Sarah Palin–Freedom from or freedom of religion?
Much ado has been made in recent years about a phrase that isn’t even in the Constitution of the United States. “Separation of church and state” has been widely quoted and used as a basis to throw religious symbols out of government buildings and prayer out of public schools. In a letter to the Danbury Baptists in 1802, Thomas Jefferson referred to the First Amendment as creating a “wall of separation” between church and state. From there, it has been quoted far and wide to create a basis on which any aspect of religion is removed from government places. Let’s take a look and see what the First Amendment actually says.
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.
Where in those words do you see freedom from religion? The answer is, you don’t. Despite what a lot of people read into the Supreme Court ruling in the Murray v. Curlett case in 1963, the First Amendment does not restrict prayer in public schools or in government buildings. What it does is to prevent mandatory prayer or Bible readings, in which the persons in question, child or adult, have no choice but to participate. It is very unfortunate for our country that the concept of “freedom from religion” has been so widely accepted. I may be a simpleton, but the situation seems to be very clear to me.
For years, liberals have tried to make us all believe that freedom of religion is the same thing as freedom from religion and that is simply not the case. They have stressed over and over that the meaning of freedom of religion is that no religion should be allowed in the public school or in government ran, public buildings. To me, it means that if I want to pray in a school room, then so be it, I am free to do so. If you or anyone else does not desire to pray, then again, so be it. That is your choice. The founding fathers wanted us to be able to worship in the way we wanted to worship freely, not to be so bound down that we couldn’t worship or pray in a public building for fear of offending someone.
During the Republican primaries, Mike Huckabee made no bones about his religion. It was a well know fact that he was a Baptist minister and he did not hide it. He did tell people that he had been Governor of Arkansas longer than he had been a minister, but that little fact seemed to go by the wayside. When he ran an ad in Iowa, describing himself as a Christian leader, a major uproar went up, trying to say he was claiming to be “the Christian leader”. He said no such thing but of course, the liberal media refused to listen. Some accused him of trying to shove his religion down our throats and wondered in loud tones if he would allow his religion to influence him as President. Never mind that his record showed he ran a very secular government in Arkansas. That fact also went by the wayside. His detractors were very insistent, he was a minister and therefore, he would not be able to govern without letting his religion influence his decisions as President.
Now that Sarah Palin has been nominated as John McCain’s running mate,the attacks have been coming hard and fast. One of the latest attacks has to do with, you guessed it, her religion. She is formerly of the Assembly of God faith, is non-denominational now and to hear her detractors tell it, she believes God wants us in Iraq and all sorts of nonsense. What is it with people worrying about a candidate’s religion and if he or she will be influenced by it while in office? I am not sure what bothers liberals the most about Governor Palin, her religion, her conservatism or the fact that she is outspoken about both.
Let me ask a question here. What is wrong with Sarah Palin or any other candidate being a Christian and her decisions being influenced by her Christianity? Would you rather have a President or other leader be influenced by atheism? My point is this. We are all influenced by our upbringing and our experiences in life. As long as the person in question does not use their office or position of leadership to further a religion or establishment of religion, then they should be free to choose to worship or not, just as any other person in America. To use the freedom from religion mantra to try to disqualify someone from being President or any other position of leadership in our country is simply wrong and it goes against the very amendment it tries to use to justify that position.
That’s my take!
Larry
Nothing is wrong with a politition being influenced by their religion — as tleast so long as their religion doesn’t drive them to do crazy things for no good reason.
But, you do not want religion to have the force of law. You cannot have freedom of religion without also having freedom from religion. Do you really want the government telling you what to believe? Do you really want a “Christian” government? If so, what kind fo Christian? Roman Catholic? Baptist? Eastern orthodox?
If you think you want religion in government, you need to study some history. If you have studied history, and you still want religion in government, you’re either an idiot, or a horrible person.
