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                           Imprimis, On Line
                              April, 1995
        
        IMPRIMIS (im-pri-mis), taking its name from the Latin
        term, "in the first place," is the publication of
        Hillsdale College. Executive Editor, Ronald L.
        Trowbridge; Managing Editor, Lissa Roche; Assistant,
        Patricia A. DuBois. Illustrations by Tom Curtis. The
        opinions expressed in IMPRIMIS may be, but are not
        necessarily, the views of Hillsdale College and its
        External Programs division. Copyright 1995. Permission
        to reprint in whole or part is hereby granted, provided
        a version of the following credit line is used:
        "Reprinted by permission from IMPRIMIS, the monthly
        journal of Hillsdale College." Subscription free upon
        request. ISSN 0277-8432. Circulation 585,000 worldwide,
        established 1972. IMPRIMIS trademark registered in U.S.
        Patent and Trade Office #1563325.
        
              --------------------------------------------
        
                            Volume 24, No. 4
                           Hillsdale College,
                       Hillsdale, Michigan 49242
                               April 1995
        
              --------------------------------------------
        
                    "The Religious Roots of Freedom"
                          by M. Stanton Evans
                  Director, National Journalism Center
        
              --------------------------------------------
        
        In this issue, M. Stanton Evans makes the case that the
        Founders intended the First Amendment to protect
        religion from government. He offers compelling
        historical evidence to support this view and to refute
        the "liberal history lesson," which teaches that
        religion and freedom are in conflict.
        
            Mr. Evans spoke before an audience of over 300
        students, faculty, and guests during Hillsdale's Center
        for Constructive Alternatives seminar, "God and Man:
        Perspectives on Christianity in the 20th Century," last
        November.
        
              --------------------------------------------
        
        As the renewed debate over prayer in the public schools
        suggests, the cultural conflict of the modern era finds
        vivid and enduring focus in the legal dispute about the
        place of religion in the civic order. Here the battle
        is overt, relentless, and pervasive--with traditional
        belief and custom retreating before a secularist
        onslaught in our courts and other public institutions.
        
            During the past three decades, the U.S. Supreme
        Court has handed down a series of rulings that decree a
        "wall of separation" between affairs of state and the
        precepts of religion. In the most controverted of these
        cases, in 1962, the Court said an officially sponsored
        prayer recited in the New York public schools was an
        abridgement of our freedoms. This prayer read, in its
        entirety: "Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence
        on Thee, and we beg Thy blessings upon us, our parents,
        our teachers, and our country." In the Court's opinion,
        this supplication triggered the First Amendment ban
        against an "establishment of religion," logic that was
        later extended to reading the Bible and reciting the
        Lord's Prayer in the classroom.
        
            In adopting the First Amendment, according to the
        Court, the Founders meant to sever all connection
        between religious faith and government, requiring that
        religion be a purely private matter. As Justice Hugo
        Black put it in an oft--quoted statement: "The
        'establishment of religion' clause of the First
        Amendment means at least this: Neither a state nor the
        federal government can set up a church. Neither can
        pass laws which aid one religion, aid all religions, or
        prefer one religion over another...No tax in any
        amount, large or small, can be levied to support any
        religious activities or institutions, whatever they may
        be called, or whatever form they may adopt to teach or
        practice religion."
        
            This doctrine has been affirmed and amplified in
        many rulings since. In support of it, Black and his
        successors (most recently Justice David Souter) have
        offered a reading of our history that supposedly shows
        the intentions of the people who devised the First
        Amendment. In a nutshell, this tells us that the
        Founders chiefly responsible for the Constitution's
        religion clauses were Madison and Jefferson; that they
        held views intensely hostile toward any governmental
        backing for religion; and that the amendment was a
        triumph for their separationist position.
        
        
                             Of Whole Cloth
        
        The First Amendment depicted by Justice Black and other
        liberal jurists is, unfortunately, a fabrication. The
        Supreme Court's alleged history is a prime example of
        picking and choosing elements from the past to suit the
        ideological fashions of the present. If we consult the
        history of the nation's founding, we find that the
        Court and its supporters have misstated the material
        facts about the issue in every possible fashion.
        
            To begin with, state papers, legal arrangements,
        and political comment of the founding generation show
        that American culture in that period was suffused with
        religious doctrine. The point is made by the very
        concept of an "establishment of religion." This term
        had a definite meaning in England and the colonies that
        is critical to understanding the debate about the First
        Amendment. It signified an official church that
        occupied a privileged position with the state, was
        vested with certain powers denied to others, and was
        supported from the public treasury. Such was the Church
        of England in Great Britain, and such also were
        numerous churches in the colonies at the beginning of
        our revolution.
        
