What’s Wrong with Conspiracy Theories?

 

 

  

 

By Michael Peabody

The other day someone sent me a link to an “Antichrist Decoder” that has been posted online by an otherwise reputable Christian ministry. You can type in anybody’s name and the program will calculate the value of the name in Roman numerals. 

After checking my name to make sure that I was not the Antichrist I looked at the other names that people had plugged into the decoder and learned that Barack Obama is not the antichrist, neither is Barack Hussein Obama.  Ronald Wilson Reagan’s name doesn’t add up to 666 even if you type in two “v”s to make the W.

People were having fun with the decoder and for the uninitiated it would be at home in a carnival next to the “Love Meter” or “Magic 8 Ball.” Perhaps an “antichrist decoder” made the rounds on the county fair circuit in years gone by, or a 666 Decoder Ring was the cheap plastic treat in the box of Cracker Jacks.

A conspiracy theory hits the same synapses as the Weekly World News or National Enquirerproviding junk food for the mind that masquerades as a nutritious meal.  Just this last week while little Falcon Heene was presumably floating above Colorado in a UFO-Shaped balloon, YouTube videos that his dad made about how Hillary Clinton could be a “reptilian shape shifter” spiked in popularity. And each night millions tune in hear George Noory on Coast to Coast AMwhile he discusses tunnels under the pyramids and portals to other dimensions.  And every year seekers crowd churches to hear the latest interpretations of Scripture that specify how mysterious political events are aligning to bring the world to an end.  The problem with the cheap thrill of side show conspiracy theories is that concern about legitimate issues is eventually eroded as the carnival callers “cry wolf” so often that the real wolves can count on a feast.

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines “Conspiracy Theory” as “a theory that explains an event or set of circumstances as the result of a secret plot by usually powerful conspirators.”

Christianity as a whole is planted on a conspiracy theory that one day the world will end and that there are forces at work right now among the “principalities and powers” of this world that will effect that change and that rescue is coming from outer space and that you can communicate with tremendous powers simply through the power of thought.  We don’t often view it in these terms but that’s how it would sound to a Martian if he happened to walk into a church service.

In reality, some conspiracy theories are true and verifiable, but others are not. It is important to distinguish between verifiable or substantiated truth and error because any error, even if it is meant well, tends to corrupt the entirety of the message. In the religious world, people tend to take “judicial notice” of scripture so speaking in harmony with an established text is generally accepted, but other issues require proven and reliable evidence or they will, of necessity, be questioned. Believing that something bad is afoot if it is not mentioned in scripture with specificity must be backed up with substantial evidence if listeners are to take it seriously.

Conspiracy theories that float around without substantial grounding in truth present several serious drawbacks.

First, conspiracy theories that do not come true affect your credibility.

“A good conspiracy is unprovable. I mean, if you can prove it, it means they screwed up somewhere along the line.” Mel Gibson’s character inConspiracy Theory (1997). 

Around the year 2000, the millennial conspiracy nutcases (we call them now) came out and said that the world would end, planes would fall from the sky, and the electrical power grid would crash. Then, following 9/11 George Bush was going to institute marshal law and become dictator for life. Today, the H1N1 vaccine is a mind control drug and amounts to biological warfare.

Is there any truth to these conspiracies? Perhaps there is, but nothing has happened in the first two, and I am predicting that the vaccine will not create a nation of zombies. Still there are people who email me tons of information about FEMA concentration camps, mass production of body bags, and all kinds of fascinating things. I usually read them because it is fun to be afraid but each time it seems less and less likely.  There is too much “conspiracy” noise out there to distinguish the truth from the error, and unfounded conspiracies based on nothing more than the eyewitness report of a “friend of a friend of a friend” are not persuasive.

Second, conspiracy theories can distract you from present responsibilities.

“A Conspiracy!” cried the delighted lady, clapping her hands. “Of all things, I do like a Conspiracy! It’s so interesting!” – Lewis Carroll, My Lady, Sylvie and Bruno (1889) 

There is an old saying that it is possible to be “so heavenly minded that you are of no earthly good.” You can also be so “conspiracy minded” that you are of no earthly good.

