We Separate Church and State for a Reason – Romney’s Perspective on Religion and the Presidency
On December 6, 2007, candidate Mitt Romney gave this speech at the George H. W. Bush Presidential Library in College Station, Texas in order to reach evangelicals who were concerned about how Romney’s Mormon religion might affect his presidency. Michael Luo of The New York Times gives some background on the speech. The transcript is reproduced below.
Mitt Romney’s “Faith In America” Address:
It is an honor to be here today. This is an inspiring place because of you and the First Lady and because of the film exhibited across the way in the Presidential library. For those who have not seen it, it shows the President as a young pilot, shot down during the Second World War, being rescued from his life-raft by the crew of an American submarine. It is a moving reminder that when America has faced challenge and peril, Americans rise to the occasion, willing to risk their very lives to defend freedom and preserve our nation. We are in your debt. Thank you, Mr. President.
Mr. President, your generation rose to the occasion, first to defeat Fascism and then to vanquish the Soviet Union. You left us, your children, a free and strong America. It is why we call yours the greatest generation. It is now my generation’s turn. How we respond to today’s challenges will define our generation. And it will determine what kind of America we will leave our children, and theirs.
America faces a new generation of challenges. Radical violent Islam seeks to destroy us. An emerging China endeavors to surpass our economic leadership. And we are troubled at home by government overspending, overuse of foreign oil, and the breakdown of the family.
Over the last year, we have embarked on a national debate on how best to preserve American leadership. Today, I wish to address a topic which I believe is fundamental to America’s greatness: our religious liberty. I will also offer perspectives on how my own faith would inform my Presidency, if I were elected.
There are some who may feel that religion is not a matter to be seriously considered in the context of the weighty threats that face us. If so, they are at odds with the nation’s founders, for they, when our nation faced its greatest peril, sought the blessings of the Creator. And further, they discovered the essential connection between the survival of a free land and the protection of religious freedom. In John Adams, ‘We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion… Our constitution was made for a moral and religious people.’
Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom. Freedom opens the windows of the soul so that man can discover his most profound beliefs and commune with God. Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone.
Given our grand tradition of religious tolerance and liberty, some wonder whether there are any questions regarding an aspiring candidate’s religion that are appropriate. I believe there are. And I will answer them today.
Almost 50 years ago another candidate from Massachusetts explained that he was an American running for president, not a Catholic running for president. Like him, I am an American running for president. I do not define my candidacy by my religion. A person should not be elected because of his faith nor should he be rejected because of his faith.
Let me assure you that no authorities of my church, or of any other church for that matter, will ever exert influence on presidential decisions. Their authority is theirs, within the province of church affairs, and it ends where the affairs of the nation begin.
As governor, I tried to do the right as best I knew it, serving the law and answering to the Constitution. I did not confuse the particular teachings of my church with the obligations of the office and of the Constitution and of course, I would not do so as President. I will put no doctrine of any church above the plain duties of the office and the sovereign authority of the law.
As a young man, Lincoln described what he called America’s ‘political religion’ ? the commitment to defend the rule of law and the Constitution. When I place my hand on the Bible and take the oath of office, that oath becomes my highest promise to God. If I am fortunate to become your president, I will serve no one religion, no one group, no one cause, and no one interest. A President must serve only the common cause of the people of the United States.
There are some for whom these commitments are not enough. They would prefer it if I would simply distance myself from my religion, say that it is more a tradition than my personal conviction, or disavow one or another of its precepts. That I will not do. I believe in my Mormon faith and I endeavor to live by it. My faith is the faith of my fathers. I will be true to them and to my beliefs.
Some believe that such a confession of my faith will sink my candidacy. If they are right, so be it. But I think they underestimate the American people. Americans do not respect believers of convenience.
Americans tire of those who would jettison their beliefs, even to gain the world.
There is one fundamental question about which I often am asked. What do I believe about Jesus Christ? I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Savior of mankind. My church’s beliefs about Christ may not all be the same as those of other faiths. Each religion has its own unique doctrines and history. These are not bases for criticism but rather a test of our tolerance. Religious tolerance would be a shallow principle indeed if it were reserved only for faiths with which we agree.
There are some who would have a presidential candidate describe and explain his church’s distinctive doctrines. To do so would enable the very religious test the founders prohibited in the Constitution. No candidate should become the spokesman for his faith. For if he becomes President he will need the prayers of the people of all faiths.
I believe that every faith I have encountered draws its adherents closer to God. And in every faith I have come to know, there are features I wish were in my own: I love the profound ceremony of the Catholic Mass, the approachability of God in the prayers of the Evangelicals, the tenderness of spirit among the Pentecostals, the confident independence of the Lutherans, the ancient traditions of the Jews, unchanged through the ages, and the commitment to frequent prayer of the Muslims. As I travel across the country and see our towns and cities, I am always moved by the many houses of worship with their steeples, all pointing to heaven, reminding us of the source of life’s blessings.
It is important to recognize that while differences in theology exist between the churches in America, we share a common creed of moral convictions. And where the affairs of our nation are concerned, it’s usually a sound rule to focus on the latter on the great moral principles that urge us all on a common course. Whether it was the cause of abolition, or civil rights, or the right to life itself, no movement of conscience can succeed in America that cannot speak to the convictions of religious people.
We separate church and state affairs in this country, and for good reason. No religion should dictate to the state nor should the state interfere with the free practice of religion. But in recent years, the notion of the separation of church and state has been taken by some well beyond its original meaning. They seek to remove from the public domain any acknowledgment of God. Religion is seen as merely a private affair with no place in public life. It is as if they are intent on establishing a new religion in America – the religion of secularism. They are wrong.
