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Can Government Acknowledge God? Can government acknowledge God?
In the Much has been made of the fact that
the Declaration of Independence refers to a Creator and the Laws of Nature and
Nature’s God. In his letter, Dave
Muntsinger goes so far as to assert that The Ten Commandments are.
In fact, according to Judeo-Christian belief, they were inspired by God.
It is certainly true that prohibitions against killing and theft found in
the Commandments also appear in the laws of this country.
Governments institute these laws to maintain order and protect the rights
of life, liberty, and property. Civil
societies have been instituting such laws since long before the delivery of the
Ten Commandments by Moses. However,
prohibitions against the recognition
of other Gods “before me” (implying as Mr. Muntsinger does by singling out
the “Judeo-Christian” God that there are indeed other Gods), against the making of any graven image (Does Judge Moore’s Ten
Commandments monument constitute a graven image?), against taking the Lord’s name in vain, and against labor on the Sabbath in order to keep it holy are obviously
religious. Also, different faiths
within the Judeo-Christian tradition recognize different versions of the
Commandments, so government display of them is not only an endorsement of that
tradition but of a specific denomination within it.
Regarding Judge Moore, he quotes
“our Founders” as defining religion as “the duty we owe our Creator and
the manner for discharging it.” This
comes from Article XVI of George Mason’s VA Declaration of Rights which reads
in its entirety, “That religion, or the duty which
we owe to our Creator and the manner of discharging it, can be directed by
reason and conviction, not by force or violence; and therefore, all men are
equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of
conscience; and that it is the mutual duty of all to practice Christian
forbearance, love, and charity towards each other.”
James Madison, the principal author of the First Amendment, also used
this phrase in his Memorial and Remonstrance against religious assessments, “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.’ The Religion then of
every man must be left to the conviction and conscience of every man; and it is
the right of every man to exercise it as these may dictate.”
Elsewhere in the same document he writes, “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.”
Finally, in a classic defense of the separation of church and state, Besides
taking quotes from men who believed in a strict separation out of context to
advance his own anti separation view, Moore also cites the Alabama Constitution
as invoking “’the favor and guidance of Almighty God’ as the basis for our
laws and justice system.” Once
again, further reading is illuminating. The
Preamble to the Alabama Constitution states, “We, the people of the
State of It is true, as stated by the TD,
that the “Declaration and the Constitution did not spring from voids but
resulted from centuries of secular and religious thought.”
Considering this, it is interesting that 55 mostly Christian men, well
versed in those centuries of thought, devised a Constitution that does not
mention religion except to forbid any religious test as a condition for holding
public office. Two years later, many
of those same men wrote and adopted the religion clauses of the First Amendment
which were applied to the states by the Fourteenth Amendment and read,
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”
The wall of separation between
church and state, as the author of the Declaration of Independence described it,
had been erected. This wall should
prevent government from acknowledging the existence of God by law, which would
include references on money and in the Pledge of Allegiance, mandates by the VA
General Assembly, and certainly Judge Moore’s graven image.
Lest one think these be harmless, minor infractions, remember
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