When people tell me about conspiracy theories I often ask them whether they have taken the time to learn more about their faith or do good in their communities. They may show me some pamphlets they gave to people to “warn” them about whatever they think is going to happen but most of the time they haven’t done much more.

I do write this from a Christian perspective and I’ve learned over time that we really do have a lot of freedom in the United States and in Canada for the most part to speak freely about religion or politics, and to assemble. There are challenges from time to time which can be addressed but we still have the ability to address them. In a large sense, religious liberty is a supportive ministry that can be called upon when needed but does not necessarily need to be front and center unless there is a specific need for it.

Religious liberty ministry is like a fire extinguisher in a glass case. It must be charged up and ready to go. It needs to have all the resources to handle severe fires, but the sign says, “In case of emergency, break glass.” It can be used to inform people of current events but never to distract from the main mission of the church, which I believe is set forth in the Great Commission.

This segues nicely to the third reason I have a problem with conspiracy theories.

Third, conspiracy theories can become the center of your faith.

“Our cause is a secret within a secret, a secret that only another secret can explain, it is a secret about a secret that is veiled by a secret.”  Ja’far as-Sadiq (6^th Imam)

A while back there was a group of borderline Seventh-day Adventists who decided to spread the gospel by talking about the antichrist. They put up billboards all over the country, reserved space in major newspapers, and otherwise launched massive media campaigns. Most of the ads appeared to be miles of tiny text punctuated by dire warnings and a picture of the purported antichrist.

This would appear to be evangelism in the negative – in other words, tell people about the bad in the world to teach them what’s good. It’s like former rock stars and drug dealers turned religious who tell stories of their fascinating lives. They had money, power, fame, mansions, cars, planes, and everything else you could ever want in life. But then the stories become far less interesting when they become Christians and now live in their vans traveling the country. I suppose it works for some people so I’m not going to knock it, but it’s usually made me more curious about their past than about what’s happening now.

I’ve met a lot of people who will tell all their friends about conspiracy theories thinking that they are sharing their faith. I met one person who went around giving out copies of Foxe’s Book of Martyrsand would regale listeners with stories about extreme torture. Entertaining? Weirdly so.  But effective? Yes, in turning people into atheists.

Leading somebody to an understanding of 666 is not the same as sharing one’s religious faith. It may seem like more fun but it doesn’t do much good in making an argument as to why people should want what you have.

Fourth, conspiracy theories can cause you to create enemies out of people whom you should be befriending and cause you to question the sincere motives of others.

“There will ever be some who take delight in dwelling upon the real or supposed faults and failures of others, and who employ their time in seeing, hearing, or reporting something that will destroy confidence in the person criticised. Few are without visible faults; in most persons careful scrutiny will reveal some defect of character; and upon these defects in others, some professed Christians delight to dwell. The habit strengthens with indulgence, and a love for gossip becomes their ruling passion. They gather together the tid-bits of reports,–all of them, it may be, utterly devoid of truth,–and feast upon the scandal, and share it with others as a rare delicacy.” Ellen White – Review and Herald, August 28, 1883.

Weird stories about aliens, Freemasons, the Illuminati, the Trilateral Commission, or any other group can draw unreasonable and unnatural lines between people. One person I met is fixated on the idea that there will one day be a holy war in America and is planning to run away into the mountains to hide from it all, but is afraid that he will not be able to escape persecution when it comes because the persecutors will have GPS and heat detectors. 

Unfortunately, this person has become a virtual hermit who believes he is living a pious lifestyle when in reality he makes Howard Hughes look normal. If he would put some of his tremendous mental horsepower to work helping people with problems that they are facing today, such as poverty, homelessness, illiteracy, and any other ways, he would make a tremendous impact for good. But instead he has twisted the plot around so much that he views any meaningful interaction with the real world as dangerous. Almost everybody is involved in a conspiracy against him, and he believes that most people in the world are formulating plans to do him wrong. The world has pretty much stayed the same but he has become a paranoid freak.

