CHURCH AND STATE UNION by W. N. G.

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Aug 20, 1894

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 20, No. 41.

CHURCH AND STATE UNION.

By W. N. G.

WHAT is Church and State union?—It is the dependence of the church upon the State to do by civil law the work which the church itself is designed to do by persuasion. Or it may be the dependence of the State upon the church to further political ends by unduly influencing a credulous, superstitious membership. A mutual employment of their respective functions for the purpose of furthering mutual designs, is a union of Church and State.

Legitimately the Christian Church has no interest in common with the State which united organic effort can advance. If we say they are mutually interested in good government; it has been demonstrated that that object is best subserved by each attending to its own business. When each labors in its own proper sphere, each keeping out of the other's way, there is an incidental, mutual assistance. The Christian Church cannot unite with the State for the reason that the State is of this world, and the church, being the domain of Christ, is not of this world. The word of Christ concerning his disciples is, "They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world." John 17:16.

Neither Christ nor his apostles ever sought the aid of the State in the furtherance of the work of the church. They never asked the State to pass any laws for the enforcement of moral sentiment or religious doctrine. Nor did they in any way attempt to reform the politics of the State by entering into political operations. Their labors consisted solely in doing good to others and preaching Christ. They never sought official position themselves, nor sought to place their friends and sympathizers in office. They were content to render to Cæsar his due, and to God that which belonged to him. If Cæsar demanded more than his due, they obeyed God rather than men, and patiently bore the consequences.

Apostasy and worldly ambition have ever been the result of church affiliation with the State. And a State-wedded church invariably thinks to cure her ills by means of more State power. The State becomes her physician, and civil law the imaginary cure-all. The bane of the church has been and is a desire to use the power of the State for the enforcement of church dogmas.

It has been the boast of the United States Government that Church and State are separate. Yet the Supreme Court, in its decision that "this is a Christian nation," would make it appear that there never has been an entire separation. The Constitution is designed to insure such a separation so far as the general government is concerned, but in most of the States there have always been laws providing for the religious observance of Sunday, and in some cases other laws of a kindred nature. These were brought over from the Church-and-State colonies, out of which the United States were formed, and have always been deemed a matter of States' rights. These laws have proved a seed which, although in a great measure dormant for a century, have at last begun to grow and bear fruit.

The spirit of Church and State union first gained sufficient influence to beguile Congress into making appropriations for church schools among the Indians. Then it urged and obtained a decision of the Supreme Court that "this is a Christian nation." This was followed by a fiat of Congress that the first day of the week is the Sabbath of the fourth commandment, followed again by a direct attack on the Constitution, demanding that it be changed to harmonize with the unwarrantable legislation and unwarrantable decisions of both State and Federal courts which had previously gone into operation.

This spirit creeps in under the most specious garb, with the most captivating words. For instance, we have the National League for the Protection of American Institutions, incorporated to "secure constitutional and legislative safeguards for the protection of the common-school system and other American institutions, and to prevent all sectarian or denominational appropriations of public funds." This league has proposed an amendment to the Federal Constitution which reads as follows:—

No State shall pass any law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or use its property or credit, or any money raised by taxation, or authorize either to be used, for the purpose of founding, maintaining, or aiding by appropriation, payment of services, expenses, or otherwise, any church, religious denomination, or religious society, or any institution, society, or undertaking which is wholly or in part under sectarian or ecclesiastical control."

This reads well, and is well calculated to catch the popular ear. It has been introduced in both Houses of Congress, and is now in the hands of the Judiciary Committees. Of its merits the general secretary of the league says: "The principles embodied in this amendment have been incorporated in the revised constitutions of two of the older States, in the constitutions of all of the new States, and in that prepared for the Territory of Arizona, and now twenty-three of the forty-four State constitutions contain like provisions."

From further statements of the general secretary, in the Baltimore Methodist of May 24, we learn that the national conventions of American patriotic orders have indorsed the proposed amendment, and its adoption is ostensibly designed to perpetuate the separation of Church and State. But it is plain that we cannot perpetuate that which does not exist. The statement that its provisions are already embodied in the constitutions of a large number of States which have Sunday laws on their statute books, is evidence that it is not expected to wipe out the existing features of Church and State union, either State or national. The proposed amendment does not propose to establish a separation of Church and State, hence it is folly to assume that it will perpetuate such a separation.

There is no "safeguard" in the proposition that "no State shall pass any law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." The first

amendment to the Constitution already provides that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;" yet Congress has made a law establishing the first day of the week as the Sabbath of the fourth commandment of the Decalogue, and appoints chaplains to teach the Christian religion to soldiers and marines. And the Supreme Court has decided that the Christian religion was established before the first amendment came into existence. It is evident to anyone who will look squarely at the facts of recent history that such a constitutional prohibition of State action would have no more force than the same prohibition of congressional action.

Furthermore, one of the "American institutions" which this National League proposes to protect is the so-called "American sabbath" (Sunday). Yet the protection by law of this or any other institution of the church is a marked feature of Church and State union, which the league's suggested amendment to the Constitution proposes to prohibit. Again, the league assumes to be nonsectarian and nonpartisan, while its objects are a direct blow at the Catholic Church. The inconsistency of the position is manifest in the aim to prevent the States from aiding Catholic schools, on the plea of keeping Church and State separate, while it advocates the support by the State of that other Catholic institution, the Sunday holy day.