The operative word here is “Christian”, not religion. Larry wrote “Let me ask a question here. What is wrong with Sarah Palin or any other candidate being a Christian and her decisions being influenced by her Christianity? Would you rather have a President or other leader be influenced by atheism?”
I would certainly rather have a candidate like Sarah Palin, and many others, who are influenced by a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. Having that relationship does not make one immune to faults, failures or any other shortcomings; the Word of God bears that out. Walking in that relationship does, however, bring a certain set of high standards to the table. This is not elitism, but it is a statement of belief Christian principles have, at their core, God’s principles.
Governor Sarah Palin, keep speaking out in truth! She, like the Apostle Paul, is not ashamed of the gospel of Christ.
I completely agree with you… What IS wrong with faith influencing government? In my book, and in God’s, that’s the way it should be. In fact, I’d be more scared if our leaders WEREN’T influenced by God.
@Caleb Well as a Christian, you could say something like that. But if government endorses a religion like Christianity, then other people who believe in more than 1 god and not God, would reasonably be offended. It is the same thing as the government endorsing the message that there is no God. You would be offended wouldn’t you?
That is exactly what the 2nd Amendment is for, to prevent our government from endorsing any one religion. To have a candidate influenced by his or her faith is not endorsing any one religion.
Like Larry said, everyone makes decisions based upon their experiences and beliefs whether they are Christian, Muslim, or Atheist. And all laws can be said to be influenced by religion. Murder is an intense Christian doctrine and it is in our law. Should we remove it from the books, make it acceptable, because then it would go counter to Christianity?
I am a Christian. Do you think, perhaps, that the secular reaction we are seeing today against Christianity, might in some way be connected to the fact that what we are presenting to the world is far removed from the true glory of the kingdom intended by Jesus?
Yes, I would rather have a President guided by atheism.
“What is wrong with Sarah Palin or any other candidate being a Christian and her decisions being influenced by her Christianity? Would you rather have a President or other leader be influenced by atheism?”
But of course atheism would be preferable! Religious decisions, this decade alone, gave us 9/11 and London; Bali and Gujarat; Turkey and Beslan and Hai al-Amaal; the Islamboeli in Ossetia and the Djemaah Islamijah in Pantai Jimbaran… and breaking news on CNN.
Decisions based on singular interpretation of the dictates of a god with the manners and the morals of a mollycoddled minor. Religious decisions have seen multitudes maimed and massacred.
For a world leader to believe that death is not the end is frightening!
Nathan, don’t confuse religion with Christianity. I agree much hatred and war has been waged in the name of religion. Even some who call themselves Christians give Christianity a bad name.
However, true Christians don’t cost society anything.
We work, pay our taxes, obey the laws of the land and are a blessing to our nation.
We don’t riot in the streets, murder, rape, and fill the prisons.
Furthermore, a true Christian is not arrogant. or self righteous,.We know we are sinners. Our only hope is Jesus who died on the cross to pay the penalty for our sins. When we trust Him, He changes our lives by turning us from a life of sin to a life of righteousness.
I may be reading into this in the wrong way, but is the author saying that people living in the USA shouldn’t have freedom from (as well as of) religion?
“I would certainly rather have a candidate like Sarah Palin, and many others, who are influenced by a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. Having that relationship does not make one immune to faults, failures or any other shortcomings; the Word of God bears that out. Walking in that relationship does, however, bring a certain set of high standards to the table.”
First of all, I don’t know if you meant it to sound so… condescending. This paragraph makes it sound like you believe that Christianity is the only religion with high morals and/or standards. Which I completely disagree with.
Granted, I am not opposed to anyone being influenced by their faith when they make some decisions, but I also believe that a president’s beliefs should not be the main reason for making any decision that affects his/her people as a whole. Other factors should eb taken into consideration, and then if the president, along with other factors believes it is the right decision, then so be it.