I’ve met wild eyed conspiracy theorists in many areas of life, not just religion. It is very difficult to reason with a person like this because if you question them, they believe that you are now part of the conspiracy. They think the worst of anybody they disagree with.

Hiding away on a mountain somewhere is not a call to piety. Conspiracy theories may have their place as mile markers but they should not impede forward progress.

In reality, the truth is out there, but you’re not likely to find it in a decoder ring.  True appreciation of faith or even religious liberty issues do not thrive in fear or require a crisis to be meaningful.  You can help liberty thrive when you care about the world and engage with it and the people who live here. Tell the verifiable, undeniable truth and the facts will speak for themselves.

“He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?”  Micah 6:8

 

###

 

 

 

Civil Rights Pioneer E.E. Cleveland talks about meeting Martin Luther King, Jr.

On August 30, 2009, renowned evangelist Edward Earl Cleveland died at Huntsville Hospital in Huntsville, Alabama. He was 88.  Cleveland worked for more than 60 years as a Seventh-day Adventist pastor, evangelist, church leader, teacher, and civil rights leader.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. attended one of Cleveland’s tent meetings in 1954 in Montgomery and the two created a lasting friendship.  Also in attendance for at least one night of the meetings were local seamstress, Rosa Parks and the Rev. Ralph David Abernathy.

Cleveland marched in several civil rights marches, including the March on Washington.  Cleveland describes his involvement in the civil rights movement in a sermon he delivered during Black History Month on February 11, 2006. 

 
E. E. Cleveland – Black History Month 02-11-06 @ Yahoo!7 Video

Tennesee governor signs Religious Freedom Restoration Act into law

 
On July 1, 2009, Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen signed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act into law.  Introduced in February, House Bill 1598 requires Tennessee courts to apply the “compelling state interest” test to cases in which a law substantially burdens one’s right of free exercise of religion. The state now has the burden of proving that the law furthers a “compelling state interest” and is the “least restrictve means” of furthering that interest.

To those unfamiliar with first amendment litigation, this may seem like a confusing set of terms, but the new law takes a very important step forward. Before this law was in place, the Tennessee legislature could pass a law that applied equally to everybody but could inadvertently disrupt somebody’s free exercise of religion.  For instance, the state could pass a law that all high school examinations were to be held on Sunday.  If a student who had a religious objection refused to take the test on Sunday and requested accommodation such as another day, the state could deny the accommodation on the grounds that the law applied equally to all students and that this student had not been discriminated against because of his religion.   It would be a “facially neutral” law that did not “discriminate” against anybody.

This new law would require the state to prove that the Sunday test was essential to further a “compelling governmental interest” and that it was the “least restrictive means” of furthering that interest. In other words, the state would have to demonstrate that it had a very good reason for scheduling the testing for Sunday and a very good reason for denying a student an opportunity to schedule around it. If the state still refuses and the student has to sue in order to graduate from high school and the student wins, the court may award attorney’s fees and court costs as reimbursement for the expenses of litigation.

This new law is a local state response to the U.S. Supreme Court decision in City of Boerne v. Flores, 521 U.S. 507 (1997) which ruled that a similar Religious Freedom Restoration Act passed by the U.S. Congress was unconstitutional.  Tennessee joins 15 other states that have now enacted religious freedom acts.

(Please note that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) which addresses any type of government action in  Tennessee is not to be confused with the recently passed Oregon Workplace Religious Freedom Act (WRFA) which requires Oregon employers to make reasonable attempts to accommodate religious observances of holy days and religions dress of their employers.)

AUDIO: Karen Scott – “Rethinking the Premise of Religious Liberty”

Each year, the Walla Walla University Church in College Place, Washington celebrates religious liberty. On February 28, 2009, Karen Scott delivered an address entitled, “Rethinking the Premise of Religious Liberty.”  Scott, an attorney who is a member of both the Provincial Bar of British Columbia and the State Bar of California, is also a member of the ReligiousLiberty.TV Advisory Panel.  Scott successfully argued a religious liberty case before the Supreme Court of Canada. The Court decided in her client’s favour, changing the law in Canada for accommodation in the workplace.

