Posted on 06/24/2006 2:00:27 PM PDT by wagglebee
Well, there are boundaries even there. Religion is not to engage in human sacrifice or an armed insurrection, and the government is not to meddle in its other aspects. The story of Mormons and their forced abandonment of polygamy is highly instructive.
There is of course no such article or section granting jurisdiction over religion to government, and that's part of my point. As I'm quite sure you know, the only mention of religion in the Constitution is in the 1st Amendment where Congress is barred from passing any law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free practice of religion.
IF the framers intended to create a wall separating religion and state, it's clear from the wording of the free practice clause that the wall was intended to be a barrier against government regulation or restriction of religious practices and not the other way around. Which was of course the context in which Jefferson coined the phrase "wall of separation" in his letter to the worried pastor of a Baptist church assuring him that his congregation's religious practices were Constitutionally protected from government interference.
If Jefferson had wanted to participate in the writing of the Constitution, then he should have made arrangements to be there.
And moreover, Jefferson's future letters were largely a critique of the Constitution (perhaps what he THOUGHT should have been included) rather than a commentary of what was actually included.
You must have serious reading comprehension problems. "Religious practices", not "religious doctrine". Whether the priesthood wears beards or whether their headgear resembles inverted chamberpots, is not regulated, nor should it be, for it is irrelevant. But things like polygamy, jihad, human sacrifice etc. are clearly in the province of Caesar.
True. How you believe - is yours, or God's, business. How you behave is Caesar's.
Your query calls for a great deal of subjectivity. Jefferson and Adams carried on an extensive correspondence on theological questions and pursuits, after they had each left Office. So they certainly believed very strongly in the freedom to analyze and dissent, which is obviously a part of the concept. Certainly, both Jefferson and Madison were strong advocates of the individual's freedom of conscience. But none of the Founders would ever have suggested anything as absurd as the contemporary, ACLU orchestration of a, suppression of the freedom of local communities to affirm their Faiths. In that sense, and to that extent, they were all advocates of religious freedom, even though a few might have favored State Churches.
William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site
No, of course not. But of those that I have, whether Innaugural Addresses, State of the Union Addresses, or other major addresses, I can not recall any that did not. Why would anyone have a problem with their doing so? From the Declaration, to the Constitution, onward, the major documents all acknowledged a Creator. Indeed, the acceptance of same was the basis of Jefferson's Act, establishing non-sectarian religious freedom in Virginia. He repeatedly cited the Almighty in the opening lines of the Act, as the authority on Whom he was relying.
See Leftwing Word Games & American Religious Freedom.
William Flax
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