        
                          The States' Churches
        
        In 1775, no fewer than nine colonies had such
        arrangements. Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New
        Hampshire had systems of local church establishment in
        favor of the Congregationalists. In the South, from
        Maryland on down, the establishments were Episcopal. In
        New York, there was a system of locally supported
        Protestant clergy. Because of growing religious
        diversity within the states, pressure mounted to
        disestablish these official churches. In particular,
        increasingly numerous Baptists and Presbyterians made
        headway against the Anglican position, which was
        further weakened by the identification of many
        Episcopal ministers with the English.
        
            Even so, at the time of the Constitutional
        Convention, the three New England states still had
        their Congregational establishments. In other states,
        there remained a network of official sanctions for
        religious belief, principally the requirement that one
        profess a certain kind of Christian doctrine to hold
        public office or enjoy other legal privilege. With
        local variations, these generally tended in the same
        direction, and they make instructive reading alongside
        the statements of Justices Black and Souter about the
        supposed history of our institutions.
        
            In South Carolina, for example, the Constitution of
        1778 said that "the Christian Protestant religion shall
        be deemed...the established religion of the state." It
        further said that no religious society could be
        considered a church unless it agreed "that there is one
        eternal God and a future state of rewards and
        punishment; that the Christian religion is the true
        religion; that the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New
        Testaments are of divine inspiration." South Carolina
        also asserted that "no person who denies the existence
        of a Supreme Being shall hold any office under this
        Constitution."
        
            Similar statements can be gleaned from other state
        enactments of the period. The Maryland Constituion of
        1776 decreed, for instance, "a general and equal tax
        for the support of the Christian religion." New Jersey
        that year expressed its idea of toleraiton by saying
        that "no Protestant inhibitant of this colony shall be
        denied the enjoyment of any civil right."
        Massachusetts, in 1780, authorized a special levy to
        support "public Protestant teachers of piety, religion
        and morality"--a formula adopted verbatim by New
        Hampshire.
        
            Official support for religious faith and state
        religious requirements for public office persisted well
        after adoption of the First Amendment. The established
        church of Massachusetts was not abolished until 1833.
        In New Hampshire, the requirement that one had to be
        Protestant to serve in the legislature was continued
        until 1877. In New Jersey, Roman Catholics were not
        permitted to hold office until 1844. In Maryland, the
        stipulation that one had to be a Christian lasted until
        1826. As late as 1835, one had to be a Protestant to
        take office in North Carolina; until 1868, the
        requirement was that one had to be a Christian;
        thereafter that one had to profess a belief in God.
        
            The official sanction for religious belief provided
        by the states was equally apparent at the federal
        level, during and after the Revolution. Appeals for
        divine assistance, days of prayer and fasting, and
        other religious observance were common in the
        Continental Congress. Among its first items of
        business, in 1774, the Congress decided to appoint a
        chaplain and open its proceedings with a prayer. When
        it was objected that this might be a problem because of
        diversity in religious doctrine, Sam Adams answered: "I
        am not a bigot. I can hear a prayer from a man of piety
        and virtue, who is at the same time a friend of his
        country."
        
            On June 12, 1775, the Congress called for "a day of
        public humiliation, fasting, and prayer," wherein "[we]
        offer up our joint supplications to the all-wise,
        omnipotent, and merciful disposer of all events." In
        observance of this fast day, Congress attended an
        Anglican service in the morning and a Presbyterian
        service in the afternoon.
        
            During the Revolutionary War, Congress made
        provision for military chaplains, recommended that
        officers and men attend religious service, and
        threatened court martial for anyone who misbehaved on
        such occasions. It also adopted the Northwest
        Ordinance, stressing the need for "religion and
        morality," appropriated money for the Christian
        education of Indians, and encouraged the printing of a
        Bible. The Northwest Ordinance and the measures
        regarding chaplains, official prayer, and education of
        the Indians were re-adopted by the first Congress under
        the new Constitution and maintained for many years
        thereafter.
        
        
                             Crumbling Wall
        
        Such was the body of doctrine and official practice
        that surrounded the First Amendment--immediately
        predating it, adopted while it was being discussed and
        voted on, and enduring long after it was on the books.
        The resulting picture is very different from any notion
        of America as a country run by secularists and Deists.
        Nor does it look very much like a country in which the
        governing powers were intent on creating a "wall of
        separation" between church and state, denying official
        support to the precepts of religion.
        