In this presentation, Scott examines the ties between religious liberty and the Gospel. Everyone has a conscience and God has given to each the inalienable right to choose for Him or against Him. And yet God offers salvation to everyone, even His enemies (Romans 5:10). We are called to be perfect, even as our Father in heaven is perfect (Matthew 5:48). In other words, those who profess to follow Jesus, ought to love just as He did, which means that we too will grant others the right to choose for or against God and we too will love them as He does.

 

http://www.religiousliberty.tv/audio/022809karenscott.mp3

Join our Facebook Group!

ReligiousLiberty.TV is now on Facebook, the social networking site with nearly 60 million members, and we’ve formed an RLTV group where you can share ideas, discuss the issues, post your own photos and videos and become involved.  Includes exclusive mailings opportunities to get to know others who are interested in the issues we discuss on RLTV.

It is free and anybody can join!

Click here to join ReligiousLiberty.TV on Facebook

VIDEO: R. Gustav Niebuhr: “The False Promises of Tolerance” (Chataqua Institution)

 

Chautauqua Institution, Chautauqua, NY

Recorded – Aug 6th, 2008

Author and professor R. Gustav Niebuhr argues that tolerating people of different faiths is not enough; that in order to live in a safe and cohesive society, we must go out and interact with them.

Bio:

Gustav Niebuhr is an associate professor of Religion and the Media, director of the Religion and Society Program, director of the Carnegie Religion and Media Minor, and co-director of the Luce Project in Religion, Media, and International Relations at Syracuse University.Over a twenty-year career in journalism, most recently at the New York Times and, prior to that, at the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and the Atlanta Journal/Constitution, Gustav Niebuhr has established a reputation as a leading writer about American religion. He is a frequent guest blogger on the Washington Post’s “On Faith” column, and he also does occasional commentaries on religion for the National Public Radio program “All Things Considered.

His most recent book, Beyond Tolerance: Searching for Interfaith Understanding in America, will be published in August.

Announcing and Enacting Peace in an Age of Empire

By Ryan Bell

 

Introduction/Story

Who are the children of God?

Who will inherit the kingdom of God?

These are the questions that are heavy on the minds of the Jewish people at the time Jesus begins his public ministry. There was a great debate between the various parties of the Jewish people about how God’s kingdom would finally be restored to Israel.

For the Pharisees, outward, ritual purity was the way to please God and facilitate God’s reign. For the Essenes, separation and isolation from the world was the way to usher in God’s kingdom. For the Saducees, practical accommodations needed to be made and so strategic partnership with the Roman Empire would be necessary to accomplish God’s ultimate ends. Finally, for the Zealots, violent revolution was the only way. Through military might the pagan empire would be cut down and God would reign, at last, in Jerusalem.

So, when Jesus began his public ministry with the words, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near,” he had everyone’s attention. Whose side would he take? Each of these ‘special interest groups’ wanted to claim this powerful teacher for themselves, but one by one, Jesus revealed that the kingdom of God did not conform to any of their ideas.

As the Pharisees quickly found out, Jesus would not conform to their ritual practices. Contrary to the Saducees, Jesus would make no accommodation to Herod. Jesus habit of eating and drinking with sinners would not have pleased the Essenes. And Jesus practice of non-violence and teaching about peacemakers would not have set well with the Zealots.

 

Blessed are the peacemakers

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.

Like all the beatitudes, and indeed Jesus whole teaching about the kingdom of God, this saying, “blessed are the peacemakers,” is deeply counterintuitive. Mostly likely directed at the Zealots, this teaching flew directly in the face of their most cherished idea – that the way to be a child of God, the way to secure your place in the kingdom of God as a loyal and faithful son – was the take up the sword and smite the pagan dogs who dare to set their kingdom above God’s.