The founders proscribed the establishment of a state religion, but they did not countenance the elimination of religion from the public square. We are a nation ‘Under God’ and in God, we do indeed trust.
We should acknowledge the Creator as did the Founders in ceremony and word. He should remain on our currency, in our pledge, in the teaching of our history, and during the holiday season, nativity scenes and menorahs should be welcome in our public places. Our greatness would not long endure without judges who respect the foundation of faith upon which our constitution rests. I will take care to separate the affairs of government from any religion, but I will not separate us from ‘the God who gave us liberty.’
Nor would I separate us from our religious heritage. Perhaps the most important question to ask a person of faith who seeks a political office, is this: does he share these American values: the equality of human kind, the obligation to serve one another, and a steadfast commitment to liberty?
They are not unique to any one denomination. They belong to the great moral inheritance we hold in common. They are the firm ground on which Americans of different faiths meet and stand as a nation, united.
We believe that every single human being is a child of God. We are all part of the human family. The conviction of the inherent and inalienable worth of every life is still the most revolutionary political proposition ever advanced. John Adams put it that we are ‘thrown into the world all equal and alike.’
The consequence of our common humanity is our responsibility to one another, to our fellow Americans foremost, but also to every child of God. It is an obligation which is fulfilled by Americans every day, here and across the globe, without regard to creed or race or nationality.
Americans acknowledge that liberty is a gift of God, not an indulgence of government. No people in the history of the world have sacrificed as much for liberty. The lives of hundreds of thousands of America’s sons and daughters were laid down during the last century to preserve freedom, for us and for freedom loving people throughout the world. America took nothing from that Century’s terrible wars — no land from Germany or Japan or Korea; no treasure; no oath of fealty. America’s resolve in the defense of liberty has been tested time and again. It has not been found wanting, nor must it ever be. America must never falter in holding high the banner of freedom.
These American values, this great moral heritage, is shared and lived in my religion as it is in yours. I was taught in my home to honor God and love my neighbor. I saw my father march with Martin Luther King. I saw my parents provide compassionate care to others, in personal ways to people nearby, and in just as consequential ways in leading national volunteer movements. I am moved by the Lord’s words: ‘For I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: naked, and ye clothed me…’
My faith is grounded on these truths. You can witness them in Ann and my marriage and in our family. We are a long way from perfect and we have surely stumbled along the way, but our aspirations, our values, are the self-same as those from the other faiths that stand upon this common foundation. And these convictions will indeed inform my presidency.
Today’s generations of Americans have always known religious liberty. Perhaps we forget the long and arduous path our nation’s forbearers took to achieve it. They came here from England to seek freedom of religion. But upon finding it for themselves, they at first denied it to others. Because of their diverse beliefs, Ann Hutchinson was exiled from Massachusetts Bay, a banished Roger Williams founded Rhode Island, and two centuries later, Brigham Young set out for the West. Americans were unable to accommodate their commitment to their own faith with an appreciation for the convictions of others to different faiths. In this, they were very much like those of the European nations they had left.
It was in Philadelphia that our founding fathers defined a revolutionary vision of liberty, grounded on self evident truths about the equality of all, and the inalienable rights with which each is endowed by his Creator.
We cherish these sacred rights, and secure them in our Constitutional order. Foremost do we protect religious liberty, not as a matter of policy but as a matter of right. There will be no established church, and we are guaranteed the free exercise of our religion.
I’m not sure that we fully appreciate the profound implications of our tradition of religious liberty. I have visited many of the magnificent cathedrals in Europe. They are so inspired, so grand , so empty. Raised up over generations, long ago, so many of the cathedrals now stand as the postcard backdrop to societies just too busy or too ‘enlightened’ to venture inside and kneel in prayer. The establishment of state religions in Europe did no favor to Europe’s churches. And though you will find many people of strong faith there, the churches themselves seem to be withering away.
Infinitely worse is the other extreme, the creed of conversion by conquest: violent Jihad, murder as martyrdom. . . killing Christians, Jews, and Muslims with equal indifference. These radical Islamists do their preaching not by reason or example, but in the coercion of minds and the shedding of blood. We face no greater danger today than theocratic tyranny, and the boundless suffering these states and groups could inflict if given the chance.
The diversity of our cultural expression, and the vibrancy of our religious dialogue, has kept America in the forefront of civilized nations even as others regard religious freedom as something to be destroyed.
In such a world, we can be deeply thankful that we live in a land where reason and religion are friends and allies in the cause of liberty, joined against the evils and dangers of the day. And you can be certain of this: Any believer in religious freedom, any person who has knelt in prayer to the Almighty, has a friend and ally in me. And so it is for hundreds of millions of our countrymen: we do not insist on a single strain of religion. Rather, we welcome our nation’s symphony of faith.
Recall the early days of the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia, during the fall of 1774. With Boston occupied by British troops, there were rumors of imminent hostilities and fears of an impending war. In this time of peril, someone suggested that they pray. But there were objections. ‘They were too divided in religious sentiments’, what with Episcopalians and Quakers, Anabaptists and Congregationalists, Presbyterians and Catholics.
Then Sam Adams rose, and said he would hear a prayer from anyone of piety and good character, as long as they were a patriot.
And so together they prayed, and together they fought, and together, by the grace of God …they founded this great nation.
