Church and State

So I was just reading some of my good friend NTodd's blog (which partly inspired me to start blogging again, myself), which can be found at http://www.dohiyimir.org (this is a hint, lacking in subtlety, suggesting that you visit his site and check it out). In his Archive section there's a piece he wrote on the Pledge of Allegiance, and it inspired me to make the following piece into a new post. These posts are from an archive of my own past blogulating, a few of which I'm revising and re-posting (both for my own satisfaction as well as to attempt a casting of my ideas out into the swirling sea of mis-information drowning we, the people).

A Separation of Church and State

It is commonly suggested, by those that would further pervert our government unto a theocracy, that our "founding fathers" intended the laws of the United States to be founded in Christianity. This idea often sits comfortably beside another common belief, that one's own sense of morality must not? can not? should not? stem from free thought and feeling, but rather by instruction, such as in the Bible or Ten Commandments (attempts to infiltrate an actual court of law with a monument to the latter have been well-publicized in recent years). But it is no secret that the bulk of the Constitution of the United States was instead based in British "Common Law," which was hardly the result of a religious doctrine or organization.

And as any informed reader will know, the gentlemen known as our "founding fathers" consisted mainly of our nation's first delegates, to the Constitutional Convention of 1787. They were not relying upon religious instruction, but knew that the freedom to practice one's religion without interference from the government (or the people for which it serves) was vital. Otherwise, as anyone who has read it will confirm, the Constitution simply describes the structure of the new government, due representation, the means of taxation, and so on. One of the delegates attending the Convention's sessions was Benjamin Franklin, who once wrote:

If we look back into history for the character of the present sects in Christianity, we shall find few that have not in their turns been persecutors, and complainers of persecution. The primitive Christians thought persecution extremely wrong in the pagans, but practiced it on one another. The first Protestants of the Church of England blamed persecution in the Romish Church, but practiced it upon the Puritans. These found it wrong in the bishops, but fell into the same practice themselves both here and in New England.
-- Benjamin Franklin, An Essay on Toleration

Said Puritans are the most commonly cited example of those that arrived in the New World to avoid persecution in a place free of governmental or other communal restraints on one's beliefs. The fundamental issue of the protection of one's civil rights was foremost among the concerns of the Convention's delegates. And after the structural formation of the government as described in the Constitution, it was addressed in the very first item of the Bill of Rights: the first ten amendments to the original document, ratified two years later.

During the debates on the adoption of the Constitution, its opponents repeatedly charged that the Constitution as drafted would open the way to tyranny by the central government. Fresh in their minds was the memory of the British violation of civil rights before and during the Revolution. They demanded a "bill of rights" that would spell out the immunities of individual citizens. Several state conventions in their formal ratification of the Constitution asked for such amendments; others ratified the Constitution with the understanding that the amendments would be offered.
-- U.S. National Archives and Records Administration

Thus, the Bill of Rights begins, after a brief preamble:

Amendment I
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.

It could not be more clear that this decrees a full separation between the powers of church and state; the first phrase says that no law can be made which will respect any religious establishment, but: neither can it rule against a religion or prohibit the practice of it by American citizens. However, the phrase "separation of church and state" is one which is not actually used in this Amendment, and those critical of the idea commonly suggest that this is only one an interpretation of the phrasing, and is not accurately representative of it - or the Constitution's for that matter - intent. But Thomas Jefferson and several Supreme Courts of the past would disagree:

Believing that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their Legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church and State.
-- Thomas Jefferson, to Danbury Baptists, 1802

Religious belief - or non-belief - is an important part of every person's life, and the freedom of religion which we are provided affects every individual. Religious institutions that use the power of government to support and empower their agenda undermine the civil rights of the citizens of the state. Moreover, state support of the church tends to make the clergy less responsive to the people, and endangers of a corruption of its own religion. Erecting the "wall of separation between church and state," therefore, is essential in a free society.

We have solved ... the great and interesting question whether freedom of religion is compatible with order in government and obedience to the laws. And we have experienced the quiet as well as the comfort which results from leaving every one to profess freely and openly those principles of religion which are the inductions of his own reason and the serious convictions of his own inquiries.
-- Thomas Jefferson, to the Virginia Baptists (1808)

This is Thomas Jefferson's second use of the term "wall of separation," here quoting his own use in the Danbury Baptist letter. The wording of these letters was several times upheld by the Supreme Court as an accurate description of the Establishment Clause: Reynolds (98 U.S. at 164, 1879); Everson (330 U.S. at 59, 1947); McCollum (333 U.S. at 232, 1948). But lest one contest that Jefferson's famous phrasing is only the interpretation of one of our founding fathers, here are quotes from our first two presidents to counter the notion: George Washington's is quite diplomatic; John Adams' is outright inflammatory:

I am persuaded, you will permit me to observe that the path of true piety is so plain as to require but little political direction. To this consideration we ought to ascribe the absence of any regulation, respecting religion, from the Magna-Charta of our country.
-- George Washington, responding to a group of clergymen who complained that the Constitution lacked mention of Jesus Christ, in 1789 (Papers, Presidential Series, 4:274)

The priesthood have, in all ancient nations, nearly monopolized learning.... And, even since the Reformation, when or where has existed a Protestant or dissenting sect who would tolerate A FREE INQUIRY? The blackest billingsgate, the most ungentlemanly insolence, the most yahooish brutality is patiently endured, countenanced, propagated, and applauded. But touch a solemn truth in collision with a dogma of a sect, though capable of the clearest proof, and you will soon find you have disturbed a nest, and the hornets will swarm about your legs and hands, and fly into your face and eyes.
-- John Adams, letter to John Taylor, 1814 (Norman Cousins, In God We Trust: The Religious Beliefs and Ideas of the American Founding Fathers (1958), p. 108, quoted from James A. Haught, ed., 2000 Years of Disbelief)