Jesus instead says, those who are called “the children of God” are the peacemakers. Like so many of Jesus’ other teachings, this is 180 degrees opposite from conventional wisdom. How is anything going to get done in this world without a sword? Peacemaking is weak, powerless – or so it seems.

However, Jesus’ teaching is not novel. Jesus is simply picking up one of the most significant strands of Hebrew teaching and bringing it into the present with a new twist. Isaiah paints this divine vision perhaps more clearly that any other Old Testament writer.

 

Proclaiming Peace

Throughout Isaiah we see that God envisions peace, or shalom, not just for Israel, but also for his entire creation.

Isaiah begins with a vision of the nations coming to Zion, the mountain of the Lord, where the Lord will settle their disputes so that they can “beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks.

“Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore” (Isa 2:4).

Isaiah then pictures a day when God’s people, who have been walking in darkness, will see a great light. A child will be born who will be known, among many other titles, as the “Prince of Peace.” “Of the increase of his government and peace,” Isaiah prophecies, “there will be no end” (Isa 9:2-7).

In chapter 54, Isaiah describes the “covenant of peace” which will never be removed, and in one of the most beautiful passages in all of Isaiah, God’s people are described as messengers of this covenant of peace.

How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, “Your God reigns!” (Isa 52:7)

It is this remarkable and compelling vision of the peaceful reign of God over all the nations that Isaiah holds up as the purpose for which Israel exists.

 

He Is Our Peace

When the “Prince of Peace” is born in Bethlehem of Judea, in fulfillment of the prophecy of Isaiah, Israel has languished for centuries waiting for the fulfillment of the prophecy. Many have lost hope. Others, as we have seen above, have developed strategies to bring in God’s kingdom by force or cunning.

In the story of Jesus’ birth, Luke has the angels singing, “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests” (Luke 2:14, TNIV), reminding us of the messengers (the Greek word for angel is literally, messenger) of Isaiah 52, who bring good news, proclaim peace and announce God’s reign. The gospel writers want us to know that we are witnessing the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy.

Later New Testament writers highlight these connections. In his letter to the Ephesians, Paul writes, “For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility” (Eph 2:14).

Jesus, himself, is the peace of God, come to mediate between the nations and create a lasting peace, which will know no end.

When Jesus enters upon his public ministry by saying, “The kingdom of heaven has come near,” he creates quite a stir. His description of the kingdom is remarkably similar to that of Isaiah and the other prophets.

This is why Jesus is able to say that peacemakers – those carrying a message of good news, saying “Your God reigns!” – will be known as the children of God.

 

Practice of peacemaking today

As the church continually reevaluates and reconsiders its role in God’s plan, this Beatitude, or blessing, of Jesus must not be taken lightly. It would be incorrect to see peacemaking as a minor part God’s plan to restore creation. What I have tried to show in this very brief overview is that God’s shalom is perhaps the central theme of God’s creation restoring work; the central metaphor throughout scripture for the complete wholeness of creation, which God is restoring.

The messengers of God’s shalom – those described in Isaiah 52:7 – are God’s precious co-laborers. Look again at this prophetic text.

How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, “Your God reigns!” (Isa 52:7)

What is the English word for “those who bring good news?” Evangelist. An evangelist is one who proclaims the evangel, or good news.

And what is the content of the good news that these evangelists are proclaiming? Peace. Shalom. Salvation from all her enemies. The reign of God!

So, peacemaking – announcing and enacting peace in our world – is evangelism. It is bearing the good news to a world awash in violence, war, poverty, disease and every other injustice. The good news of God’s kingdom envisioned by the prophets (Isaiah most notably), incarnate in the person of Jesus and taught by him in passages like the Beatitudes, is a good news of God’s shalom gaining the upper hand in the world.

But how does God’s peace gain the upper hand in the world? And what is the role of peacemaking in all this?

 

Jesus’ way of achieving this peace is not the world’s way. In Jesus day, the Pax Romana – Peace of Rome – was widely heralded as the salvation of mankind. The Roman Empire proclaimed peace for the entire world. But it was a peace that came at the end of a sword. It was peace achieved by violence. The Pax Romana turned out to be an illusion, because peace cannot ultimately be achieved through violence.

