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An Interview on National Reform

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

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 83, No. 39.

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An Interview on National Reform

By C. M. S.

AFTER listening several days at the National Reform Convention to the instructions of Dr. T. P. Stevenson, editor of the Christian Statesman, upon the general theme of Christian Citizenship, the writer sought an interview, of which the following is a verbatim report. It will be noted that the answers to some of these questions can be obtained by inference only, and others are answered in a way that is completely out of harmony with the outworking of National Reform principles:—
1. Has government a right to take from one class of men one-sixth of their time for labor because other men wish to rest on a certain day?
Answer.— We look at it in this way: The divine law of the Sabbath is not an exaction, but a boon. It lifts away the yoke of labor for one seventh of a man’s time, and that is a right with which God clothes every man—the right to rest one seventh of his time. That is a right that ought to be protected by the nation. If the government accords the right to the individual, it must be on that day which the majority of the people believe is the proper day for rest. That, of course, must be determined by the majority. I appeal to the government to protect me in my right to rest. The government would virtually say, “On the day which the nation feels is the proper day for rest you shall have an opportunity for rest, and no social organization shall come in to deprive you of that opportunity. If you are an employee, the corporation which you serve shall not interfere between you and your right to rest. As Horace Greeley said, ‘The liberty of rest for each demands a law of rest for all.’”
The doctor objected to the form of the question; but from his answer we must infer that he considers a government justified in doing what the question asks. The government “protects” the religious exercises of one man by depriving another of rights that are sacred to him. The government makes it harder for one man that another may have the satisfaction of seeing his neighbors do as he does. The injustice of protecting a day at the expense of violating individual conscience is a matter that received no consideration in this convention.
2. By what process of reasoning do you arrive at the conclusion that the state can be a religious institution without being at the same time a union of church and state?
Ans.— The National Reform Association protests against the union of church and state as being a violation of the will of God. In reference to the relation of these two institutions, God has created them both and made them independent, each self-existent. The state, therefore, has no right to establish the church, as in England, and the church has no right to accept such establishment by the state. The state has no right to govern the church. All that is implied in the union of church and state, and we thoroughly repudiate it. But we do maintain that the state is in duty bound to be religious for itself, in its own relations to God, not through the medium of any church establishment; just as the family is under obligation to be religious for itself. That did not unite church and family. There again you have the two distinct institutions—two planets moving around the same sun, obeying the same law of gravitation, each keeping its own orbit and not interfering with the other.
From this we learn that a union of church and state means the state ruling the church. Evidently it would not be a union of church and state for the church to rule the state; for that is exactly what this organization is seeking to bring about by demanding that all the laws, rules, and usages of the church shall be placed “on an undeniable legal basis in the fundamental law of the land.” The state dominant over the church is a union of church and state. The church dominant over the state is not a union of church and state. Why not?
3. Is it right for Christians to bring about a condition of things which must make criminals of other Christians for exercising the rights common to men?
Ans.— No, emphatically, no, it is not. We are not seeking to bring about any condition of things on the strength of our own will, simply seeking that God may have his will in our nation. We are not seeking to impose our will.
That clears them of the charge of religious persecution, and throws the onus of it all back upon God. In establishing laws that make criminals of Christians they are simply enforcing God’s will, and he is responsible for the pains and penalties that may fall upon those who are seeking to do his will in the light of his own Word. It would not be right for Christians to bring about that condition on their own responsibility; but by claiming to be the exponents of God’s will, they accomplish the same result and escape responsibility.
4. Is government, aside from the individuals who compose it, an entity, having itself rights that transcend the rights of the individuals that compose it?
Ans.— Yes, a nation is a moral entity, having its own relations to God, subject to his law and his moral government. The rights of government are conferred upon it by God as the rights of the individual are conferred upon him by God, and God is sufficiently wise to arrange that these rights shall not conflict with one another.
But in every combination of religion and government minorities have suffered at the hands of majorities for worshiping God in accordance with their interpretation of his will. Always have the rights of one been usurped by the other, and bitter persecution has been the fruit of it.
5. Has government a right to dictate the religious duties of its citizens?
Ans.— Certainly not; but government has a right to discharge its own religious duties; and as government leaves the individual free in the sphere of his individual life to be religious or not to be religious as he chooses, so the individual must be willing that the nation shall be free in its life, to be religious if it chooses to be, and he has no right to lay his veto as an individual upon the freedom and inalienable rights of the nation.
Think of it! A nation pleading with an individual to be allowed the right of worshiping God according to the dictation of its conscience!
6. Has government a right to prescribe a day of rest and worship and compel compliance therewith under pains and penalties?
