TRI In The News

Is Our Nation Slowly Yielding to the Powers Who Oppose God?

November 07, 2011

From Gulf Live

Week before last, there was a report of another gain by the atheist/agnostic/secularist world in the war upon religion.

In response to a complaint in a letter from the co-presidents of a group called the Freedom From Religion Foundation, located in Madison, Wis., the superintendent of the Jackson County School District announced that student-led, student-initiated prayer at football games would no longer be permitted.

The text of that letter, available on a website, said similar letters had been sent to hundreds of school districts, many in Mississippi. In that letter, there is a statement that "prayers at school-sponsored events are an unconstitutional endorsement of religion."

It states further that such activity "is in violation of the establishment clause of the First Amendment," citing the U.S. Supreme Court.

While such complaints are premised on "separation of church and state," those words are not in the establishment clause, nor anywhere else in the U.S. Constitution. I repeat, "separation of church and state" is not in our Constitution.

We have freedom "of" religion, not freedom "from" religion, as the complaining group's name implies. The establishment clause in the Constitution reads as follows: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

That's all there is about religion in the Constitution, other than a provision that no religious test shall be required of office holders. It says, "Congress shall make no law ..." How, then, is Congress involved in a student-led, student-initiated prayer at a local high school football game, and how is such prayer an establishment or prohibition of religion or its free exercise?

Complete separation of church and state as a constitutional requirement is a myth, a fiction, created by the U.S. Supreme Court, using and relying upon a statement in a letter, written by then President Thomas Jefferson in 1802, replying to a letter from the Danbury Baptist Association of Danbury, Conn., in which he assured them that in our relatively new nation, there would be no state church like there is in England.

In that letter, he quoted the establishment clause and then he unfortunately chose to add "thereby creating a wall of separation between church and state."

The Supreme Court first used those words from Jefferson's letter approvingly in an 1879 decision, Reynolds v. U.S., in which it held that Congress could outlaw polygamy.

It was not that case, however, but a 1947 Supreme Court decision, Everson v. Board of Education of Ewing Township, New Jersey, in which Jefferson's words were used to launch the onslaught against religion we see today.

That case involved public transportation of students to private schools. Seven Roosevelt appointees were on that court.

Then, in Engel v. Vitale in 1962, involving morning prayer over the speaker system at school, the Supreme Court struck a judicial death blow to prayer in school.

Not only is it a singularly unique thing for a court to rely upon a letter as authority, rather than a statute or case, to support a decision, but also the court relied on words written by Jefferson, who was not even present when the Constitution and the Bill of Rights (which includes the establishment clause) were debated and created.

He is identified with the Declaration, but not the Constitution or its amendments, in which the record shows he was not involved and did not participate.

This line of cases illustrates why there are ongoing arguments about activist judges, "judicial" legislation and strict construction of the Constitution, as well as why Supreme Court nominations are usually hotly debated.

While the reader may agree with complete separation of church and state, as the establishment clause has been interpreted, the Constitution as written tells us that it is not for the courts to change its meaning, as has been done. The proper way to change it is provided therein, and that is by amendment.

This essay is not to advocate defiance of a Supreme Court ruling. It is to explain how we came to this point on this issue. As wrong as they may be, and as much as we may disagree, we must either abide by court rulings or take legislative or judicial steps to change them.

The superintendent of the Jackson County Schools was right to comply with the complaint, unless the school district wants to expend taxpayer funds to oppose it, or unless it could obtain assistance from a group of lawyers like the Rutherford Institute, which has taken up such causes without charge.

I worry that this nation is descending toward moral and spiritual bankruptcy, that the nation is slowly yielding to the powers that oppose God. Groups like the one which wrote the letter to the school superintendent apparently want to confine religion to our homes or within the walls of our churches.

Here's hoping they don't succeed.