            This was the background to Madison's motion on June
        8, 1789, introducing a set of amendments to the
        Constitution, culled from the proposals of conventions.
        Among the measures that he offered was this pertaining
        to an establishment of religion: "The civil rights of
        none shall be abridged on account of religious belief,
        nor shall any national religion be established...." In
        view of the weight that has been given to Madison's
        personal opinions on the subject, his comments on this
        occasion are of special interest. For example,
        challenged by Roger Sherman as to why such guarantees
        were needed, given the doctrine of "enumerated powers,"
        Madison said:
        
            he apprehended the meaning of the words to be, that
            Congress shall not establish a religion and enforce
            the legal observation of it by law, nor compel men
            to worship God in any manner contrary to their
            conscience. Whether the words are necessary or not,
            he did not mean to say, but they had been required
            by some of the state conventions, who seemed to
            entertain an opinion that [under the "necessary and
            proper" clause]...Congress...might infringe the
            rights of conscience and establish a national
            religion; to prevent these effects he presumed the
            amendment was intended, and he thought it as well
            expressed as the nature of language would admit.
            [Italics added.]
        
            In this and other exchanges, the House debate made
        two things clear about the Bill of Rights and its
        religion clauses: (1) Madison was introducing the
        amendments not because he thought they were needed but
        because others did, and because he had promised to act
        according to their wishes; (2) the aim was to prevent
        Congress from establishing a "national" religion that
        would threaten the religious diversity of the states.
        Given the varied practices we have noted, ranging from
        establishments and doctrinal requirements for public
        office to relative toleration, any "national" religion
        would have been a source of angry discord.
        
            Against that backdrop, the meaning of the
        establishment clause as it came out of conference
        should be crystal clear: "Congress shall make no law
        respecting an establishment of religion." The agency
        prohibited from acting is the national legislature;
        what it is prevented from doing is passing any law
        "respecting" an establishment of religion. In other
        words, Congress was forbidden to legislate at all
        concerning church establishment--either for or against.
        It was prevented from setting up a national established
        church; equally to the point, it was prevented from
        interfering with the established churches in the
        states.
        
        
                          Shield Becomes Sword
        
        Though this history is blurred or ignored, it is no
        secret, and its general features are sometimes
        acknowledged by liberal spokesmen. It may be conceded,
        for example, that the First Amendment was intended to
        be a prohibition against the federal government. But
        that guarantee was supposedly broadened by the
        Fourteenth Amendment, which "applied" the Bill of
        Rights against the states. Thus what was once
        prohibited only to the federal government is now also
        prohibited to the states.
        
            Here we meet the Orwellian concept of "applying" a
        protection of the states as a weapon against them--
        using the First Amendment to achieve the very thing it
        was intended to prevent. The legitimacy of this
        reversal has been convincingly challenged by such
        constitutional scholars as Raoul Berger, Lino Graglia,
        and James McClellan. But for present purposes, let us
        simply assume the First Amendment restrictions on
        Congress were "applied" against the states. What then?
        What did this prohibit?
        
            One thing we know for sure is that it did not
        prohibit officially sponsored prayer. As we have seen,
        Congress itself engaged in officially sponsored, tax-
        supported prayer, complete with paid official
        chaplains, from the very outset-- and continues to do
        so to this day. Indeed, in one of the greatest ironies
        of this historical record, we see the practice closely
        linked with passage of the First Amendment--supplying a
        refutation of the Court's position that is as
        definitive as could be wished.
        
            The language that had been debated off and on
        throughout the summer and then hammered out in
        conference finally passed the House of Representatives
        on September 24, 1789. On the very next day, the self-
        same House of Representatives passed a resolution
        calling for a day of national prayer and thanksgiving.
        Here is the language the House adopted: "We acknowledge
        with grateful hearts the many single favors of Almighty
        God, especially by affording them an opportunity
        peacefully to establish a constitutional government for
        their safety and happiness."
        
            The House accordingly called on President
        Washington to issue a proclamation designating a
        national day of prayer and thanksgiving (the origin of
        our current legal holiday). This was Washington's
        response:
        
            It is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the
            providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be
            grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore
            His protection and favor....That great and glorious
            Being who is the beneficent author of all the good
            that was, that is, or that ever will be, that we
            may then unite in rendering unto Him our sincere
            and humble thanks for His kind care and protection
            of the people.
        
            Such were the official sentiments of Congress and
        the president immediately after the adoption of the
        First Amendment. These statements are far more
        doctrinal and emphatic than the modest prayer
        schoolchildren are forbidden to recite because it
        allegedly violates the First Amendment. If we accept
        the reasoning of the modern Court, as Robert Cord
        observes, both Congress and George Washington violated
        the intended meaning of the First Amendment from its
        inception.
        