Jesus taught a different way. The peace of God’s reign would come on a cross – from the greatest display of self-giving love. On the cross Jesus put into practice the teaching of his Sermon: love your enemies, do good to those who spitefully use you and persecute you, turn the other cheek, etc.

Rome’s way was peace through violence, or peace through victory. Jesus way is peace through justice. The two are radically different. Rome’s way says that peace will finally come when all foes are vanquished and the way you accomplish this is through military might. Jesus eschewed this kind of violence and militarism. Jesus taught that peace would finally come when righteousness, or justice, was the order of the day.

******

What does all this means for the church today? When the church reads this beatitude today, what is it that we hear?

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.

First, it means that the gospel is, fundamentally, a gospel of peace. The gospel is pacifist, by its very nature. The good news of God’s at-hand kingdom eschews all forms of violence to achieve its ends. This includes all forms of manipulation we might be tempted to use to achieve “gospel ends.” Taking our cues from Jesus example, we cannot proclaim peace, violently. We cannot ensnare people in freedom. We cannot deceive people into the truth. The methods we use must be congruent with our message.

Secondly, the message of peace that we proclaim is more than words. Peace is something we are called to enact, as well. This is why the language of “peacemaking” is more helpful than pacifism, which implies passivity. There is nothing passive about the peacemaking that Jesus calls us to in the gospel. This means that as the church is considering it’s role as witnesses to God’s kingdom, we must recognize that our role goes beyond talking about God and his plans for the world. We must act in harmony with God’s plans. We must do what we anticipate in God’s future. If we, along with Isaiah, picture a future where nations beat their swords into plowshares, then the church must put its conviction to work and start beating on swords now.

Thirdly, being peacemakers in God’s kingdom today means speaking and acting for justice for the poor, the outcast, and the war-torn. It means speaking out again an unjust war and actively working to bring that war to an end. It means speaking truth to power and holding power to account for the righteousness that God envisions. In short, being peacemakers in God’s kingdom means being radically committed to overcoming evil with good.

 

What has faith to do with politics?

I want to share two brief stories from our congregation’s ministry that illustrate the way we are coming to understand our role as peacemakers.

 

In March our church held a Christian Peace Witness for Iraq, in which we prayed, read scripture, sang, told stories and shared experience of working for peace in our world. We lamented the injustice of the current Iraq War. Then, we took candles and went out on the street, and we marched with our candles, prayed and sang some more, as a public witness for peace. It was a very small thing, but it was putting our faith into action. Did it change the world? No. Did anyone notice? Very few. But in God’s kingdom – God’s economy, all these actions matter. Remember the mustard seed?

In June our church participated in several events that culminated in a Town Hall meeting with our elected city officials in which we insisted that they pay attention to the housing crisis in Los Angeles that is squeezing the lower and middle income families. We stood with over 1,000 residents of our town and spoke our truth to power. They listened and made commitments. We did that for the thousands and thousands of families who are being mistreated by their landlords and unjustly evicted from their apartments. We did that for those who cannot afford to live in the community where they have grown up all their lives.

Many have asked why we do these things – why our ministry is like this. We do these and many other things in our church and our community because we believe we are called to be those messengers with beautiful feet, who proclaim peace – God’s peace – to our world. It is our evangelism – our witness – to the world that God way is a better way and God wants people to experience life and freedom now, as well as some day in the future, in the world made new.

Some have said that the church shouldn’t get involved in politics. While I agree that partisan politics have no place in the church, we cannot escape the call of Jesus to affect our world for his kingdom. This is what it means to be peacemakers – to announce to the world, “Our God reigns!” and to enact God’s peace in tangible ways in the neighborhoods where he has planted us.

