, the government will soon be corrupted … If a republican government fails … it must be because the citizens neglect the divine commands, and elect bad men to make and administer the laws.”
– Noah Webster
“The foundations of our society and our government rest so much on the teachings of the Bible that it would be difficult to support them if the faith in their teachings would cease to be practically universal in our country.”
– Calvin Coolidge
“The Bible is the cornerstone of our Liberty.”
-Samuel Adams
“I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proof I see of the 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 that build it.’ I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without this concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better, than the Builders of Babel: We shall be divided by our partial local interests; our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall become a reproach and bye word down to future ages. And what is worse, mankind may hereafter from this unfortunate instance, despair of establishing Government by human wisdom and leave it to chance, war and conquest. I therefore beg leave to move – that henceforth prayers imploring the audience of Heaven, and its blessings on our deliberations, be held in this assembly every morning before we proceed to business, and that one or more of the clergy of this city be requested to officiate in that service.”
– Benjamin Franklin at the Constitutional Convention June 28, 1787
“And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that His justice cannot sleep forever.”
– Thomas Jefferson (a declared atheist, given liberty to follow his own beliefs, who still recognized time and again the need to base our laws and moral codes on something other than man’s ability to judge fairly)
“This is a religious people. This is historically true. From the discovery of this continent to the present hour, there is a single voice making this affirmation ….. These are not individual sayings, declarations of private persons: they are organic utterances, they speak the voice of the entire people …. These, and many other matters which might be noticed, add a volume of unofficial declarations to the mass of organic utterances that this is a Christian nation.”
– US Supreme Court – Ruling on Church of the Holy Trinity vs the United States, 1892
“No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the the Invisible Hand which conducts the affairs of men more than those of the United States. Every step by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency … We ought to be no less persuaded that the propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a Nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which Heaven itself has ordained.”
– George Washington – Inaugural Speech to Congress April 30, 1789
“It is the duty of nations as well as men to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions in humble sorrow yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon, and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history: that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord. All the good from the Saviour of the World is communicated through this Book; but for the Book we could not know right from wrong. All the things desirable to man are contained in it.”
– Abraham Lincoln
“The Bible … is the one supreme source of revelation of the meaning of life, the nature of God and spiritual nature and need of men. It is the only guide of life which really leads the spirit in the way of peace and salvation … America was born a Christian nation. America was born to exemplify that devotion to the elements of righteousness which are derived from the revelations of the Holy Scripture.”
– Woodrow Wilson
“We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion … Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
– John Adams
“The real object of the First Ammendment was not to countenance, much less to advance, Mohammedanism, or Judaism, or infidelity, by prostrating Christianity, but to exclude all rivalry among Christian sects, and to prevent any national ecclesiastical establishment which would give to an hierarchy the exclusive patronage of the national government. We are not to attribute this prohibition of a national religious establishment [in the First Ammendment] to an indifference to religion in general, and especially to Christianity, which none could hold in more reverence than the framers of the Constitution. At the time of the adoption of the Constitution, and of the Ammendments to it … the general, if not the universal, sentiment in America was, that Christianity ought to receive encouragement from the State.”
– Judge Joseph Story – 19th Century Supreme Court Justice
“Chistianity must be considered as the foundation upon which the whole structure rests. Laws will not have not permanence or power without the sanction of religious sentitment, without a firm belief that there is a Power above us that will reward our virtues and punish our vices. In this age there will be no substitute for Christianity: that, in its general principles, is the great conservative element on which we must rely for the purity and permanence of free institutions. That was the religion of the founders of the Republic, and they expected it to remain the religion of their descendants. There is a great and very prevalent error on this subject in the opinion that those who organized this Government did not legislate on religion. The great vital and conservative element in our system is the belief of our people in the pure doctrines and divine truths of the gospel of Jesus Christ.”
– House Judiciary Report in 1854
“It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ! For this very reason people of other faiths have been afforded asylums, prosperitity and freedom of worship here.”
– Patrick Henry
“No free government now exists in the world unless where Christianity is acknowledged and is the religion of the country … Its foundations are broad and strong, and deep …. It is the purest system of morality, the firmest auxialry, and the only stable support of all human laws. Christianity, general Christianity, is and always has been a part of the common law … Thus this wise legislature framed this great body of laws, for a Christian country and Christian people … No society can tolerate a willful and despiteful attempt to subvert its religion, no more than it would to break down it laws – a general, malicious and deliberate attempt to overthrow Christianity, general Christianity.”
– US Supreme Court – Updegraph vs The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania 1824
“The Congress … desirous … to have people of all ranks and degrees duly impressed with a solemn sense of God’s superintending providence, and of their duty, devoutly to rely … on His aid and direction … Do earnestly recommend … a day of humiliation, fasting and prayer; that we may, with united hearts, confess and bewail our manifold sins and transgressions, and, by a sincere repentance and ammendment of life … and through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ, obtain His pardon and forgiveness.”
– Continental Congress – May 16, 1776
“It is impossible rightly to govern the world without God and the Bible.”
– George Washington
“God’s Word, contained in the Bible, has furnished all necessary rules to direct our conduct.”
– Noah Webster
“Hold fast to the Bible as the sheet anchor of your liberties; write its precepts on your hearts and practice them in your lives. To the influence of this Book we are indebted for the progress made, and to this we must look as our guide in the future. ”
-Ulysses S. Grant
America without it’s founding precepts is not the America that our founding father’s designed and built – and the price of deviating away from their original intent will be to the detriment of us all. Instead of liberty and justice for all, we will have neither for anyone, and your freedom to live the life you choose and believe in those things you hold true will be dependent on the political, spiritual and philosophical whims of a single judge with an agenda.