Your ShelfYour Projects

The Majority Argument

17%

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D.C. · Oct 5, 1905

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 82, No. 40.

Read the full edition

The Majority Argument

By L. A. S.

THE Christian Statesman, organ of the party which seeks to enforce the law of Christ by legislatures, policemen, and courts, argues for an anti-polygamy law by an amendment to the Constitution which shall make an acknowledgment of the law of Christ as the basis of the legislation. It notes, among objections which it anticipates to such a measure, the fact that “many of our citizens do not believe what it is proposed thus to acknowledge,” and attempts to dispose of this objection by asserting that the majority have the right to dictate in religion, the same as in civil affairs. It sets aside the American principle of separation between church and state,—between the domain of the spiritual and the realm of secular affairs,—and likewise sets aside the Christian principle of a free conscience, subject only to the will and the instruction of God.
The Statesman says:—
No doubt this is true [that “many of our citizens do not believe what it is proposed thus to acknowledge”]; but an overwhelming majority of the American people do believe it, and if this belief of theirs is the actual ground and reason for the proposed enactment, they have the same right to declare the reason for their legislation that they have to legislate at all. No law was ever enacted, and no public declaration was ever made, about which the people were altogether unanimous.
The Statesman cites the various “Christian features” of the government, such as prayers in Congress, Thanksgiving day proclamations, etc., as justification for this further proposed step in the “Christianization” of the government.
It is true that all men are not unanimous in their approval of laws that are enacted, and it is true also that a certain amount of disagreement in regard to governmental policies is a salutary thing in the domain of secular affairs; but too frequent and violent divergence of opinion on the part of those governed would unquestionably be destructive of good government; and for this reason religion, in which men are notoriously divergent in their views and are bound to their differences by the strongest emotions of their natures, can not be brought into the realm of civil affairs without not only losing its own sacredness, but exerting a destructive effect upon the government itself. L. A. S.