 

 

_____________________

 

 

 

Ryan Bell is the Senior Pastor of the Hollywood Seventh-day Adventist Church in Hollywood, California. He and his wife and two daughters live two miles from the church are learning to be peacemakers in their local context.  He maintains an active blog at http://www.ryanjbell.net

 

 

VIDEO: John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. on Religious Liberty

It seems like issues of a Presidential candidate’s religion have always been an issue in elections going back to the 1960s. In this video clip, John F. Kennedy discusses how he believes church and state should relate to each other. It also features a brief clip of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech.

(Note: This video also contains a political endorsement at the end. The purpose of this post is not to make a political endorsement and this endorsement is incidental to the larger theme of the video.)

Government, Religion, and a Mythical Past

By Karen Scott, Walt Pontynen, and Leigh Johnson

In this  article, originally published in Spectrum in 2002, the authors discuss the intent of the founders of the United States and how historical revisionism obscures our national heritage. (Re-posted with Permission.)

AMERICAN PHILOSOPHER and poet George Santayana (1863-1952) wrote, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”1 Unfortunately, from the highest offices (both elected and appointed) to the lowliest voter, the reaction of Americans to the Ninth Circuit Court’s decision in the Pledge of Allegiance case indicates that Americans are condemned to repeat the horrors of the Dark Ages.

Many, in attacking the Ninth Circuit Court’s decision, rest their case on the myth that separation of church and state in the United States is the product of modern secularists. They attack a string of decisions handed down by the U.S. Supreme Court since the 1960s. They misuse and misinterpret the Founding Fathers2 who supposedly saw government promotion of Judeo-Christian values as necessary for the survival of the Republic.

However, the record is clear: despite their own personal piety, those who successfully argued for ratification of the First Amendment did not see government as the appropriate avenue for promoting those religious beliefs. They recognized that coercion, the essence of civil government, in matters of conscience is repugnant.

The Founding Fathers were clearly against the formation of the United States being founded on any religion, Christian or otherwise. For example, in 1796 the administration of George Washington negotiated a treaty with Tripoli that the US Senate ratified – unanimously – the following year at the request of President John Adams. The treaty denied that the U.S. government was founded on Christianity, reading in part:

As the Government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion: as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility of Musselmen [Moslems]; and as the said states never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinion shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.3

Washington, Adams, and members of the U.S. Senate were not alone. The United States Constitution itself verifies that the United States is not “founded on the Christian Religion.” One searches in vain through the U.S. Constitution, which encapsulates the thinking of the Founders and provides the framework for national government, for wording that the United States is based on Christianity. Indeed, it makes no mention of God at all. In an era when European monarchs routinely claimed a divine right to rule, the point was obvious. In the United States, authority derives not from any church or religious creed, or from God, but from “the people” – as the preamble to the Constitution plainly states.

So sensitive were the Founders to the danger of pressuring consciences that out of deference to Quaker beliefs they included a provision in the Constitution for Quaker officeholders to “affirm” rather than “swear” their oaths of office. In addition, they forbade any test of religion for holders of federal office. The U.S. Constitution is blind to the religion of its civil servants—whether Catholic, Buddhist, Latter-day Saint, Seventh-day Adventist, Baptist, Methodist, or atheist.

However, the American tradition of strict separation between church and state goes back much further in time than the framers and the Constitution. Its parent was not a liberal, secularist, U.S. Supreme Court, nor an anti-Catholic bigot,4 as some have recently suggested. The tradition even predates Thomas Jefferson, who customarily gets credit for coining the term “wall of separation.”

Its originator was Roger Williams, a devout Christian who lived in the seventeenth century. So devoted was Williams to God that his contemporaries described him as “God-intoxicated.” Williams was a Puritan clergyman who emigrated from England to Massachusetts Bay Colony in the 1630s. He spoke his piece, which disagreed with religious authorities in the colony, went on trial for unorthodox views, and was forced to flee for his life in the dead of winter.

The colony that Williams established in 1636, Rhode Island, is the stuff of legend. Unlike Massachusetts, whose religious establishment had a reputation for whipping, banishing, and hanging religious dissenters, including Quakers and Baptists, Rhode Island extended full religious freedom to everyone, including Catholics, Jews, Muslims, and atheists. The colony had no religious taxes, no church establishment, and no religious tests for office holding. It even exempted nonbelievers from swearing the oath “so help me God,” which, in Williams’ view, would have been meaningless to them and contrary to God’s ways.

