A Distinction Without a Difference

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D.C. · Dec 27, 1906

A Distinction Without a Difference

It frequently happens that when men can not reach a certain point by a direct route, they take a circuitous one and arrive at the same destination. This is frequently illustrated at the present time in the declarations of those who are seeking the enforcement of their religious convictions upon other people. The National Reform leaders “deprecate” a union of church and state, but are working with utmost energy for a combination of religion and the state, by which union they hope to accomplish the enactment of religious laws which will bring oppression upon dissenting Christians. It is but a change of words for the accomplishment of the same end. The Kansas City Star, of November 14, published a statement by Thomas K. Beecher which had in it the same peculiar piece of reasoning. It reads:—

We have no right to ask a man to conform to the dictates of our consciences; but we have a right to require him to live up to the laws of the land, which are the embodied consciences of the community.

This is another case of a distinction without a difference. An individual has no right to compel another to adopt his religious practises; but several individuals may get together and compel the man to do that very thing. All the company of individuals have to do is to agree upon what the “consciences of the community” shall embody in the law, and then compel any and all to comply with that embodiment. For one to do it would be wrong; for several to do it would be right. It is simply a matter of putting our conscientious convictions into the law, and then enforcing the law. That rids us of the opprobrium of interfering with the religious rights of men.