The Rise and Fall of Religious Liberty in America
By C. M. S.
The Constitution and the Gospel Misinterpreted
The argument of Mr. Justice Brewer, referred to in the preceding article, opened the way for the nation to enter upon a course of religious legislation; and not only that, but the justice sought, in that argument, so to interpret the United States Constitution as to make it uphold, in spite of itself, the Christian nation idea. The Constitution plainly declares the purpose of the federal government to be non-interference in the religious affairs of the people. Nevertheless, in the effort to prove this a Christian nation the justice cites the church-and-state compact of the Puritans (which made the maintenance of the gospel and the discipline of the churches a part of the state's duties); the religious-test oath of Pennsylvania (which made belief in God and in future rewards and punishments a prerequisite to citizenship); public taxation for the support of religion; a declaration of belief in the Trinity and the inspiration of the Scriptures as a necessary qualification to the holding of public office; the Pennsylvania Supreme Court's decision that Christianity is a part of the common law; and the laws respecting the “observance of the sabbath” in the various States—he cites all these church-and-state arrangements to prove this a Christian nation, then brings the national Constitution into the group, and declares:— There is no dissonance in these declarations. There is a universal language pervading them all, having one meaning. They affirm and reaffirm that this is a religious nation.6 Thus is the Constitution, which was designed to guarantee a separation of church and state, made to speak the same language, and stand for the same thing, as did those utterances and documents which had to do solely with governments that tyrannized over the souls of men. In other words, the national Constitution, the guardian of liberties, is made to speak a language completely at variance with itself, and in harmony with institutions against which it was designed by its framers to be an everlasting protest. So by this misinterpretation the Constitution is made to stand not for “a new order of things,” as the great seal reads, but for the same old order of things that obtained in colonial days, and in the days of Elizabeth, and Ferdinand and Isabella. Against such an interpretation we protest, and set the liberties of this generation over against the soul-thraldom of those generations as a proof that the protest is just and warranted. But this misinterpretation of the spirit and purpose of our Constitution, and this declaration that this is a Christian nation, has been received with enthusiastic plaudits by that element in the country which is seeking to “put God in the Constitution,” put certain Christian laws, rules, and usages in “the fundamental law of the land,” and inaugurate a campaign of religious legislation for the “moral reformation of the nation.” Morality by enactment, religion by civil law, salvation through legislatures, general taxation to support the teachers of religion, Sunday laws to fill the churches with worshipers, legal censorship over the religious faith and practise of men, the kingdom of God through the gateway of politics—these purposes of the National Reform and “civic righteousness” forces have, by that dictum of the Supreme Court and that misinterpretation of the national Constitution, received a stimulus that has increased the effectiveness of their efforts a hundredfold. That some such pronouncement was what they were hoping for will be seen by the following quotations. The first is from the official organ of the American Sabbath Union, the Pearl of Days, of May 7, 1892, less than four months after the famous dictum had been uttered. It declares that this decision— ‘establishes clearly the fact that our government is Christian. The decision is vital to the Sunday question in all its aspects, and places the question among the most important issues now before the American people. And this important decision rests upon the fundamental principle that religion is imbedded in the organic structure of the American government—a religion that recognizes, and is bound to maintain, Sunday as a day for rest and worship.’ It is easy to see from the above quotation how the Christian-nation dictum of the Supreme Court has helped Sunday-law advocates to read into the “organic structure of the American government” something that the founders of this government never designed should be there—a commingling of civil and religious things, and the maintenance of a religious observance by national law. On May 21 the Christian Statesman, official organ of the National Reform Association, seconded the declaration of the Pearl of Days in these words:— “Christianity is the law of the land.” “This is a Christian nation.”—U. S. Supreme Court, Feb. 29, 1892. The Christian church, therefore, has rights in this country. Among these is the right to one day in seven protected from the assaults of greed, the god of this world, that it may be devoted to worship of the God of heaven and earth. It would, of course, be inferred from this expression that since the beginning of this nation, and up to the date of that Christian-nation declaration, the Christian church in this country had been deprived of its rights, and church-members were forbidden to assemble one day in seven for the worship of God. Such an implication is an utter perversion of the noble principles of justice and equality upon which the nation was founded. That we have not misinterpreted the attitude of the National Reform Association toward the Supreme Court decision of Feb. 29, 1892, nor its attitude toward the fundamental principles of the nation itself, is shown from the following quotation from the Christian Statesman of Nov. 19, 1892. This utterance is from one of the district secretaries of that association, Mr. William Weir, of Washington, Pa., and reads:— “This is a Christian nation.” That means Christian government, Christian laws, Christian institutions, Christian citizenship. And this is not an outburst of popular passion or prejudice. Christ did not lay his guiding hand there, but upon the calm, dispassionate supreme judicial tribunal of our government. It is the weightiest, the noblest, the most tremendously far-reaching in its consequences of all the utterances of that sovereign tribunal. And that utterance is for Christianity, for Christ. “A Christian nation!” Then this nation is Christ's nation [“My kingdom is not of this world.”—Jesus], for nothing can be Christian that does not belong to him. Then his Word is its sovereign law. Then the nation is Christ's servant. Then it ought to, and must, confess, love, and obey Christ. All that the National Reform Association seeks, all that this department of Christian politics works for, is to be found in the development of that royal truth, “This is a Christian nation.” It is the hand of the second of our three great departments of national government throwing open a door of our national house, one that leads straight to the throne of Christ. And that association began at once to make of that declaration of the Supreme Court all they could for the furtherance of their aims. They had battled against the national Constitution for years. Here now was a decision of the Supreme Court attempting to make the Constitution stand for what they wanted it to stand for, attempting to make it mean what they wanted it to say. But the spirit of the above quotation, which is the spirit of the National Reform Association and its allies, is entirely at variance with the genius of American government, and with the spirit of the great document which they assail. Civil government is an instrument of force, of compulsion. The religion of Jesus Christ is a matter of choice, of heart service. We can not compel men to love Christ; we can not compel men to yield acceptable heart service to him. To attempt either is to misinterpret utterly the spirit of the gospel, and to misconstrue the purpose of Christ in giving it. Neither has the leading of men “straight to the throne of Christ” ever been given to the nation to do. That is the work of the church; and when the church seeks to put it upon the nation, to bring about by legislation, she cumbers the nation with a task it can not hope to do, and herself shirks the task which her divine Master has laid upon her. Strange to say, that theory of the church's need of a political assistant in promulgating the gospel and of the state's appointment to that position, is winning adherents with marked rapidity. The church is “laying hands” on the state, and dedicating it to that solemn work, and statesmen who fear “political beheadal” are offering their unsanctified services to that end. The manner in which this was brought about, and the attitude of statesmen in accepting the appointment, will be shown in another article. C. M. S.