Government must accommodate religion, not endorse it, Land says
- Feb 18, 2008 - 8
DALLAS—There are three competing approaches to the Constitution’s First Amendment, the most valid being the one in which government fairly accommodates the free expression of its citizens’ varied religious viewpoints, Richard D. Land told a Criswell College audience during a lecture series held Jan. 29-31 in Dallas.
Land, the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) president and a leading evangelical voice on cultural issues who once taught at Criswell, spoke on the subject “What Does God Have to Do with America—Past, Present and Future?” during the Criswell Theological Lectures.
Land began his three lectures by explaining the context of Thomas Jefferson’s famous “wall of separation” letter to the Danbury Baptists, and ended noting the open religious speech—mostly biblical allusions, quotations and public prayers—of former U.S. presidents while in office.
Of the three approaches championed by First Amendment advocates—the avoidance position, the acknowledgement position, and the accommodation position—Land said the latter most closely honors the American founders’ intent and historic Baptist principles.
“The accommodation position would say, ‘If the people in the community want to have a manger scene on the courthouse lawn, then they ought to be allowed to collect the money and buy a manger scene and the government should accommodate their wish by allowing its display at the appropriate Christmas time, and they should provide police protection for it and the lighting for it and possibly even the storage for it during the Christmas season,” Land explained.
“But that also means that if there are Jewish people in the community and they want to have a Menorah scene at the appropriate time in the Jewish calendar, then they ought to be able to have a Menorah celebrating Judaism as well. And if there are Muslims in that community, then at the appropriate time they ought to be allowed to display a Muslim scene. Accommodation means the government is an umpire. And the government makes sure that everybody plays fair.”
Land said the avoidance position, championed by groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), seeks to keep all religious expression out of the public square, while the acknowledgment position “says that it’s perfectly all right for the government to acknowledge on behalf of the people the majority religion, that, after all, Christians are the majority.”
“What we should want as Baptists,” Land said, “is maximum accommodation. That is your view and my view and everyone else’s view [included] in the public square.”
Land said President Jefferson—perhaps the most frequently quoted advocate of church-state separation—never intended his famous phrase “a wall of separation between church and state” to mean anything but that citizens are free to follow their religious or irreligious consciences without the state’s favoritism or infringement.
Land explained that Baptists such as John Leland championed the First Amendment guaranteeing “a free church in a free state,” and that early American Baptist forebear Roger Williams had written more than a century before Jefferson that “there needs to be a wall of separation between the garden of the church and the wilderness of the state to protect the garden from the encroachment of the wilderness.”
Land said, “The last thing we as Baptists should want is government-sponsored religion. Government-sponsored religion is like getting a hug from a python.”
Jefferson’s “wall of separation” phrase has been claimed by proponents of the accommodation position and by groups like the ACLU that champion the avoidance position.
But Land said if Jefferson had intended that government avoid religious expression in its domain, it is curious that Jefferson, the Sunday after penning his famous letter to the Danbury Baptists, attended Sunday worship services in the U.S. House of Representatives chamber led by his friend Leland, a Baptist pastor from Connecticut.
Land said the ERLC’s vision statement—“An American society that affirms and practices Judeo-Christian values rooted in biblical authority”—alarmed a New York Times reporter who asked, “What about separation of church and state?”
Land said he answered: “Well, do you see the word ‘church’ or the word ‘state’ in that vision statement? It says an American society that affirms Judeo-Christian values rooted in biblical authority.”
“She said, ‘Well, no.’ I said, ‘See, what we’re calling for is for people of faith to go out and by the way they live and by their sharing their faith, to change our society so our society becomes a society that affirms and practices Judeo-Christian values.’”
“I explained to her that it is the people of faith who are the engine that drives the locomotive of the church and society, and the government is the caboose,” Land said. “It comes along behind. I said, ‘I know you believe in democratic and representative government. So if the majority of Americans affirmed and practiced Judeo-Christian values, you would want to see that reflected in the nation’s laws, right?’ She said she’d have to think about that.”
One of the most egregious examples of the avoidance position being imposed by the courts, Land said, was the 5-4 Supreme Court ruling that a female high school student in Santa Fe, Texas had acted unconstitutionally “because the school district had paid for the microphone [during a public prayer before a football game]. I’m not kidding. I couldn’t make that up.”
When religious speech is challenged, Land said, “Their right not to hear ends with our right to free expression and free speech.”
There is “theological imperialism” in places such as Iran, where every woman must cover her head under penalty of law, Land said, and there is “supreme secularism” in places such as France, where if you are a Muslim girl, “you can either wear your head covering or you can attend public school, but you can’t do both.”
