by Miles H. Hodges – The Covenant Nation

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.   

That’s the First Amendment to the American Constitution ... put there as a guarantee that Congress (the new government we were putting in place back in 1787) would not get in the business of trying to regulate the people’s religion, speech, writings, gatherings, or ability to appeal to the government over this or that matter.  The deal was that the states would most likely not accept the new Constitution unless a number of political protections (consequently, the Ten Amendments to the Constitution) were firmly put in place.

And notice, this is not only the First and foremost of those Ten Amendments or protections but also notice which item it is that comes up first on the list:  religion.  That’s because religion was understood to be without a doubt the people’s most important, most fundamental of all human rights, because all human life is built on “religion” ... that is, built on what people believe to be True about life.  The government was thus to stay out of the business of trying to regulate such an important human right.

The Constitution clearly does not intend to endorse any particular religion ... not even Christianity – although Christianity was largely what most Americans had in mind when the word “religion” came up.  To these Framers or Founding Fathers of the Constitution, no such public endorsement was needed.  Christianity came naturally to them.  It required no government support or protection.  In fact, given the ugly political history of religion, that was the last thing these Founding Fathers wanted.  Their Christian faith could take care of itself quite nicely without government involvement.

But also note, this First Amendment was not intended to keep their religious faith out of their public affairs.  Prayer to God, in fact, was a common way America’s political leaders went about their business.  But here too, they would need no legal endorsement to go to prayer in their public meetings ... for that came to them not only as a basic right but even as a basic necessity.  Indeed, thanks to Franklin’s warning in 1787 about the impossibility of getting past their partisan politics to come to an agreement on this new Constitution, they needed to remember how it was by and through daily prayer that they got through the dark days of the recent war fought against English royal tyranny.  Ultimately, they understood that prayer was the tool they needed in order to achieve their higher goals.  It was becoming quite obvious that their well-presented logical or rational arguments were serving merely to divide them into contending parties – not unite them. 

So it was that the wise Franklin was well appreciated for his having reminded them how self-serving human logic and faith in God’s provision were certain to produce very different results.

So why have things shifted so dramatically today ... to the point that it is now a common understanding that the First Amendment forbids religion in public affairs?  That’s because in the early 1960s the Supreme Court – thanks to the pressures of the very Secular American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) – ignored the very specific wording of the Amendment− “or prohibiting the free exercise thereof” − and proceeded to prohibit religion in public life, most particularly in the realm of the education of America’s youth.  The ACLU claimed that the government’s allowing the practice of any form of religion (except their Secularist worldview) in the public schools entailed its “establishment.”

Then in the early 1970s, the Supreme Court again violated the Constitution by establishing Secularism as the only worldview allowed to undergird American education.  How could the Supreme Court be so blatant in establishing Secularism as the only worldview (thus “religion”) to undergird American education.  Most clearly, the Constitution absolutely forbids such religious “establishment.”  The response was that Secularism is not a religion.  It is simply Truth ... “truth” as Secularists understand such matters.  Yes, but forty years earlier, in the 1933 Humanist Manifesto, the Secularists (including members of the ACLU) made it quite clear that in pushing for their Secular-Humanist agenda they were trying to plant a new religion in America.  Ooops!  But the problem was solved when a new Humanist Manifesto II was published in 1973 ... which dropped the “religion” part and stated instead that they were simply after “truth.” 

Say what you will.  Truth and Religion are one and the same thing.  And such religious Truth was what the Constitution was trying to protect.  Furthermore, in America religious Truth is supposed to be the people’s jurisdiction ... not the jurisdiction of public officials in black robes.  But ... good luck trying to get such powerful individuals come to that understanding.

But God is not done with America.  A new spirit of revival (a new “Great Awakening”?)   seems to be underway in America ... especially among members of the Gen-Z generation.  So there is reason to believe that simply through that very spirit, America will find its way back to the original moral-spiritual grounding – and the fundamental laws that go with this – that America was built on ... and by which America rose to become an awesome society. 

Miles Hodges is a writer, historian and political analyst who explores the question of why societies behave as they do ... especially in this matter of their rise and fall.