Ans.— No, sir. Our Sabbath days do not do that. Our Sabbath laws are laws to protect the individual in the right to rest one seventh of his time, and to prescribe that government itself shall rest on a certain day of the week; but the individual may worship or not on that day exactly as he chooses, and we do not interfere with his freedom in that respect.
If it be true that “our Sabbath laws do not do that,” then a great many good people have been committed to prison in various States of this Union through a misapprehension of “our Sabbath laws” on the part of the judges and juries who interpreted those laws. The government does not yet compel men to worship on Sunday; but let a Christian who has already worshiped on some other day attempt to go about his own ordinary quiet vocation on Sunday in many States, and he will find that “our Sabbath laws” have pains and penalties attached.
7. Has government a right to prescribe other periods of worship and other religious acts, such as baptism, the Lord’s supper, etc., and compel compliance with these under pains and penalties?
Ans.— Emphatically, no.
And yet, these are some of the laws, rules, and usages of the church, and it is the laws, rules, and usages of the church that are to take their place in “the fundamental law of the land.” Why is it that the Sabbath, a religious institution, can be a proper matter of legislation, while the Lord’s supper, also a religious institution, would be an improper matter for the state to legislate upon, especially when “the state is a religious institution,” according to the declarations of the National Reform Association?
8. Have majorities rights in the exercise of religious convictions which minorities do not have?
Ans.— The majority has the right to exercise their own religious convictions, to determine in that way the action of the nation of which they are a part, so that the nation shall acknowledge God and relationship to him, and, according to its light, yield obedience to his law.
Worked out on that line, the answer would certainly be, Yes; for determining the action of the nation by exercising their religious convictions, they can pass any kind of religious legislation in making the whole people do what they think essential to a proper acknowledgment of God and obedience to him.
9. Was Daniel right in refusing to obey the law of the Medes and Persians when it commanded him to abstain from prayer?
Ans.— Certainly.
10. Was the government within its rights in making such a law?
Ans.— Certainly not. The individual is absolutely free from all dictation or interference by the government in the sphere of his individual life. He may be an atheist; he has a right to teach his atheism to his children. We would not interfere with that; but the nation has the same right, the same liberty. It has the right to be religious, to fear God, to avow its fear of God and its purpose to obey his law. The nation has the right to teach its children, its citizens, the fear of God, on the ground that a God-fearing citizen is the only good citizen; and if it leaves the individual man free to teach his religion and do that which is within the sphere of his individual life, he has no right to interfere with the nation in the sphere of its national life, teaching what it believes to be of vital importance to good citizenship; for the child is not only the child of the family, but the child of the nation. The nation has rights and responsibilities in reference to the child as well as the family. The only solution of the problem when it arises is to say that each shall be free in its own sphere, and neither shall interfere with the other.
It seems to us that the only solution of the problem—which has already arisen—is the solution given by U. S. Grant: “Keep the church and state forever separate,” and do it in fact, instead of working for a union in fact with a separation in name only. The state is out of its sphere always when it interferes with the exercise of the rights of conscience. We are not referring to the peculiar conscience which might be used as a cloak for incivility, if there be any such. But in the very nature of the case when the state enters the domain of religion, the religious convictions of a portion of its citizens are interfered with. It can not enter that domain and please all parties. Before its entry, all were free. After its entry, those are free only who obey its directions in religious matters. But these, in helping to bring that condition about, have set a snare that will entangle them when conscientious conviction shows them the error of their ways.
11. Was that government within its rights in condemning Daniel to death for his disobedience?
Ans.— No; its right to enforce the law falls with its right to enact such a law, which has been denied before.
But why “No,” if “the state is a religious institution”? If it is a religious institution, it must be religious through the people that make it up. If it can be religious for itself, it can be so only by shaping the religion of its subjects; and it can not shape that religion without enforcing the shape. To enforce the shape, it must attach penalties to any non-conformity. That is what that nation, that “religious institution,” did to Daniel; and if the National Reform idea is correct, it had the right to do it, and the doctor’s answer should have been, Yes.
12. Is the state within its rights in demanding obedience in religious matters?
Ans.— If you mean invading the liberty of the individual in the sphere of his individual life, I say, No.
And so say we; but if the state has a right to be religious for itself, and can be religious only through the religion of its subjects, then it must have the right to demand obedience in religious matters; and the doctor’s answer should have been, “Yes.”
13. Is God within his rights in demanding obedience in religious matters?
Ans.— Unquestionably.
14. Where these two powers conflict, are both right, and which shall we obey?
Ans.— God.
So long as the church keeps out of politics, and the state leaves the religion of its subjects alone, there will be no conflict. When there is, it is certain evidence that one or the other of these institutions is out of its sphere. There are many principles touched in this interview which have much more in them than space will here permit to be discussed. The complete replies of Dr. Stevenson are given that our people may see the line of argument now adopted, and the purpose which the National Reform Association and its allies have in view.
C. M. S.