A Fatal Alliance | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Oct 23, 1889

FromThe American Sentinel, Vol. 4, No. 39.

A Fatal Alliance.

The zealous sectarians of Washington Territory have been unusually active in procuring signatures to petitions asking the Legislature in session at Olympia to pass laws exempting church property from taxation. This was one of the important questions before the people during our recent visit to the upper country. The position of all Jewish-American citizens on this subject is well known. They are unflinching opponents of any alliance between Church and State, since history teaches that all such alliances have been fatal to individual rights and the liberty of the people. This is strikingly illustrated in the history of Italy, of Spain, and of Mexico, and of other countries. The colonies of America under English rule give further proof of the danger of an alliance of Church and State. The dominant sect, taking advantage of this union of the civil and the ecclesiastical law, persecuted the minor sects, and did not hesitate to inflict torture upon all who dissented from the ruling sect. The colonies but followed the cruel, remorseless code of religious Europe, both before and after the Reformation.

With these facts before us, we deemed it our bounden duty to oppose, with all the influence at our command, the scheme of the various sects that sought to accomplish a result which we know would be a virtual union of Church and State in Washington Territory, so far as the non-taxation of church property is concerned. We delivered an address on the subject before a mixed audience in the Unitarian Church at Tacoma, which seemed to reflect the views of the liberal and enlightened portion of the community. The Unitarians and other liberal-minded Christian sects are, like ourselves, the avowed opponents of the marriage of Church and State, as are that great body of citizens who, while deeply religious by nature, are not communicants of any church. Conspicuous among our best and noblest friends at Tacoma as a resolute opponent of Church and State alliance, is Rev. Mr. Copeland, pastor of the Unitarian Church of that city. The reverend gentleman has the courage of his convictions, and on the point under discussion his intelligent congregation heartily coincide with him.

Underlying this important subject are some fundamental truths which should not be forgotten, and which, kept constantly in view, are bulwarks to strengthen citizens in their duty towards the State. Under our republican system of government the observance of religion is purely a private act, and the Constitution of the United States solemnly prohibits all interference on the part of the State as to the manner in which each citizen may worship according to the dictates of his conscience. All church property, under the real letter and spirit of the national Constitution, is private property, and should be taxed like any other private property. The church must pay for protection like the citizen. It is manifestly unjust and unconstitutional that a vast religious corporation, owning millions of dollars worth of real estate, with costly temples thereon, in the heart of great cities, should go untaxed, while the house and lot of the humble carpenter, shoemaker, tailor, or other tradesman, are taxed to the cent. In some States this crying injustice is still perpetrated in defiance of the national Constitution, but fortunately California is not burdened with this relic of barbarism still existing in other commonwealths of the Union. The American people have shattered the fetters and chains forged by priests and kings to keep mankind in bondage of mental and moral degradation, but alas! there still exists among certain sects in this country an evil and lurking spirit that would again gladly welcome a fatal union of Church and State. To carry on a peaceful, unending war against this evil spirit of sectarian fanaticism, until it is educated to obey the civil power, is the sacred duty of all true lovers of civil and religious liberty.—Jewish Times.