I wanted to take a moment to say how much I appreciated Dennis Taylor's gracious clarification of some remarks that were made regarding South Valley Community Church's Easter emphasis "Got Purpose." Dennis and I had a congenial discussion, and I very much enjoyed our dialogue. In his last article, Dennis spoke about my "respect for the separation of church and state." I thought I might take just a moment to clarify what my "respect" for this controversial topic really means.

Our current understanding of the "separation of church and state" - the view that the state is to be thoroughly secular, and not influenced by religious values, especially Christian - was completely foreign to the first 150 years of American political thought. Clearly, the Founding Fathers did not try to expunge every vestige of Christian religion, thought and values from all facets of public life.

When you study the documents of the Revolutionary period, a very distinctive picture of what the Founding Fathers believed comes into view. The Founders clearly believed that moral leadership, and a virtuous electorate, were essential for the experiment of freedom to succeed. Because of this, they created a political climate that was encouraging to Christianity and accommodating to religion, rather than hostile to it. Consequently, Protestant Christianity was the prevailing religious view for the first 150 years of our nation's history.

However, to be accurate and balanced, it must be stated that the Founding Fathers sought to set up a just society, not a Christian theocracy. For that reason, they specifically prohibited the establishment of Christianity - or any other faith - as the religion of our nation. At the same time, the First Amendment was drafted to insure the liberty needed for Christianity to have an ongoing and profound influence on government.

It is a historical fact that the Founding Fathers were supportive of Christianity and its public practice and expression. It wasn't until 1947 that the United States Supreme Court first used the concept of "separation" to isolate government from religion. In Everson v. Board of Education the court lifted a phrase from a letter Thomas Jefferson wrote to a Baptist church in Danbury, Connecticut. In the words of Jefferson, the clause against establishment of religion by law was intended to erect "a wall of separation between church and state."

In this ruling, the Supreme Court incorrectly quoted Jefferson's separation language as a normative guideline for understanding the First Amendment. This is especially remarkable when one realizes that Jefferson wasn't even a member of the Constitutional Convention, and the phrase "separation of church and state" does not appear anywhere in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights. A careful reading of Jefferson's letter, his other writings and the First Amendment itself makes it clear that it is the government that is restricted from intruding into any religious organization, and not people who are being restricted from having religious influence upon government.

Freedom of religion is the goal, and the non-establishment clause is the means. The only way to have true freedom of religion is to keep government out of religion's affairs. This view defines religious freedom in terms of governmental neutrality toward religion in which no religion is favored over any other, and neither religion nor secularism is favored over each other. The First Amendment was rewritten 12 times to make clear its intent. The concept set forth in the Bill of Rights is "non-establishment" of religion, not the total isolation of God from government.

For nearly two centuries, state and federal governments have had a benevolent attitude toward religion in general, and Christianity in particular. The Northwest Ordinance of 1787, passed by the very same Congress which enacted the First Amendment, stated the following in Article III: "Religion, morality, and knowledge being necessary to good government and happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged." Notice that religion and morality were equal with knowledge as proper subjects of public education.

Is it true, therefore, that "religious people" are a threat to the separation of powers because they are trying to impose a new standard favoring religion that undermines our basic Constitutional freedoms? I think the answer lies in the answer to another question: Do these recent legal actions stop religious values from being added to our public life, or do they actually remove religious values that were already there?

The truth is all these modern rulings against religious values in the public sector remove the values that had already existed for the previous 175 years! The courts have removed prayer from school, crèches from the lawns of city halls, and crosses from public parks. Secularists and separationists have managed to get personal Bibles off of teachers' desks, the Ten Commandments out of schoolrooms and references to God eliminated from students' graduation speeches.

But, herein lies the Achilles heel of the separationists claims: Things can only be removed that were already there to begin with. I ask you, "How did they get there in the first place?" They were allowed by citizens, legislatures, and courts that saw no harm in them, no intolerance, no danger, and no breech of any Constitutional principle for almost 175 years.

This tells us two things. First, from the beginning, religious symbols and religious thought were woven into the fabric of government and society with no sense of Constitutional impropriety. This proves that the new court actions are revisionist's attempts to change the traditional practice, not a return to our historical and Constitutional roots as some claim. Second, conservatives are in a defensive posture, not an offensive one. The so-called "religious right" has not declared war on secularism, the war has been declared instead by secularists against an American way of life that was held dear to many who simply will not surrender it without a struggle.

Dennis Taylor and I both share a common sense of paranoia about the separation of powers ... he from one side of the aisle, and I from the other. He fears religion and its influence in government, and I fear that the secularization of our culture is leading toward a greater intolerance and hostility toward people of faith.

We once proudly proclaimed ourselves as "one nation under God" and now we are a nation under God knows what?

It seems to me that we have spent the last 30 years determined to secularize our society, and sadly, it appears we are succeeding.

"Got Equal Protection?"

Eric Smith, Gilroy

Pastor, South Valley Community Church

Submitted Sunday, April 27 to editor@garlic.com

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