In that spirit, let us give thanks to the divine ‘author of liberty.’ And together, let us pray that this land may always be blessed, ‘with freedom’s holy light.’
God bless the United States of America.”
Giving An Account: William Wilberforce and the Abolition of the Slave Trade
By David C. Read -
William Wilberforce (1759-1833) was the grandson of a British merchant who had made his fortune trading with the Baltic nations. William’s father died when William was nine, and his temporarily overwhelmed mother sent him to live with an aunt and uncle who were Methodists. At the age of 17, William was sent to study at Cambridge, and the deaths of his grandfather and uncle in the next couple of years left him independently wealthy while still a teenager.
In those days, wealthy gentlemen students pursued cards, drinking and theater more avidly than studies, and young Wilberforce was no exception. He excelled socially, however, and became friends with William Pitt, the younger, who was to become prime minister just a few years later (at age 24!) and who talked Wilberforce into a career in politics. Wilberforce stood for parliament at age 20, while still at Cambridge, and obtained his seat, as was the custom, by spending a princely sum of money buying votes. His political career did not impinge on his primary activities of cards, drinking and socializing in circles appropriate to a man of his standing. The influential salon hostess Germaine de Staël called Wilberforce “the wittiest man in England,” and he must have had a fine singing voice, as Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, remarked that the Prince of Wales would go anywhere to hear Wilberforce sing.
William Wilberforce played by Ioan Gruffudd in "Amazing Grace" Bristol Film Productions (2007)
In 1785, while on a tour of the European continent, Wilberforce read, “The Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul” by a leading non-conformist minister, Philip Doddridge. He resolved to give his life to Christ. He began to rise early in the morning to pray and study the Bible, and he began keeping a journal. The upper classes of Wilberforce’s England considered religious fervor a faux pas, and stigmatized it. Wilberforce wondered if he should even continue in public life, and sought advice from John Newton, a former slaver and the author of the hymn “Amazing Grace.” Both Newton and William Pitt advised Wilberforce to remain in parliament and allow his religious convictions to inform his legislative work.
In the previous article, we saw how slavery gradually withered away in Christendom and was replaced by the feudal system. Unfortunately, a few centuries later the nations of Christendom became involved with slavery in the “New World.” It soon became apparent to the Spanish, Portuguese, French, English and Dutch colonizers of the Americas and “West Indies” that the best opportunity for gain came from growing sugar cane and other warm weather crops not grown in Europe. It was believed that Africans would be best suited to the back-breaking labor necessary to operate the plantations, and more resistant to the tropical diseases that took a heavy toll on Europeans. Slavery was well established in Africa; the Islamic ummah had been buying African slaves for several centuries. Europeans found many localities, especially in West Africa, where they could purchase slaves from African slave-dealers. A triangular trade route developed in which British ships took manufactured goods from Britain to Africa to be traded for slaves, then delivered the slaves from Africa to the West Indies for sale to plantation owners—the infamous “middle passage” of the triangular route—and finally delivered sugar, rum, molasses, or tobacco from the Americas and West Indies to Europe. This terrible triangular traffic was to continue for centuries.
By the late 18th Century, the stark inhumanity of the trans-Atlantic slave traffic was becoming widely known. In 1787, many of the drafters of the United States Constitution wanted to outlaw the traffic, but southern slave-holding interests negotiated a compromise which postponed any ban until 1808, at the earliest. (Article 1, section 9) On March 2, 1807, congress passed a bill that was signed into law the next day by President Thomas Jefferson (a southerner and slave owner) forbidding the importation of slaves into the United States, effective January 1, 1808, the first constitutionally permissible date. The disdain for the slave traffic was so great, however, that by 1808 every state except South Carolina had already banned the importation of slaves.
The year 1787 marks the beginning of William Wilberforce’s campaign to outlaw the slave traffic in the British Empire. He wrote in his journal, “God almighty has set before me . . . the suppression of the slave trade.” He met with Thomas Clarkson, a Christian abolitionist who had been studying and researching the slave trade for many years, and who was to provide the witnesses and other evidence supporting Wilberforce’s legislative efforts. Wilberforce met with the newly formed “Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade,” a group of Quakers and like-minded abolitionist Anglicans. He met with Prime Minister William Pitt and future Prime Minister William Grenville, and both encouraged him to introduce a bill banning the slave trade. In 1788, however, Wilberforce became seriously ill and had to leave London to convalesce at Bath. During his absence, Pitt ordered the privy council to investigate the slave trade and report to parliament. In 1789, a recovered Wilberforce gave his first major speech against the slave trade, and introduced his first anti-slave trade bill. Opponents sidelined the bill with two years of absurdly drawn out hearings, after which the bill was defeated, 163 to 88.
Wilberforce would annually re-introduce the anti-slave trade bill every year through 1799. In 1793, his measure failed by only 8 votes, but the radical phase of the French Revolution and war between Britain and France put the cause on the back burner. In 1796, the measure failed by only 4 votes; at least six abolitionist members chose that day to see a new Italian comic opera playing in London. Wilberforce wrote in his diary: “Enough at the Opera to have carried it. I am permanently hurt about the Slave Trade.”
William’s lack of success in ending the slave trade was ameliorated by happiness in his personal life. In 1797, Wilberforce was introduced to Barbara Ann Spooner as a possible wife. Wilberforce was instantly infatuated, and proposed marriage only 8 days later. The couple were married six weeks later, and had six children over the next 10 years.