As far as praying in public and such, yes. Go ahead. As long as I nor anyone else is forced to join in, it is fine. Not only for Christians, but for Muslims, Jews, Wiccans, Buddhists, etc. As long as everyone can practice their religion in public, I don’t see a problem with it.
No, Larry is saying the people should have freedom to do as they please, if they want to pray, they have that right, if they don’t want to pray, they have that right also.
What gets me is that for a good while now, Christians seem to be getting the raw end of the deal, so to speak. It’s alright to put the Christians down, tell us we can’t pray, things like that, but you sure better not tell the Muslims, or other relgions that or you will be seen as being discriminatory.
Yeah, what Gary said. For too long now, we have been told to shut up and sit down and now that we have a candidate who will stand up for our values and beliefs, it’s time we got behind her.
I still say the sad thing about this entire election season is the fact that Mike Huckabee should have had the support Sarah Palin has now. It’s a shame.
Puh-leeze. Let an atheist try to run for president in this country and see how fast the religious zealots come out en masse to keep it from happening. Personally, I would love to see an atheist in charge (and I’m not an atheist). And though I believe in God, I find it objectionable, offensive and exclusionary to see a deity honored on money, in government invocations, etc. And definitely it’s wrong to have “under God” in the pledge (which I refuse to say). Those two words didn’t get in the recite-by-rote timewaster until the Red scare, so don’t tell me there is some sort of founders’ nonsense attached. The sad thing about this election is it reinforces that no matter what, the party of greed will win on the backs of obedient evangelicals. This is not a Christian nation, to say otherwise is a slap in the face to non-Christians and nonbelievers, who also are part of the so-called American tapestry. But of course you all have no problem trampling over them…
Yes, this is, was, is supposed to be, a Christian nation and the further we get from that, the worse shape this country gets in. One of the reasons this country was founded was because of the religious oppression the founders were under in England.
The words “Under God” were added in 1954.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pledge_of_Allegiance
These words were inspired because they were used in Abraham Lincolns Gettysburg address.
The words “Under God” are on our money and in our government invocations to remind us, the people of the greatest nation on the face of the earth, where we came from and why this great nation was founded in the first place.
I could go on and on here but anybody that doesn’t believe this country wasn’t founded as a Christian nation needs to go back and read the history of America.
Yes, you are a simpleton. The freedom for individuals to practice their religions, without the interference of government, is precisely what mandates the strict separation of churches (and mosques, and synagogues, etc.) and state institutions.
Using your brain ever so slightly (I know, it hurts after years of disuse), imagine how the Christian right wing (yourself?) would feel if a Muslim politician insisted that shari’a law should become part of public school discipline regimes.
The ‘fundamentalist’ Christians of the vast majority of the twentieth century explicitly avoided politics, seeing involvement in it as a threat to themselves and their faith. It wasn’t until the late seventies that the moral majority became explicitly a political movement, rather than a religious and social one. Those who can remember this history woudl do well to ask themselves whether they feel they live in a more, or less, holy society than they did before they took control of American politics.
I am only going to say this once. No name calling or personal insults, such as is in the last comment. Anything else like that and I will delete it.
@hymeeree: Condescending? No, that certainly was not the intent. The point was simply I would rather have a candidate who shows Christian values than one who does not. I do believe born-again Christians possess a high moral character; with some it takes longer to cultivate than others, though. Christians are not perfect, but are what they are by the grace of God.
I agree with you to a certain degree regarding public prayer. I want to be able to pray in public, as do many others. Thankfully, there is freedom in this great nation, allowing many to offer thanks and prayers in public places. I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ.
erikwdavis,
You are fooling yourself if you think that all governments are not influnced by a religion or lack thereof. I would much rather my government be influenced by the Christian religion than any of the others that are out there.
I know you can bring up the Holy Wars and things like that but that was then and this is now.