And as if Adams' perspective couldn't be more clear here, I can't help myself but provide his simple question of:

Can a free government possibly exist with the Roman Catholic religion?
-- John Adams, letter to Thomas Jefferson, May 19, 1821 (James A. Haught, ed., 2000 Years of Disbelief)

Origins of the Pledge of Allegiance

Every weekday morning, in classrooms across the United States, millions of children stand, face the flag, and recite the Pledge of Allegiance. But I wonder: were I to conduct a "man on the street" poll, asking the random passer-by about the Pledge of Allegiance, from where would they say it comes? Particularly telling would be to ask the question without offering any answer via multiple choice. I'm imagining a lot of guesswork, and I can't help but imagine that many would vaguely attribute it to "our founding fathers," or, that it's actually in the Constitution, or better yet, written by Thomas Jefferson (everyone knows he wrote everything, right?).

The Pledge of Allegiance was actually written in 1892, by a socialist named Francis Bellamy, for use in Youths' Companion, a national family magazine published in Boston. The magazine had the largest national circulation of its day, of about 500,000, and was owned by notably liberal businessmen Daniel Ford and his nephew, James Upham. In 1888, the magazine began a campaign to sell American flags to the public schools; by 1892, Ford and Upham had sold about 26,000 of them.

The initiator of this enterpreneurship was Upham, who had the shrewd idea of using the celebration of the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus' discovery of the New World to promote the use of the flag in public schools. The same year, the magazine hired Daniel Ford's young friend, Baptist minister, Nationalist, and Christian Socialist leader, Francis Bellamy, to help Upham in his public relations work. Bellamy was the first cousin of the famous American socialist, Edward Bellamy, author of the futuristic novel, "Looking Backward", published in 1888, which described a utopian Boston in the year 2000. The book spawned the socialist "Nationalism" movement in Boston, whose members wanted the federal government to nationalize most of the American economy.

Francis Bellamy was a member of this movement and a vice president of its auxiliary group, the Society of Christian Socialists, and often lectured and preached on the virtues of socialism and the evils of capitalism. He gave a speech on "Jesus the Socialist" and a series of sermons on "The Socialism of the Primitive Church." In 1891, these activities led him to a forced resignation from his post at Boston's Bethany Baptist church, and it was then that he joined the staff of the Youths' Companion.

By February 1892, Upham and Bellamy had lined up the National Education Association to support the Youths' Companion as a sponsor of the national public schools' observance of Columbus Day, complete with the use of the American flag. By June 29, Bellamy and Upham had arranged for Congress and President Benjamin Harrison to announce a national proclamation, making the public school flag ceremony the center of the national Columbus Day celebrations for 1892. Bellamy, under the supervision of Upham, wrote the program for this celebration, including the Pledge of Allegiance which was then published in the September 8, 1892 issue of Youths' Companion.

And thus it began, that millions of children across the country gave a stiff, uplifted right hand salute (a gesture which was understandably changed during World War II) and recited:

I pledge allegiance to my flag and the Republic for which it stands -- one nation indivisible -- with liberty and justice for all.

Various organizations quickly adopted the practice of the salute and Pledge as well, including the segregationist Daughters of the American Revolution, the American Legion, and the Knights of Columbus. These groups variously inspired changes to the Pledge, as well as to its legislation.

In 1924, when the Daughters of the American Revolution adopted the Pledge as part of a National Flag Conference, they replaced the words "my flag and to the Republic" to "the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands," over a concern that the children of immigrants might confuse "my flag" for the flag of their homeland.

In 1940, the Supreme Court ruled that students in public schools could be compelled to recite the Pledge; but in 1943 the Supreme Court reversed its decision, ruling that "compulsory unification of opinion" violated the First Amendment. At the end of 1945, the U.S. Congress officially recognized the Pledge as the official national pledge.

In 1950, the American Legion adopted the Pledge as an official part of its own rituals. The Legion is the nation's oldest and largest veteran's organization, though its history has been marred by incidents in its earlier years. Founded in 1919, the American Legion (as stated in its constitution) included a goal "to foster and perpetuate a one hundred percent Americanism." At its worst, the Legion was active in campaigning for the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II in relocation camps, and contributed to the McCarthyism movement with its standing committees the "Americanism Commission" and its subsidiary, the "Counter Subversive Activities Committee."

In 1952, the Knights of Columbus adopted the Pledge of Allegiance as a practice opening their meetings nation-wide, with the insertion of the phrase "under God," and began a campaign to encourage Congress to do the same. Though their wanted legislation made an appearance in Congress, it never passed.

But it was not long before new legislation was brought before Congress, and this time it had the strongest advocate: President Dwight Eisenhower. Presbyterian minister George MacPherson Docherty greatly influenced Eisenhower (also a Presbyterian), making the case that without reference to God, the Pledge might as well be speaking about any nation. Eisenhower was motivated enough to make the change as part of a code covering the country's symbolic emblem, in 1954. When ge signed this code into law, President Eisenhower said he was ''reaffirming the transcendence of religious faith in America's heritage and future."

And thus it reads, and is said by millions daily, today, the Pledge of Allegiance:

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

This is not the Pledge written by Francis Bellamy. He was a priest, but he pointedly omitted any mention of religion in what was to be an all-embracing statement; in fact, it is known that Bellamy had actually wanted to add the word "equality" to his Pledge. But he omitted that as well. He thought it would be too controversial for his time.