In 1804, Wilberforce introduced his bill for the first time since 1799; this time it passed the House of Commons but died in the House of Lords, as Wilberforce mistakenly trusted men not as committed to the cause as he was. Thanks to constant, unflagging efforts of Wilberforce, Thomas Clarkson and many other Christian activists, the slave trade was a prominent issue in the Parliamentary election of 1806, which returned a good number of abolitionists to the House of Commons. In 1807, Lord Grenville introduced the anti-slave trade bill, it again passed the House of Commons, and Grenville guided it through the House of Lords, which approved it and returned it to Commons for final passage. On February 23, 1807, after many members of parliament rose to speak and salute Wilberforce’s tireless efforts, the bill to ban the slave trade was overwhelmingly passed, 283 to 16. Wilberforce’s face streamed with tears as the final tally was taken.
After at last winning the two-decades-long fight to ban the slave traffic, Wilberforce did not immediately call for abolition of slavery, feeling that the slaves were ill-prepared to fend for themselves. In 1816, however, Wilberforce began to denounce slavery itself. In 1823, Wilberforce at last lent his considerable prestige to the cause of total abolition of slavery within the British Empire. He published a tract entitled, “Appeal to the Religion, Justice and Humanity of the Inhabitants of the British Empire in Behalf of the Negro Slaves in the West Indies.” In June 1824, Wilberforce gave his last speech in Parliament, calling for the abolition of slavery. Declining health forced his resignation from Parliament in 1825, although he continue to be active in the anti-slavery movement. The bill to abolish slavery in the empire passed one month after Wilberforce’s death on July 29, 1833; he died knowing it would pass. He was buried in Westminster Abbey, near his good friend William Pitt.
Christianity was the animating force behind the movement to abolish the slave trade, and also behind the incomparable career of William Wilberforce. “A man who acts from the principles I profess,” he said, “reflects that he is to give an account of his political conduct at the judgment seat of Christ.”
David C. Reed is a graduate of Southwestern Adventist University and the University of Texas School of Law. He has practiced law in Texas and California, but is now the director of an independent apologetics ministry. This article originally appeared at the ADvindicate website where Read is a frequent contributor. It is reprinted by permission of the author.
Is Santorum Right? How to Revive American Protestantism (and Why It is So Important)
By Michael D. Peabody
Like it or not, the GOP Primary season seems to be winding down. Mitt Romney is emerging as the clear winner, and while there may be some chance for another candidate to take the flag, it is “mathematically unlikely.”
So let’s debrief. More than any other time in recent history, specific religious beliefs took the center stage throughout this election. One of the things that deserves closer attention is Rick Santorum’s statement that mainline Protestantism is essentially dead in America, or as Santorum, a Catholic, so delicately put it during a 2008 speech at Ave Maria University in Florida, “mainstream Protestantism is gone from the world of Christianity.”
As a Protestant (i.e. a non-Catholic or non-Anglican Christian), this statement first struck me as borderline offensive. I wanted to jump up and down and shout, “I’m still here!” In fact, there are 45 million of us according to the National Council of Churches which claims that 16% of the electorate belong to their churches. And while the media excoriated Rush Limbaugh for bloviating about a law school student’s choice of extracurricular activities, where were the Protestants when Santorum was essentially saying that they were no longer in the “world of Christianity” and were now in the grasp of Satan?
Not only did Santorum ignore separation of church and state, he focused on the church side of the divide and argued that Protestantism was separated from Christianity – there was Catholic and there was something akin to Satanism. It seems incredible to even be typing what Santorum said, but oddly enough, the only people who seemed to take a serious look at it were the secular media. Protestants seemed to shrug their shoulders and say, “Yeah, that’s us.” But what if Santorum is actually right? Is Protestantism actually dying or negotiating itself away? Then it ought to take lessons on Catholic consistency. There are liberal and conservative Protestant churches and they run the gamut of the American political spectrum on almost every issue.
Protestantism has indeed fallen on hard times as many American churchgoers have grown tired of theology and moral standards that are as wishy-washy as pop culture and look for churches that emphasize a clear moral standard and upright living. And it is true that no church has produced as monolithic a structure along these lines as the Roman Catholic Church. Catholic leaders long ago learned that the best way to address moral issues is to state a moral standard and stick with it regardless of whether people agree with it or live by it. Protestants continue to swim around in Laodicean tap water and are in danger of circling the drain as they are afraid to espouse standards even within their own congregations.
While Protestant churches tend to see themselves as democracies, there is no such thing in Catholic thought. In the Catholic Church there is God, the saints, the Church hierarchy which handles the spiritual welfare, then the Government which serves the civic functions of life, then you. In Protestantism, there is God and then there is you. In Protestant thought, you could assemble with other people and make a church, or not.
Of course, by removing the Divine seal of approval from the church or civic hierarchy, the very foundations of those establishments were threatened. Kings could no longer claim to rule for generations by Divine Right, and the Pope didn’t hold the keys to salvation and require people to jump through various hoops in order to get into Heaven. In Protestant thought, salvation was only through Jesus Christ and it was indeed possible to have a very real, personal relationship directly with Christ. The structures of the Holy Roman Empire gradually lost their relevance in Protestant countries. In Protestant thought, one could no longer involuntarily participate in sacraments and benefit spiritually from those exercises. You couldn’t find yourself in Heaven just because somebody else did something on your behalf. You, yes you as an individual, needed to intellectually accept certain spiritual realities. While sacraments remained important, they were useless without a concurrent “renewal of the mind,” which was aided by prayer and Bible study, which, until the Reformation, was unavailable to individuals. In fact, before the Reformation, the mere act of translating scripture into a common language was considered heresy as John Wycliffe found out the hard way after he translated parts of the Latin Vulgate into vernacular English. Although Wycliff died of a stroke in 1384, he had so irritated the ecclesiastical powers that be that his bones were dug up and burned in 1415 at the command of Pope Martin V.
