The Separation of Church and State is Based on a Religious Belief
The Separation of Church and State is Based on a Religious Belief
The Separation of Church and State is based on the religious belief that we should not give to Ceasar what belongs to God.
See Memorial and Remonstrance where James Madison explains the theology behind the exemption of religion (the duty which we owe to our Creator) from the government's authority. See also Detached Memoranda where James Madison refers to a deviation from the pure principle of religious liberty as a "giving unto Caesar what belongs to God" and describes the Separation of Church and State as a pure, sacred, just and truly Christian principle.
Does the President violate the Separation of Church and State by promoting or endosing the Separation of Church and State?
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Excerpt From A Memorial and Remonstrance
We the subscribers, citizens of the said Commonwealth, having taken into serious consideration, a Bill printed by order of the last Session of General Assembly, entitled "A Bill establishing a provision for Teachers of the Christian Religion," and conceiving that the same if finally armed with the sanctions of a law, will be a dangerous abuse of power, are bound as faithful members of a free State to remonstrate against it, and to declare the reasons by which we are determined. We remonstrate against the said Bill,
1. Because we hold it for a fundamental and undeniable truth, "that religion or the duty which we owe to our Creator and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence."
(This is Madison's definition of religion. It comes from the Virginia Bill of Rights of 1776) The Religion then of every man must be left to the conviction and conscience of every man; (
Not the advice or suggestions of the government) and it is the right of every man to exercise it as these may dictate. This right is in its nature an unalienable right. It is unalienable, because the opinions of men, depending only on the evidence contemplated by their own minds cannot follow the dictates of other men: It is unalienable also, because what is here a right towards men, is a duty towards the Creator. It is the duty of every man to render to the Creator such homage and such only as he believes to be acceptable to him.
(The Creator has imposed on man the duty render homage but to do so only according to the dictates of his conscience. It he does it according to the advice or recommendation of the government he sins against God) This duty is precedent, both in order of time and in degree of obligation, to the claims of Civil Society. Before any man can be considerd as a member of Civil Society, he must be considered as a subject of the Governour of the Universe: And if a member of Civil Society, do it with a saving of his allegiance to the Universal Sovereign. We maintain therefore that in matters of Religion, no man's right is abridged by the institution of Civil Society and that
Religion is wholly exempt from its cognizance. True it is, that no other rule exists, by which any question which may divide a Society, can be ultimately determined, but the will of the majority; but it is also true that the majority may trespass on the rights of the minority.
2. Because Religion be exempt from the authority of the Society at large,
still less can it be subject to that of the Legislative Body. The latter are but the creatures and vicegerents of the former. Their jurisdiction is both derivative and limited: it is limited with regard to the co-ordinate departments, more necessarily is it limited with regard to the constituents. The preservation of a free Government requires not merely, that the metes and bounds which separate each department of power be invariably maintained; but more especially that neither of them be suffered to overleap the great Barrier which defends the rights of the people. The Rulers who are guilty of such an encroachment, exceed the commission from which they derive their authority, and are Tyrants. The People who submit to it are governed by laws made neither by themselves nor by an authority derived from them, and are slaves.
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Detached Memoranda Excerpts
The danger of silent accumulations & encroachments by Ecclesiastical Bodies have not sufficiently engaged attention in the U.S. They have the noble merit of first unshackling the conscience from persecuting laws, and of establishing among religious Seas a legal equality.
If some of the States have not embraced this
just and this truly Xn (Christian) principle in its proper latitude, all of them present examples by which the most enlightened States of the old world may be instructed; and there is one State at least, Virginia, where religious liberty is placed on its true foundation and is defined in its full latitude......
.....Ye States of America, which retain in your Constitutions or Codes, any aberration from the
sacred principle of religious liberty, by
giving to Caesar what belongs to God, (
Madison is citing Matthew 22:21 - He was was at least half Baptist - Many Baptists and others cited Matthew 22:21 as authority for the Separation of Church and State) or joining together what God has put asunder, hasten to revise & purify your systems, and make the example of your Country as pure & compleat, in what relates to the freedom of the mind and its allegiance to its maker, as in what belongs to the legitimate objects of political & civil institutions.