Williams believed that God communicates with humans by working on people’s hearts through the Holy Spirit. Thus, even the slightest coercion that interfered with that process displeased God. “Rape of the soul” was the term Williams used to describe forcing people who did not believe in God to observe and participate in religious rituals.5

To Williams, “a wall or hedge of separation” was needed to guard between “the Garden of the Church and the Wilderness of the world.”6 As a result, Rhode Island’s charter guaranteed “full liberty in religious concernments,” and the colony thrived from a diversity of religions. Later, nearly identical wording cropped up in the colonial charters of Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Carolina.

During the American Revolution, Williams’ view of separation between church and state was revitalized and expanded by Baptist Ministers Isaac Backus and John Leland, spokesmen for the fastest growing denomination in the United States at that time, whose activism played no small part in ratification of the First Amendment. Government and religion, Backus warned in 1773, “Are distinct in their nature and ought never to be confounded together.”7

Alexis de Tocqueville was a young French traveler who visited the United States in the 1830s. He wrote in the introduction to his book Democracy in America, “One cannot establish the reign of liberty without that of mores, and mores cannot be firmly founded without beliefs.” This statement is often quoted today by those who tout that the separation of church and state is a myth. What is not quoted from the same book is de Tocqueville’s statement that religion “realizes its sway is all the better established because it relies only on its own powers and rules men’s hearts without external support.”8

Those who have either forgotten why our Founding Fathers erected a wall of separation of church and state or who refuse to acknowledge our history also fail to quote de Tocqueville’s observation that on questioning the “faithful of all communions,” including clergymen, especially Roman Catholic priests, de Tocqueville found that:

“They all agreed with each other except about details; all thought that the main reason for the quiet sway of religion over their country was the complete separation of church and state. I have no hesitation in stating that throughout my stay in America I met nobody, lay or cleric, who did not agree about that.”9

The high wall of separation between church and state is not the creation of a twentieth-century, liberal, anti-Catholic, secularist U.S. Supreme Court. Rather, it is the creation of a devout and godly seventeenth-century Christian and is an American tradition since the founding of the Republic. History has proven Roger Williams right: religion retains its sanctity best and remains most vital, vibrant, and dynamic when strictly separated from government.

Unfortunately, now with the removal of each brick in the wall of separation, our freedoms are that much less secure and the foundation of our nation less firm. The loss of understanding in the reason for the wall of separation between church and state can only condemn us to repeat the bloody history of past religious persecution.

______________________________________________________________________________

A shorter version of this article can be found under the title “God, Caesar and Historical Revisionism” at:http://old.spectrummagazine.org/library/columns2002/020902scott.html.

1 Allison Jones, ed., Chambers: Dictionary of Quotations (New York, 1997), p. 842, No. 84.

2 See Pontynen and Scott article Founding Fathers: Cannon Fodder in a Cultural War, 2000.

3 “Treaty with Tripoli, 1796, Article XI,” quoted in William Addison Blakely, ed., American State Papers and Related Documents on Freedom in Religion (Washington, D.C., 1947), 311, 312. See also, Robert Boston, “Joel Barlow and the Treaty with Tripoli,” Church and State Magazine, June 1997, 11 – 14.

4 See, most recently, Philip Hamburger Separation of Church and State (Cambridge, Mass., 2002).

5 Our main source for Williams’ life is Edwin S. Gaustad, Liberty of Conscience: Roger Williams in America (Grand Rapids, Mich., 1991).

6 Ibid. 43.

7 Ibid. 203 – 204. The quote comes from An Appeal to the Public (Boston, 1773). See also, Leigh Johnsen, ed., Isaac Backus Papers, 1630 – 1806 (Ann Arbor: UMI, forthcoming).

8 Democracy in America, ed. J. P. Mayers, trans. George Lawrence (New York, 2000), 17, 47.

9 Ibid. 295.