The priesthood of all believers, or the idea that believers were seen as equals in the eyes of God was fundamental to the formation of American democracy where any citizen could become active in government and any citizen older than 35 could run for President. People could group together to form churches, and separation of church and state preserved the rights of religious groups and protected them from each other, and preserved the right to be non-religious, or even form your own church. So long as you didn’t hurt anybody else, your beliefs were welcome at the table and your right to believe, or not believe, was jealously guarded.
As an American, you could benefit from unprecedented individual civil and religious freedom brought about by two keeping the sphere of church distinct from the sphere of state. What happened between you and God was your business, and the state didn’t get involved in what your church taught and your church was not allowed to set the agenda for the state. It was this combination of the Protestant ethic and the republican form of government that made America a free country and set the standard for true freedom of religion. This reality was preserved through the rule, not of politicians or prelates, but of law, specifically the United States Constitution and its Bill of Rights which kept government from being involved in affairs of the church and vice versa. This environment gave religion, faith, property rights, and entrepreneurship the room to thrive. The only times of challenge were when people tried to use force to rob other people of their God-given freedom and inherent human worth.
While Christianity in Europe has struggled with dying national churches, and where birthright determined the likelihood of individual success, the American form of government has proved a blessing to generations of America.
What threatens American Protestantism the most is when Protestants stop believing in God and begin believing in belief. When belief becomes bigger than God, there is pressure to use the power of the church to influence religious politicians and to extend the power of the church to the government and beyond. We need to remember is that America is not the church. Just because we believe something doesn’t mean that we need the government to make a law to force it on everybody. To put it bluntly, in America, it is legal to believe things that could compromise your own eternal salvation. The state won’t stand in the way of your own theological stupidity. And it would be wrong for the state to assume such power because, in Protestant thought, spiritual actions and even knowledge without a change of heart is worthless.
Conservatives who express great concern about an emerging “nanny state” ought to take notes.
If Protestantism is, as Santorum suggests, on life support, then it desperately needs revival as a belief system that recognizes the value of the unfiltered grace of God. Protestantism, indeed Christianity in general, is here to tell the world that there is something more than what we see around us and to point to transcendent truths. If the American church wants to really reach its Divine potential, it needs to elevate humanity, not by confirming itself to the secular society or forcing secular society conform to its religion, but by pointing the world to a better alternative.
If the faith community can truly embrace this calling, and it is a calling, not a prodding, it will achieve the transformation that it seeks to achieve in the hearts of Americans and people around the world.
“But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.” 1 Peter 2:9 (NIV).
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War on the Weak: Eugenics in America
Modern Torture Techniques Emerged from Inquisition reports “The Atlantic”
In the January/February 2012 issue of The Atlantic, Cullen Murphy writes about the history of torture and relates it to current events.
Excerpt: ”The new science of interrogation is not, in fact, so new at all: “extraordinary rendition” and “enhanced interrogation” and “waterboarding” all spring from the practices of the medieval Roman Catholic Church. The distance, in both technique and ideology, between the Inquisition’s interrogation regime and 21st-century America’s is uncomfortably short–and provides a chilling harbinger of what can happen when moral certainty gets yoked to the machinery of torture.”
Read the full article at http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/01/torturer-8217-s-apprentice/8838/
John F. Kennedy’s Speech Affirming Separation of Church and State
In the months leading up to the election, on September 12, 1960, presidential candidate John F. Kennedy spoke to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association on the issue of his religion. In the weeks leading up to the speech, many Protestants had questioned whether Kennedy’s religious beliefs would preclude him from being objective in the White House. Kennedy’s response that he believed in separation of church and state was an eloquent response to the questions. Fifty years later, they remain relevant. Here is a transcript of what he said:
Rev. Meza, Rev. Reck, I’m grateful for your generous invitation to speak my views.
While the so-called religious issue is necessarily and properly the chief topic here tonight, I want to emphasize from the outset that we have far more critical issues to face in the 1960 election: the spread of Communist influence, until it now festers 90 miles off the coast of Florida; the humiliating treatment of our president and vice president by those who no longer respect our power; the hungry children I saw in West Virginia; the old people who cannot pay their doctor bills; the families forced to give up their farms; an America with too many slums, with too few schools, and too late to the moon and outer space.
These are the real issues which should decide this campaign. And they are not religious issues — for war and hunger and ignorance and despair know no religious barriers.
But because I am a Catholic, and no Catholic has ever been elected president, the real issues in this campaign have been obscured — perhaps deliberately, in some quarters less responsible than this. So it is apparently necessary for me to state once again not what kind of church I believe in — for that should be important only to me — but what kind of America I believe in.
I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute, where no Catholic prelate would tell the president (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote; where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference; and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the president who might appoint him or the people who might elect him.
I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish; where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source; where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials; and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all.
For while this year it may be a Catholic against whom the finger of suspicion is pointed, in other years it has been, and may someday be again, a Jew— or a Quaker or a Unitarian or a Baptist. It was Virginia’s harassment of Baptist preachers, for example, that helped lead to Jefferson’s statute of religious freedom. Today I may be the victim, but tomorrow it may be you — until the whole fabric of our harmonious society is ripped at a time of great national peril.
