Separation of church and state. A lovely little phrase made popular by Thomas Jefferson when he posited a “wall of separation between church and state” in his letter to the Danbury Baptists in 1802. This principle, sort of enshrined in the First Amendment to the Constitution, has been operative, also sort of, ever since ratification. I say sort of because a foolish consistency may be the hobgoblin of little minds (Emerson), but an honest, intelligent consistency has never been the hobgoblin of our Supreme Court. In fact, our Supreme Court has always had ample anti-hobgoblin spray on hand when it comes to any type of consistency at all.
So, we sort of have this wall of separation. However, if you watch Huckabee, a Fox News (?) Channel show named for Huckleberry Hound, since he’s the host (go ahead, just try to tell me that guy doesn’t look like Huckleberry Hound), then you’ll discover all manner of guests who will swear up and down on a stack of religious paraphernalia that Jefferson was indeed a believer in Jesus Christ and never meant to say any such thing.
Actually, they are partially right. Jefferson indeed believed in Christ. But his version of Christ was very different than today’s evangelical “buddy-Christ.” He was not a purveyor of a Christ who served as your imaginary friend, that Christ who you converse with about the vagaries of your day in the darkness of your room before you jot it all down in your Hello Kitty diary.
Jefferson was a Deist, who believed that Christ was a teacher and an extraordinary human being. And he felt that those who wrote Christ’s story after his death were mostly embellishers and purveyors of . . . um . . . compost. In fact, he created the Jefferson Bible, in which he retained the words he believed to be Christ’s, and literally sliced and diced the rest onto the compost pile. He felt the words of Christ could be picked out from the rest as easily as picking “diamonds from dunghills.”
But those who believe there should be no wall say “Why pick Jefferson? He wasn’t even a signatory of the Constitution. He wasn’t even at the Constitutional Convention.” And they are correct. Were the rest of the founders believers in a supernatural Christ? Were they fans of the Christ who comforts you in your times of sorrow, rewards you with gold and stuff when you are poor and fixes your traffic tickets? Did they believe that government should not “establish” a particular state religion, but it’s okay if government de facto promotes a certain acceptable spectrum of religious belief?
Don’t know. And frankly, don’t care. I don’t care what the founders thought about religion. I don’t care what they thought about gun rights. I don’t care what they thought about just about anything. And neither do you or anybody else. Words on hemp paper are not, and have never been, the reason we are sort of free. I care about our lives today and in the future. And because I care about our lives, I want that wall of separation. I want your religion and my religion to be a non-factor in our governance. I want gun rights to be completely left out of our governance. There are some things that are just too darned important to be the object of government. Any government.
I want to live in that country that believes government governs best when it governs least. God doesn’t command government to do more. Man does. Christ has never spoken to any one of us and said, “Go forth and take the reins of government so you can do my bidding.” In fact, Christ was the consummate outsider. He reveled in being that gnat that flies in the face of the powerful, buzzing their ears, flying up their nose, driving them completely bat-guano crazy.
Those who practice religion do not necessarily need to emulate Christ in that way. There is no reason they need be eternally on the outside of the political process. But attempting to codify their religious beliefs in law is both bad religion and bad governance. We all come to the process with our beliefs, religious and otherwise. And if our religion guides us to be kind and respectful, that’s just great. If it instead leads us to be piously overbearing, intolerant and arrogant, then it is no longer productive and in fact becomes dangerous.
When religion, any religion or religious faction, becomes dangerous to the safety of its non-adherents, there is a payment to be made. That payment may be a long time coming, but it will be arriving, nonetheless. Your religion may hold the power now, but it will not always be so. Power is a fickle companion.
I’ll take a separation beteen church and state, thank you very much. And one between state and me whenever possible. I will always choose to live in a secularly governed, religiously tolerant society. You should too if you know what’s good for you. Until next time.