The very root of the problems in this country is that we have became a Godless nation where we used to be a Godly nation. People think there are no repercussions to anything they do. You can go out and sleep with anyone you want to, no worries. You can go out and kill a baby, no worries. You can go out and do anything and everything you want to do, no worries.
Presidents throughout our history have been influenced by their Christian faith and I must say we are much the better for it, much better than if they were influenced by some other religion.
The problem is two-fold. One is the worry of a “Christian” leader. By waht definition, there are a lot of Christian groups, and many hate the other Christian groups. Kenedy, Romney, and Obama all had to give a my-religion-will-not-influence-me-in-governing-the -US speech. So aren’t we being a little hypocritical here? Aren’t most of you asking for a Protestant Christian, perferably born-again?
If you are asking for a Protestant Christian president with those values, what about the rest of us? How would you feel if the president was Hindu and explained how his faith led him to his decisions? How about a Catholic? Or a Jew?
And another thing, I agree we need spiritualism in our nation but not religiousity. Even the Bible warns us about that. We need to teach religion in our schools, ALL religions, so the next generations will understand more about the world around us.
And just for you all to know, religion, good Protestant Christianity, was taking out of the schools, not by liberals, but by conservative Protestant Christians because they were scared the Catholics might demand that their bible be taught.
I am not going to get into defending Palin only because she is Christian, and the truth is that I prefer Obama to win as things are going so far.
I do want to object though to what someone said that christians only started mobilizing politically during the 70s. It should probably be seen as the complete opposite, that was when many other currents or forces that more explicitly separated themselves from the “Christian” label started to take power and strong influence (they were probably there before, but they didnt care to fight the “christian” aspect of their being as much), and so the remaining part that zealously wanted to keep the christian aspect of it had to take the “christian” label more visibly as the other forces were now antagonizing it as such, as “christian”. I am not judging if those movements were good or bad, they are part of the nation’s history that form it today, however, the same question he asked would go here about if you find the country is any better from the 70s when those explicitly non christian movements took more power as such. The truth is that Christian movements, some explicitly so, some more implicitly (as the label didn´t matter as much back then), affected politics from the very beginning and that is simply how the country, for good or evil, has been.
I agree in separation of church and state though. I think it is an important element of the nation. But let’s face it, Christianity was an influence to the forming of the US and remains an important element in what it the country is today. The people in the US live in a country that was partly shaped by Christian (or puritan) values of some sort, and by even corruption of some of those same values. That is the nation, period. Yet (and this was partly influenced too by puritan Christan values that opposed the Catholic or Anglican ones of the time) people should not in any way be forced to embrace any religious current be it Christian or not. Hence the importance of the separation between the institution of church and that of the state. Values are something else. The american people can chose someone with Christian values that is coherent with some of the values of the nation or someone with atheist values that could also be coherent with some of the values of the nation. Though I prefer the Christian influence in today´s government, I do not think I prefer the McCain/Palin combo for it, but that is just my free opinion, and everyone has its own.
Thank you for your words, keep up the good work.
@Larry, Certainly I don’t wish to unnecessarily offend. I was confirming your stated suspicion in your posting:
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Your reading of the constitutional amendment in question is at stake, not your basic intelligence, which I agree is off-topic. My apologies for that. That said, My very strong disagreement with your claim, which disagreement was shared for the vast majority of the twentieth century by fundamentalist Christians, remains.
Long-standing case law, currently under attack by activist right-wing judges supported and inspired by constituencies like yours, holds that you cannot reasonable separate freedom of religion and freedom from religion, in the context of state-funded and based institutions. That is not to say that Americans have the right to be unconfronted by religion in the public sphere, but merely that when dealing with the state and its institutions, there is no way to support freedom of religion while simultaneously allowing for a specific religion’s predominance.