            The more logical conclusion, of course, is that
        Congress knew much better what it meant by the language
        adopted the preceding day than does our self-
        consciously evolving Court two centuries later. And in
        the view of Congress, there was nothing either in law
        or in logic to bar it from engaging in officially
        sponsored, tax-supported prayer, then or ever. It
        follows that the amendment can't possibly bar the
        states from doing likewise.
        
        
                         Madison and Jefferson
        
        To all this, the liberal answer is, essentially: James
        Madison. Whatever the legislative history, we are
        informed, Madison in his subsequent writings took
        doctrinaire positions on church-state separation, and
        these should be read into the First Amendment. This,
        however, gets the matter topsy-turvy. Clearly, if the
        Congress that passed the First Amendment, and the
        states that ratified it, didn't agree with Madison's
        more stringent private notions, as they surely didn't,
        then these were not enacted. It is the common
        understanding of the relevant parties, not the ideas of
        a single individual, especially those expressed in
        other settings, that defines the purpose of a law or
        constitutional proviso.
        
            Furthermore, the Court's obsession with the
        individual views of Madison is highly suspect. It
        contrasts strangely with judicial treatment of his
        disclaimers in the House debate, and of his opinions on
        other constitutional matters. Madison held strict-
        constructionist views on the extent of federal power,
        arguing that the Constitution reserved undelegated
        authority to the states. These views of Madison are
        dismissed entirely by the Court. Thus we get a curious
        inversion: Madison becomes the Court's authority on the
        First Amendment, even though the notions he later
        voiced about this subject were not endorsed by others
        involved in its adoption. On the other hand, he isn't
        cited on the residual powers of the states, even though
        his statements on this topic were fully endorsed by
        other supporters of the Constitution and relied on by
        the poeple who voted its approval. It is hard to find a
        thread of consistency in this--beyond the obvious one
        of serving liberal ideology.
        
            As peculiar as the Court's selective use of Madison
        is its resort to Jefferson. The anomaly here is that
        Jefferson was not a member of the Constitutional
        Convention, or of the Congress that considered the Bill
        of Rights, or of the Virginia ratifying convention. But
        he had strongly separationist views (up to a point) and
        had worked with Madison for disestablishment and
        religious freedom in Virginia. For the Court, this
        proves the First Amendment embodied Jefferson's
        statement in 1802, in a letter to the Baptists of
        Connecticut, about a "wall of separation."
        
            Again we pass over the Lewis Carroll logic--in this
        case deducing the intent of an amendment adopted in
        1789 from a letter written 13 years later by a person
        who had no official role in its adoption. Rather than
        dwelling on this oddity, we shall simply go to the
        record and see what Jefferson actually said about the
        First Amendment and its religion clauses. In his second
        inaugural address, for example, he said:
        
            In matters of religion, I have considered that its
            free exercise is placed by the Constitution
            independent of the powers of the general
            government. I have therefore undertaken on no
            occasion to prescribe the religious exercises
            suited to it. But I have left them as the
            Constitution found them, under the direction or
            discipline of state or church authorities
            acknowledged by the several religious societies.
        
            Jefferson made the same point a few years later to
        a Presbyterian clergyman, who inquired about his
        attitude toward Thanksgiving proclamations:
        
            I consider the government of the United States as
            interdicted from intermeddling with religious
            institutions, their doctrines, discipline, or
            exercises. This results from the provision that no
            law shall be made respecting the establishment of
            religion or the free exercise thereof, but also
            from that which reserves to the states the powers
            not delegated to the United States. Certainly no
            power over religious discipline has been delegated
            to the general government. It must thus rest with
            the states as far as it can be in any human
            authority.
        
            The irresistible conclusion is that there was no
        wall of separation between religious affirmation and
        civil government in the several states, nor could the
        First Amendment, with or without the Fourteenth
        Amendment, have been intended to create one. The wall
        of separation, instead, was between the federal
        government and the states and was meant to make sure
        the central authority didn't meddle with the customs of
        local jurisdictions.
        
            As a matter of constitutional law, the Court's
        position in these religion cases is an intellectual
        shambles--results-oriented jurisprudence at its most
        flagrant. An even greater scandal is the extent to
        which the Justices have rewritten the official record
        to support a preconceived conclusion: a performance
        worthy of regimes in which history is tailored to the
        interests of the ruling powers. In point of fact,
        America's constitutional settlement--up to and
        including the First Amendment--was the work of people
        who believed in God, and who expressed their faith as a
        matter of course in public prayer and other
        governmental practice.
        
