The Church and the State.
By C. P. Bollman
The subject of the union of Church and State is very imperfectly understood by very many people. It has been thought that in order to form such a union some one sect or denomination must be made the State Church; but a little consideration will show any one that such is not the case. The National Reformers say that they do not want a union of Church and State, but a union of religion and the State. In a speech before the National Reform Convention held in New York City in 1883, Rev. Jonathan Edwards said:— “We want such a religion, and we are going to have it. It shall be that so far as the affairs of the State require religion, it shall be the religion of Jesus Christ. The Christian oath and the Christian morality shall have, in this land, an undeniable legal basis. We use the word “religion” in its proper sense, as meaning a man’s personal relation of faith and obedience to God.” But, even in the face of such a statement as this made by one of their prominent leaders, the National Reformers insist that they are opposed to a union of Church and State, but their denial amounts to nothing. Religion and the State is only another name for that unholy alliance between the civil and the ecclesiastical power which has always been an unmitigated curse to both the Church and the State. Everybody admits that Constantine united Church and State. But his first step was only to declare Christianity the religion of the Roman Empire; when he had taken that step, however, it was necessary that he should in some way define Christianity. Then, as now, those who professed to be Christians were divided, not into organized denominations as at the present time, but into numerous parties and factions under the leadership of their respective bishops. Between the extremes there was probably as great a diversity of opinion as exists now between Catholics and Protestants. Besides this there was a multitude of minor differences; and as the Emperor had declared the Christian religion to be the religion of Rome, it was necessary that this religion should be defined, and for this purpose a council was convened at Nice to decide the question as to what constituted the Christian religion. The National Reformers of our own day propose to take similar measures. When the Blair Educational Amendment bill was under discussion a few months since, the question was asked, how it would be possible to carry it out owing to the diversity of views among Christian people. The answer given by the author of the bill was as follows:— “I believe that a text-book of instructions in the principles of virtue, morality and the Christian religion can be prepared for use in the public schools by the joint effort of those who represent every branch of the Christian Church, both Protestant and Catholic.” Again, Dr. Schaff, in defining what parts of the Bible should be taught in the public schools, says: “A competent committee of clergymen and laymen of all denominations could make a judicious selection which would satisfy every reasonable demand.” But to carry out these suggestions would be to do just as Constantine did, convene a council of the representative men of the various denominations to define the principles of the Christian religion, and with these principles authoritatively defined, and with the law on the statute books, and embodied in the Constitution requiring the principles of the Christian religion to be taught in the public schools, how much would we lack of having a union of Church and State? True, we might not have a denominational organization known as the State Church, and supported out of the treasury, but we would have practically the same thing, for we would have a creed officially recognized by the Government. There is one phase of this question which is generally lost sight of, and that is the rights of non-church people, or if you please, non-Christian people. The National Reform idea is that every government is a government of God, and that the powers that be derive their power from God, and this not in the sense in which the apostle declares that “the powers that be are ordained of God,” but in the sense that his law should be the basis of their law, or in other words that men should be governed by the divine law administered by their fellow-men. “But on the other hand, the Declaration of Independence declares that “Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed;” this, however, National Reformers deny. In the Missouri Sunday Convention recently held in Sedalia, Rev. W. D. Gray, the present secretary of the Missouri Sabbath Association, used these words:— “I do not believe that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, and so the object of this movement is an effort to change that feature in our fundamental law.” Several men, prominent in National Reform councils, were present on this occasion, but not one of them lifted his voice to disavow this sentiment, and the Association subsequently elected Mr. Gray as its permanent secretary; hence we are warranted in believing that he voiced the sentiment of the Association. But if the National Reformers be correct, and Governments do derive their just powers directly from God, and not from the consent of the governed, and if it is their duty to administer the law of God, it follows that they must decide what that law is, and what it requires; and if they have that right, then all good citizens should yield obedience to whatever decisions they may make. But to assent to such a thing would be to deny God, or at least to place men in the place of God, which amounts to the same thing. The trouble with the whole scheme of National Reform is, that instead of making a man responsible to God it makes him responsible to earthly and fallible governments, for if the Government has the right to establish a religion and to define and say what that religion is, as it must do if it gives it any official recognition whatever, it has the right to change that religion, so that with every change in the Government there may be a change also in the religion. And if it is a duty the citizen owes to God to yield obedience to the religion of the State, it is equally his duty to change his religion with each change of the Government. In short, National Reformers would destroy personal responsibility to God, and make the citizen responsible alone to the State. Instead of looking to the law of God to know what is right and what is wrong, a citizen would have to look to the law of the land, or at least to human interpretation of the law of God, to know his duty to God. For instance, under a Catholic government, it would be the duty of the citizen to adore pictures and images; while under a Protestant government, it would be sin and crime for him to do the same thing. The only safe and tenable ground is to declare, as did the Saviour, that those things which are Cæsar’s should be rendered to Cæsar, and those things which are God’s should be rendered to God; or, in other words, that those duties which we owe to the State should be discharged to the State, and those duties which we owe to God should be discharged to God. In short, that the State can of right have nothing whatever to do with defining or enforcing the individual’s duty toward God. Anything more than this puts men in the place of God, because it makes them judges of the divine law and allows them to usurp the place of conscience, and authorizes persecution for conscience’ sake. C. P. BOLLMAN.