…”One of the reasons this country was founded was because of the religious oppression the founders were under in England…”
More or less, this is correct. Thus, even though our leaders or those we vote into leadership roles may have influence from their faiths, they should refrain from assuming all who listen to them agree or follow the same religion. It does alienate non-Christians, etc. BUT THEN AGAIN, it’s their freedom to do so and if they choose to alienate other groups, then so be it.
erikwdavis,
My apologies if I seemed to come on overly strong about the comments. I have had trouble before with people calling each other names and I have determined that it will not happen again. Now,I want to address something you said in your earlier comment.
That statement is one of the reasons I believe the Christians have been silent for much too long. I honestly take exception to your statement that Christians have taken control of American politics. That simply is not true. For years, we have been led to believe that we should stay out of politics, that we should not have a say in how our country is ran, other than go to the polls and vote. The least little notion that a candidate is influenced by his or her faith and liberals start crying foul. I firmly believe it is high time for Christians to stand up and be counted.
And yet, again I would ask – is the country ‘holier’ and healthier now, than when the Christian right began flexing its political muscle? I would argue, and I think that many of the Christian right would agree with me, though we may disagree on the reasons, that most would not claim that it is.
Christians (and everyone else) have every right to band together to pursue their electoral agendas. Of course. But the doctrine of separation of church and state is intended to protect Christians from the state as much as it is intended to protect all religious groups from competing religions.
The Christian right is playing a very very dangerous game with its faith – believing that it can ‘make the city on the hill’ in this world, rather than being faithful members of society without insisting on domination. Whether we agree that the Christian right dominates politics or not, that does appear to be the goal of many, including yourself. What happens when the backlash comes? Will Christianity be protected from those it has disrespected, oppressed and trampled (as Christianity itself has been in other countries, in other times)?
Is domination, or example, the best path forward for Christians? Will they know you are Christians by your love, or by your law?
erikwdavis,
I would certainly agree that our country is not healthier now than it was even a few short years ago. As my brother, Gary, pointed out in one of his comments, the prevailing opinion seems to be that we can go out and do what we want and not suffer the penalty. I would also certainly disagree that this is the fault of the Christian right.
I am really not sure how you get the idea from my article that I want the Christian right to dominate politics. I have said no such thing. What i do want is for Christians to be able to stand up and be counted, instead of being shoved over into a corner somewhere until someone needs our votes.
@Larry: America has historically been demographically composed of a vast majority of Christians. We continue to be ranked as the most devout (measured as sociologists can, by attendance, interviews, etc.) of all industrialized countries, far above any other country.
In an electoral democracy, the group which manages to impose its policies via the democratic process dominates politics. That is what you have been arguing for, no? If not, I have a hard time understanding what it means for people to support and vote for candidates on the basis of their avowed religiosity and their willingness to let their religious beliefs influence their policy decisions.
Perhaps of more interest to you personally, I believe that the Christian right is being taken for a ride by conservative politicians, who change their religious affiliation to shape demographic support (see McCain’s conversion to his current church), and then abandon your concerns in office. But if they have abandoned your concerns, they are not helping those of us who do not share them, either – they are helping themselves to power and money, impoverishing and disempowering all Americans – regardless of their religious beliefs – while claiming to be ‘christian.’
As a Conservative citizen and pastor for over 50 years, I really don’t care whether or where the candidates attend church. All I ask of government is that they protect us from foreign and domestic enemies. and give us freedom to pursue our goals and dreams and that Congress and the President work together for minimal interference in our lives and minimal taxes. I am against liberalism with its growing socialistic programs and increasing tax burden.
Let me answer your question. Yes, I would rather have a free thinker who is not influenced by religion as a candidate. If that’s your definition of Athiest, then so be it. Religious belief is an absolute that cannot be proven or questioned. It is not tolerant. I want a wise candidate, unencumbered by religious fantasy, with a world view. I want someone who can work with and relate to ALL people without being judgemental. Just call me a dreamer.
What makes you believe Sarah Palin would not be tolerant and would govern our country in a way that would relate to all of our citizens? She has proven in Alaska that she is capable of doing that.