Finally, I believe in an America where religious intolerance will someday end; where all men and all churches are treated as equal; where every man has the same right to attend or not attend the church of his choice; where there is no Catholic vote, no anti-Catholic vote, no bloc voting of any kind; and where Catholics, Protestants and Jews, at both the lay and pastoral level, will refrain from those attitudes of disdain and division which have so often marred their works in the past, and promote instead the American ideal of brotherhood.
That is the kind of America in which I believe. And it represents the kind of presidency in which I believe — a great office that must neither be humbled by making it the instrument of any one religious group, nor tarnished by arbitrarily withholding its occupancy from the members of any one religious group. I believe in a president whose religious views are his own private affair, neither imposed by him upon the nation, or imposed by the nation upon him as a condition to holding that office.
I would not look with favor upon a president working to subvert the First Amendment’s guarantees of religious liberty. Nor would our system of checks and balances permit him to do so. And neither do I look with favor upon those who would work to subvert Article VI of the Constitution by requiring a religious test — even by indirection — for it. If they disagree with that safeguard, they should be out openly working to repeal it.
I want a chief executive whose public acts are responsible to all groups and obligated to none; who can attend any ceremony, service or dinner his office may appropriately require of him; and whose fulfillment of his presidential oath is not limited or conditioned by any religious oath, ritual or obligation.
This is the kind of America I believe in, and this is the kind I fought for in the South Pacific, and the kind my brother died for in Europe. No one suggested then that we may have a “divided loyalty,” that we did “not believe in liberty,” or that we belonged to a disloyal group that threatened the “freedoms for which our forefathers died.”
And in fact ,this is the kind of America for which our forefathers died, when they fled here to escape religious test oaths that denied office to members of less favored churches; when they fought for the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom; and when they fought at the shrine I visited today, the Alamo. For side by side with Bowie and Crockett died McCafferty and Bailey and Carey. But no one knows whether they were Catholic or not, for there was no religious test at the Alamo.
I ask you tonight to follow in that tradition, to judge me on the basis of my record of 14 years in Congress, on my declared stands against an ambassador to the Vatican, against unconstitutional aid to parochial schools, and against any boycott of the public schools (which I have attended myself)— instead of judging me on the basis of these pamphlets and publications we all have seen that carefully select quotations out of context from the statements of Catholic church leaders, usually in other countries, frequently in other centuries, and always omitting, of course, the statement of the American Bishops in 1948, which strongly endorsed church-state separation, and which more nearly reflects the views of almost every American Catholic.
I do not consider these other quotations binding upon my public acts. Why should you? But let me say, with respect to other countries, that I am wholly opposed to the state being used by any religious group, Catholic or Protestant, to compel, prohibit, or persecute the free exercise of any other religion. And I hope that you and I condemn with equal fervor those nations which deny their presidency to Protestants, and those which deny it to Catholics. And rather than cite the misdeeds of those who differ, I would cite the record of the Catholic Church in such nations as Ireland and France, and the independence of such statesmen as Adenauer and De Gaulle.
But let me stress again that these are my views. For contrary to common newspaper usage, I am not the Catholic candidate for president. I am the Democratic Party’s candidate for president, who happens also to be a Catholic. I do not speak for my church on public matters, and the church does not speak for me.
Whatever issue may come before me as president — on birth control, divorce, censorship, gambling or any other subject — I will make my decision in accordance with these views, in accordance with what my conscience tells me to be the national interest, and without regard to outside religious pressures or dictates. And no power or threat of punishment could cause me to decide otherwise.
But if the time should ever come — and I do not concede any conflict to be even remotely possible — when my office would require me to either violate my conscience or violate the national interest, then I would resign the office; and I hope any conscientious public servant would do the same.
But I do not intend to apologize for these views to my critics of either Catholic or Protestant faith, nor do I intend to disavow either my views or my church in order to win this election.
If I should lose on the real issues, I shall return to my seat in the Senate, satisfied that I had tried my best and was fairly judged. But if this election is decided on the basis that 40 million Americans lost their chance of being president on the day they were baptized, then it is the whole nation that will be the loser — in the eyes of Catholics and non-Catholics around the world, in the eyes of history, and in the eyes of our own people.
But if, on the other hand, I should win the election, then I shall devote every effort of mind and spirit to fulfilling the oath of the presidency — practically identical, I might add, to the oath I have taken for 14 years in the Congress. For without reservation, I can “solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of president of the United States, and will to the best of my ability preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution, so help me God.
Article18: Afghanistan — The Land that Freedom Forgot; A Profile on Religious Persecution in One of the World’s Most Depressing Nations (Liberty Magazine)
The following excerpt is from an article written by RLTV associate editor and Article18 creator Martin Surridge that appeared in the November/December 2011 issue of Liberty Magazine.
EXCERPT: The sound and smell of motorcycles roaring down a street in Kandahar must have overwhelmed 16-year-old Atifa in the moments before the attack. Before she really knew what was happening, one of the cyclists approached Atifa, her sister Shamsia, and several other girls and threw acid onto their faces. Atifa’s scarf melted into her hair, and 19-year-old Shamsia lost much of the skin on her face and the temporary use of her eyes, swollen shut from the inflammation.
