Separation of Church and State

“The morality of the priesthood, and the devotion of the people, have been manifestly increased by the total separation of the church from the State.”—James Madison 

"The question before the human race is, whether the God of nature shall govern the world by his own laws, or whether priests and kings shall rule it by fictitious miracles."--John Adams

"The United States of America should have a foundation free from the influence of clergy."—George Washington

“Persecution is not an original feature in any religion; but it is always the strongly marked feature of all religions established by law.” ― Thomas Paine

“I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people (the First Amendment) which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.”—Thomas Jefferson
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There are plenty more such quotes, but they won’t impress anyone determined to believe that separation of church and state is defended only by a small vocal group.  Most people haven’t noticed how many believers in God, including a surprising number of Christians are for the absolute separation of church and state.  Baptists have been among the most stalwart supporters, and it was in their defense that Jefferson created his now famous “wall of separation” analogy, in 1802, expounding on the meaning of the First Amendment.

John Leland, a Baptist minister from Massachusetts, supported Madison against Patrick Henry’s attempt to establish state support for religion in Virginia.  Leland said, “If all the souls in a government were saints of God, (and) should they be formed into a society by law, that society could not be a Gospel Church, but a creature of state."  That Baptist position survives to this day in the American Baptist Convention, which resolved in 1963, and reiterated in 1983 and 1993, “that separation of church and state is central to our American heritage; that it has made possible a measure of freedom not previously achieved under any other system; that it is indispensable to our national policy of equal rights for all [religions], and special privileges for no religion.”  Freewill Baptists, American/Northern Baptists, Bible Baptists, General Baptists, National Baptists, Primitive Baptists as well as Methodists hold similar positions.

Where then does the virulent and vocal opposition to the mere mention of separation of church and state come from?  From the Southern Baptists, who split from their brethren in 1845 in order to defend the biblical sanctity of slavery.  They are now the dominant evangelical leaders opposing separation of church and state, even though in 1963 their Baptist Faith and Message said:  “God alone is Lord of the conscience, and He has left it free from the doctrines and commandments of men which are contrary to His Word or not contained in it.  Church and state should be separate.”

It wasn’t until 1995 that the Southern Baptist Convention voted to condemn its historic support for slavery and failure to confront racism in the South.

Adding "under God" to the Pledge of Allegiance seems like such a small thing, but it is the seed of what can become a dangerous violation of  the separation principle.  And what is the motivation behind it but an attempt at indoctrination, after all.  President Eisenhower, when signing the bill to add it to the Pledge (and also "In God We Trust" to paper money, making it the country's second moto with E Pluribus Unum), said, "From this day forward, the millions of our school children will daily proclaim in every city and town, every village and rural school house, the dedication of our nation and our people to the Almighty. ... In this way we are reaffirming the transcendence of religious faith in America's heritage and future; in this way we shall constantly strengthen those spiritual weapons which forever will be our country's most powerful resource, in peace or in war."

Spiritual weapon indeed.

The Word of God

Thomas Paine was a revered American Hero of the Revolution.  His Common Sense and American Crisis series inspired the people and soldiers during that period to understand what they were working and fighting for, and to persevere through the enormous hardships they faced.  If he had stopped there with his political publications, he would certainly be remembered today as one of the major founders of the United States of America—the name he coined for it.

But in 1794, facing the guillotine in Paris, he wrote Part 1 of The Age of Reason, which was to relegate him to the status of a footnote in our history.  His open advocacy of deism, a belief in a non-interfering God held by many of his fellow founding patriots, albeit with greater discretion, earned him the vilification of his ecumenical foes who hounded him even to his deathbed, where they demanded that he recant his deism and accept Christianity.  His philosophical contributions are only now coming out of the dark ages of American History where even the likes of Theodore Roosevelt called him “a dirty little atheist”.  Wider recognition of his contributions in this area is long overdue, and as will be shown, they reveal a framework for an even more detailed vision of reasoned reality and spirituality.

The Truth contained in Paine’s thoughts on philosophy and religion recorded in The Age of Reason continues in spite of a long period of its being relegated to the shadows, and slowly gathers momentum through the vastly increased capacity for freedom of discussion and exchange of ideas provided by the modern information age. While his are certainly not the last words on reasoned philosophy, nor is such a claim made here, his courageous social leap ahead of his time speaks to us in the modern world as few have, before or since.

Rarely is the expression of one’s concept of religion more timelessly profound or majestic than this quote from The Age of Reason:

“It is only in the CREATION that all our ideas and conceptions of a Word of God can unite. The Creation speaketh an universal language.... It is an ever-existing original, which every man can read. It cannot be forged; it cannot be counterfeited; it cannot be lost; it cannot be altered; it cannot be suppressed. It does not depend upon the will of man whether it shall be published or not; it publishes itself from one end of the earth to the other. It preaches to all nations and to all worlds; and this Word of God reveals to man all that is necessary for man to know of God.”

                                                         —Thomas Paine

This is not only the best definition ever for the Word of God, it is at the same time a preamble to a Grand Unified Theory of Truth. Anything we believe about God/Truth must be consistent with this one simple paragraph. What are its implications? That there are no supernatural events, there is no revelation other than the natural universe itself, no prophesy; and prayer can only be a simple appreciation for the free will His universe bestows on us in the hope that we will find the strength to pursue the light of Truth (God) with an honest soul.

The purpose here is to take Paine’s conception of the Word of God, and presume to extend the concept one step further—That Truth is God, wherever that Truth leads and whatever it turns out to be.

Truth is God and God is Truth in both the figurative and literal sense. If there is a sentient, all powerful master of the universe, pursuing Truth will lead us in "His" direction along that fascinating road of infinite length. If "He" does not exist, the motivation to follow the road still does, since the pursuit of Truth (knowledge, justice, love, beauty) remains as the only path to genuine fulfillment. We worship this God, Truth, by its pursuit and are rewarded by that fulfillment—here and after(?)life.

Truth as God is the religion/philosophy that you know is correct because you've made Truth itself the pinnacle, the steeple of your religion.  God is a word for the ultimate, unequivocal reality—a definition indistinguishable from Truth. Wherever Truth leads, there too must be God, be that a spiritual, omnipotent being or not.