              --------------------------------------------
        
        M. Stanton Evans is chairman of the Education and
        Research Institute and director of the National
        Journalism Center in Washington, D.C. The Center trains
        young, aspiring reporters and boasts alumni at the
        Detroit News, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington
        Post, CNN, C-SPAN, Evans & Novak, the Associated Press,
        plus dozens of journals and newspapers around the
        country.
        
            Mr. Evans has also served as managing editor of
        Human Events, associate editor of National Review, and
        editor of the Indianapolis News. For many years a
        syndicated columnist for the Los Angeles Times, he has
        written seven books, including: Revolt on the Campus,
        The Future of Conservatism: From Taft to Reagan and
        Beyond, and Clear and Present Dangers: A Conservative's
        View of America's Government.  This article is adapted
        with permission from his book The Theme Is Freedom:
        Religion, Politics, and the American Tradition
        (Regnery, 1994) and also appeared in the January 23,
        1995 issue of National Review.
        
              --------------------------------------------
        
        
                  "What If Jesus Had Never Been Born?"
                          by D. James Kennedy*
                            Senior Minister,
                    Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church
                             and President,
                         Coral Ridge Ministries
        
              --------------------------------------------
        
        *With Jerry Newcombe.  From What If Jesus Had Never
        Been Born? (Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1994)
        
              --------------------------------------------
        
             Reverend D. James Kennedy also participated in the
        November 1994 CCA, addressing an audience of over
        1,500.
        
              --------------------------------------------
        Some people have made transformational changes in one
        department of human learning or in one aspect of human
        life, and their names are forever enshrined in the
        annals of human history. But Jesus Christ, the greatest
        man who ever lived, has changed virtually every aspect
        of human life--and most people don't know it. The
        greatest tragedy of the Christmas holiday each year is
        not so much its commercialization (gross as that is),
        but its trivialization. How tragic it is that people
        have forgotten Him to whom they owe so very much.
        
            Jesus says in Revelation 21:5, "Behold, I make all
        things new." (Behold! [idou in Greek]: "Note well,"
        "look closely," "examine carefully.") Everything that
        Jesus Christ touched, He utterly transformed. He
        touched time when He was born into this world; He had a
        birthday, and that birthday utterly altered the way we
        measure time.
        
            Someone has said He has turned aside the river of
        ages out of its course and lifted the centuries off
        their hinges. Now, the whole world counts time as
        Before Christ (B.C.) and A.D.
        
            Jesus said that the kingdom of heaven is like a
        mustard seed, which is tiny in and of itself; but, when
        fully grown, it provides shade and a resting place for
        many birds. This parable certainly applies to an
        individual who embraces Christ; it also applies to
        Christianity in the world.
        
            Christianity's roots were small and humble--an
        itinerant rabbi preached and did miracles for three and
        a half years around the countryside of subjugated
        Israel. And today there are more than 1.8 billion
        professing believers in Him found in most of the
        nations on earth! There are tens of millions today who
        make it their life's aim to serve Him alone.
        
            Emperors and governors were the men with power in
        Christ's day. But now their bodies rot in their
        sepulchers, and their souls await the Final Judgment.
        They have no followers today. No one worships them. No
        one serves them or awaits their bidding.
        
            Despite its humble origins, the Church has made
        more changes on earth for the good than any other
        movement or force in history.
        
            But, the salvation of souls is the primary goal of
        the spread of Christianity. All other benefits are
        basically just by-products of what Christianity has
        often brought when applied to daily living. When Jesus
        took upon Himself the form of man, He imbued mankind
        with a dignity and inherent value that had never been
        dreamed of before. Whatever Jesus touched or whatever
        He did transformed that aspect of human life. Many
        people will read about the innumerable small incidents
        in the life of Christ while never dreaming that those
        casually mentioned "little" things were to transform
        the history of humankind.
        
              --------------------------------------------
        
        D. James Kennedy is the most listened to Presbyterian
        minister in the world today. His television and radio
        broadcasts are heard in 25,000 cities and towns across
        America. He heads up five major ministries. He is the
        senior minister of the Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church,
        which has over 8,000 members and has been cited by
        Decision magazine as one of the top five churches in
        the nation. He is the president of Evangelism Explosion
        International, which trains laymen in evangelism in 190
        countries and 300 denominations. He also oversees the
        Westminster Academy, a K-12 school for over 1000
        students, and is chancellor of Knox Theological
        Seminary. Finally, he is president of Coral Ridge
        Ministries, a national network television ministry that
        was launched in 1978. Its one-hour telecast is
        broadcast on more than 470 stations and five cable
        networks and is also broadcast overseas. Its radio
        program is regularly heard on over 500 stations.
        
                                  ###
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