This tragic story, as well as details of other acid attacks on Afghan school girls, was reported by CNN’s Atia Abawi in January of 2009. Stunned observers around the world learned that the religious extremism in Afghanistan was more violent than many had thought possible. Despite the forty-fourth article of the Afghan constitution specifically promoting the education of women, many Islamists still hold the hard-line views of the Taliban, which from 1996 to 2001 banned even basic female education for being un-Islamic.
Afghanistan has been called a failed state—a nation incapable of governing itself adequately. It is a land marked by systematic corruption, widespread human-rights abuses, and continual violence. Landlocked in the mountains of central Asia and highly dependent on the export of heroin, Afghanistan has been gripped by war, civil unrest, and terrorism for nearly a century. Instead of improving, things there seem only to be getting worse.
Since regaining its independence from the British in 1919, Afghanistan has ousted kings and generals. The country endured and then resisted Soviet occupation in the 1980s, and suffered through a lengthy civil war. The civil war facilitated the rise of the Taliban, who gained power after storming the presidential palace in the capital city of Kabul in September 1996.
Read the full article on the Liberty Magazine website
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Article18 is a weekly blog written by Martin Surridge, Associate Editor of Religious Liberty TV. Article18 logo and other artwork created by Bradley Kenyon.
Don’t forget to check out other recent Article18 entries.
Article18: Norway — Personal Reflections on the Origin of a Tragedy
Eric Foner on the separation of church and state at America’s founding
History professor and author Eric Foner answers the question: Getting to the American Revolution, what was the impact of the Revolution on religious freedom and the separation of church and state? Click on the video for links to more parts of the Norton interview.
Article18: Poland — Citizens March in Bialystok to Protest Antisemitism; Death Metal Singer Not-Guilty After Trashing Bible on Stage
By Martin Surridge – For much of the twentieth century, Poland served as a sort of punching bag for many of Europe’s strongest armies. Half a million Polish soldiers died in the First World War, the country was brutalized by the Nazis in the Second World War, and for the last half of the century, Poland was repressed by Soviet-inspired communists in Warsaw. Today, Poland is struggling with a completely different set of problems, many of which are common to Europe as a whole–immigration, the expansion of the E.U., and changes in cultural norms that accompany a demographic shift. In addition to these already vexing concerns, Poland is also grappling with the problem of where to draw the line in the case of free speech and offending religious sensitivities. 
This is Article18–RLTV’s weekly blog specifically dedicated to religious liberty issues in other countries around the world. Each week, we profile a different nation, and the struggles facing one of its religious communities. This week, Poland, where citizens in Bialystok protest against horrendous statements of antisemitism and a death metal singer is allowed to go free after ripping up a Bible during one of his concerts.
During the Second World War, what was arguably history’s most deadly and vicious assault on religious liberty took place in the unassuming countryside of Nazi-occupied Europe. Almost half of the Jews killed in the Holocaust were from Poland. That number is approximately three million. Ninety percent of Poland’s Jews were murdered in Nazi concentration camps, and today, in some towns, the only legacy of that tragedy is a plaque or a statue of remembrance. So last week, when local “vandals used green paint to spray a swastika and ‘SS’” on a monument dedicated to the hundreds of Jewish villagers who were burned alive in Jedwabne village during the Holocaust, protesters took to the streets demanding an end to the “wave of thoughtless hatred.”
Other hostile phrases such as “I don’t apologize for Jedwabne” and “They were flammable” were spray-painted onto the monument. The march was led by Sen. Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz and the mayor of the city of Bialystok as well as other concerned citizens.
The AP reports that those attending “The ‘March of Unity’ walked in silence from the city center to a monument of Ludwik Zamenhof, a Jewish doctor born in Bialystok, who invented the Esperanto language. It occurred without violence or arrests, despite a counter-demonstration by people chanting nationalist slogans.”
Sadly, this is not an outlying incident–”Other recent anti-Semitic or racist attacks in Poland have targeted a synagogue in the village of Orla, a Muslim center in Bialystok, and the Lithuanian minority in the Punsk region.”
A lack of respect for the religious beliefs of others seems to be a common trend in Poland as of late. But in some scenarios, acts of religious intolerance fall within the bounds of free speech, as in the case of Polish death metal singer Adam Darski.
“Adam Darski, who goes by the stage name Nergal and is the frontman for the death metal band Behemoth, was charged after he ripped up the Bible during a 2007 concert in Gdynia, in the country’s north.” Three weeks ago, “a Polish judge found a death metal singer innocent of offending religious feeling, ruling that his ripping up of a Bible during a show was a form of artistic expression consistent with the style of his band.”
Poland is a strongly Roman Catholic nation, with almost 90% of the country identifying themselves as such. So when Darski ripped pages out of the Bible, tossed them to concert-goers and instructed them to burn them, he was charged with offending religious feeling. But after the court explained that it had no “intention of limiting freedom of expression or the right to criticize religion,” Darski celebrated the verdict on his website writing, “I’m so glad to see that intelligence won over religious fanatics in my home country [but] there’s still so much work to be done to make things right.”
The line between free speech and criminal defamation of a religious group can sometimes be rather thin and some insensitive hardliners in Poland will probably accuse the law of double standards. But surely there is a noticeable difference between these two incidents.
Matthew Kramer is a close friend of mine from college, an amateur entertainment journalist and serious fan of heavy metal. Along with Brad Kenyon, who created the logos for this blog, and RLTV contributor David Ranzolin, Kramer and I ran our college’s biweekly student newspaper. He saw Darski’s death metal group, Behemoth, in concert a few years ago and while nothing outrageously provocative occurred–other than the usual screaming and ear-piercing music–he explained what separates even the most offensive art from criminal, racist acts.
