When I was growing up, there was a general understanding that at family gatherings there were three things that shouldn’t be discussed - religion, politics, and sex. I imagine the reasoning was that disagreements concerning those topics could lead to some serious rifts within the family. However, despite my family upbringing which avoids these issues of conflict, I am going to take this opportunity to discuss at least two of these topics (religion and politics) and hope that by using some common sense we can clarify the relationship between the two. This appears to be an important task since many people in our time are making connections between the two.
My thoughts center around words from the First Amendment of our Constitution: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” While this sentence does not use the term “separation of church and state” it clearly draws a line between the two. There is a distinction and separation between them. Article 6 of the Constitution reinforces that with this phrase “but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.” I respect the intention of the first clause of that First Amendment that we will establish no state religion (church) that will run our government or be run by our government, as much as I respect the intention of the second half of that clause that our government will not prevent its citizens from practicing whatever faith they have. Apparently some of the founders of our nation had enough knowledge of history that they recalled the experiences with theocracies in some of the earliest British colonies in America, and were determined to avoid the problems and abuses that arise in a society when one faction of people forces its beliefs upon others. I am troubled by the confusion in our contemporary American culture (from some of our citizens and some of our elected officials) as to the relationship of church and state. I observe people asking for (and demanding) “religious tests” and for religious direction of our government policies, and I observe people asking (and demanding) that our government push certain religious values. I also observe those same people getting upset when other people, who hold religious values and practices different from their own, are advocating that the government should promote those differing values. How are we to solve this problem of competing religious viewpoints each striving to be the official point of view of our government? The common sense solution is to base the solution on the principle of separation of church and state that is in embedded in our nation's founding documents. Politicians and citizens, while still respecting their own personal religious beliefs should promote government policies which work to accomplish the purposes of our nation's social contract, which are to “form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.” These are the basic objectives of government in our American society. They certainly involve human rights and responsibilities, but they are not the exclusive domain of any one particular religion or belief system. In this pluralistic nation, all citizens and politicians have a responsibility to work together for the common good, and not for the advancement of a particular religious point of view at the expense of the welfare of their fellow citizens. It is a common sense approach.
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Time for Common Sense AgainCommon sense commmentary by Joel Kreger (unless noted and credited to a guest writer) Archives
November 2018
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