“There is a difference,” Kramer said. “When the Bible is torn up on stage some people are offended, just like with the Koran.”
“But vandalizing a Holocaust memorial is worse because of the associated pain. There are still people alive who had family members killed during that time.”
Article18 is a weekly blog written by Martin Surridge, Associate Editor of Religious Liberty TV. Article18 logo and other artwork created by Bradley Kenyon.
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Don’t forget to check out other recent Article18 entries.
Article18: Norway — Personal Reflections on the Origin of a Tragedy
Article18: Uzbekistan — Recent Incidents of Violence Against Christians Alarm Religious Minorities
Religious Liberty in French Romantic Poetry: Gérard de Nerval’s Verse Lends Space for Other Religions
By Lauren Peterson — While the number of topics in poetry is unlimited, poetry is commonly thought of as that which explores love and
Gérard de Nerval (1808-1855)
loss. When poetry is brought up, one may be quick to think of Shakespearean love sonnets or Emily Dickinson’s poems on death. Yet, poets, including the two just mentioned, had much to say on religious matters. One lesser-known poet, coming after Shakespeare and before Dickinson, directly addressed religious liberty in his work.
After three mental breakdowns, including at least one in which he was hospitalized, French poet Gérard de Nerval published one of his lesser-known works: a mythological poem entitled “Delfica.” One year later, in 1855, he hung himself from his window grating, having been known as a man of ambiguity and mystery. His pet lobster, which he would take for walks with a blue ribbon, had added to this reputation. He was a son of a doctor who had served in Napoleon’s army, and his mother died while accompanying him when Nerval was a meager two years old. Nerval later had even attended some medical classes, supposedly in order to appease his father. Ridding himself of a painful history, he created a family ancestry of grandeur during his first mental breakdown: one which connected him not only to German royalty, but back even to the Roman emperor Nerva. His imaginative and constructive abilities reflect some of the better-known Romantic poets, such as William Blake, who created and worshiped his own deities. Nerval continued to construct, religiously this time, with “Delfica.” There is no need to brush up on Greek mythology if this name is not familiar: Nerval constructed it as he had constructed his own name. For those with the ability to comprehend French, Nerval’s poem gently while firmly consoles Daphne, letting her know that her gods have not abandoned her forever:
Delfica
La connais-tu, Dafné, cette ancienne romance,
Au pied du sycomore, ou sous les lauriers blancs,
Sous l’olivier, le myrte, ou les saules tremblants,
Cette chanson d’amour qui toujours recommence ?…
Reconnais-tu le Temple au péristyle immense,
Et les citrons amers où s’imprimaient tes dents,
Et la grotte, fatale aux hôtes imprudents,
Où du dragon vaincu dort l’antique semence ?…
Ils reviendront, ces Dieux que tu pleures toujours !
Le temps va ramener l’ordre des anciens jours ;
La terre a tressailli d’un souffle prophétique…
Cependant la sibylle au visage latin
Est endormie encor sous l’arc de Constantin
— Et rien n’a dérangé le sévère portique.
For those not fluent in French (including myself), a translation begins with a trot, which is as bad as it sounds. A trot is a word-by-word translation of a poem, and for this poem, sounds something like: “They will return, these Gods you cry forever!” making it sound as if the speaker denounces Daphne’s crying habits. The translator’s job is to then turn this back into Nerval’s poem, which means looking for the poem’s main ideas. Nerval cleverly uses symbols and imagery that have, like him, an ambiguous nature. They are symbols claimed by multiple religions. For instance, many lay claim to the olive tree as a symbol within their religion. Could the speaker be alluding to multiple religions at once? The speaker acknowledges that Daphne’s gods are presently absent, though. Yet, he claims they will return. It appears that the speaker argues that there is a time for all religions, as if they go through a cycle, which gives space for them all.
My translation emphasizes the idea of tolerating multiple religions while trying to maintain the same rhyme scheme:
Daphne, Nymph of Plants
after Gerard de Nerval’s “Delfica”
Do you know, Daphne, that old romantic song,
Beside the Fleur-de-lis, or the Lotus from afar,
Above by the wise owl, or by a crescent-enclosed star,
That passionate melody that continues to long?
Do you remember temples with their mighty columns,
The bitter lemon you bit with your teeth,
And the cavern that hides its visitors’ defeat,
Where the dead dragon’s seed waits to blossom?
These gods whom you cry over will come back,
Time will place the ancient days on track,
The earth shakes with the news of their return.
Yet, the prophet remains stoic
and continues to see Constantine as heroic
– and the pillars at the entrance remain firm.
Having first made it big with his translation of Goethe’s Faust, I would like to think that Nerval would encourage the translation of his own works, even if some aspects are lost in the move.
Even though Nerval’s suggestion that religions go in a cycle may seem bizarre, the questions that both his poem and lifestyle raise are fascinating. What if multiple religions do have a time and place to exist? Since the symbols he used are shared by many religions, could it mean that we have some things in common? His poem has the ability to encourage great conversations and his lifestyle reveals, among the importance of not pressuring a kid into medicine, that diversity adds great richness.
Lauren Peterson is a senior English major at Walla Walla University and is planning to attend medical school after her graduation in June. In addition to studying literature, Lauren enjoys making lattes for her friends, swimming laps, and spending time with her two adventurous kittens–Lewis and Clark.