“And then we have what we call in the United States principled pluralism, where in Muskogee, Okla.—about as deep into Red State country as you can get—the decision was made that Muslim girls may or may not wear their headscarves in public school. It’s up to the Muslim parents and each Muslim girl. They are not going to be discriminated against and they are not going to be disallowed from going to the public schools because they are practicing their faith. That is what our Baptist forefathers had in mind, and it is the principle that we should promote in the public square. And if we do so, we will benefit because all that Baptists and Christians have ever needed to flourish is a level playing field.”
This article is reprinted with permission from the Southern Baptist TEXAN, the newsjournal of the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention.
Further Learning
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8 comments (post your own) feed
1 On Feb 19th, 2008, at 4:30pm, REv. Norris Landry wrote:
Wow! That is right on! Thanks for the great and enlightening article. I will pass this on to my church family via email.
2 On Feb 19th, 2008, at 5:31pm, Raymond Reinhold Holmes wrote:
We must rememebr our forefathers had won their independense from an Empire where Church and State were united. People fled to the NEW WORLD to escape persecution and punishment. Many were martyred for refusing to belong to either the Roman Catholic Church or the Church of England. Some godly men were burnt at the stake for translating the Bible into English.
Although the term Seperation of/ between Church and State does not appear in our Constitution, it is related to our FIRST AMENDMENT and the term simply means, “The State shall not interfere with the rights of the Church nor shall the State form its own religion.”
Thomas Jefferson acknowledged our Creator in the Declaration of Independense by claiming all rights are granted by Him. While President, he claimed the BIBLE is one of the two only books necessary in public schools. Congress paid a lot of money to have American Bibles printed in the early years of our nation’s history.
3 On Feb 19th, 2008, at 11:56pm, Greg A wrote:
I support a high wall of separation between church and state—primarily because it’s good for the church.
I strongly feel that a unique heresy of the American church is it’s adoption of politics in the church. In my observation, this really ramped up after Jerry Falwell used the church to help elect Ronald Reagan.
To divide the church along liberal vs conservative lines is simply un-biblical. Instead, it’s an incorporation of American politics in our churches—which is a clear heresy.
I’m a liberal Christian but I would never ever suggest that conservative Christians are somehow less Christian than me. This would be a heretical dividing of the church and break more than a couple of direct commands of Jesus and Paul.
Unfortunately, far too many conservatives Christians consider us liberal Christians as either bad Christians or unsaved altogether. (I’m sure the reverse happens, but I hear it far less) This is a heresy, IMHO.
4 On Feb 20th, 2008, at 10:26am, Charles Enlow wrote:
Mr. Jefferson’s personal sentiments are of interest. Our Constitution says that “Congress shall make no law regarding an ‘establishment of religion’ (code in 1789 for a state church - really an officially-recognized national denomination, supported by tax money), or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” It’s hard to extrapolate sweeping implications from that language, though many have tried.
But earlier Jefferson wrote, and the Continental Congress adopted, that people are “endued by the laws of nature and of nature’s God with certain unalienable rights...” So natural law (Jehovah’s law) precedes the Constitution. Peter and John got it right when they rhetorically asked the authorities: “...whether we are to obey God or you?”
So the Constitution is not my go-to authority in matters of Christian behavior, much less Mr. Jefferson’s private letters.
5 On Feb 26th, 2008, at 10:10pm, Harry Rockefeller wrote:
Charles, the Constitution, as well as all law created by that authority, is supposed to be the go-to authority in all civil matters for all judges and all lawyers.
Dr. Land is there a Southern Baptist exegesis of political philosophy? Since Jesus said “all authority in heaven and on earth is given unto me” it would seem important to get God’s truth on the matter. I also would expect this exegesis to address other’s such as Greg Bahnsen’s Theonomy in Christian Ethics.
6 On Feb 27th, 2008, at 1:53pm, Matt Hawkins wrote:
Mr. Rockefeller,
I’m not sure what you would require of a “Southern Baptist exegesis of political philosophy”, but you may be aware that the most widely-accepted statement of faith among Southern Baptists is the The Baptist Faith and Message. The two sections which may specifically apply to your question are The Christian and the Social Order and Religious Liberty (available at SBC.net).
I would certainly encourage anyone interested in this subject to read it for themselves, but for the sake of this thread, I’ll highlight a brief portion of the statement on Religious Liberty that looks to apply to this particular conversation:
Additionally, I’d encourage you to take advantage of the weekly (and public) opportunity to speak with Dr. Land directly during his 3 hour live radio broadcast, every Saturday from 12 noon to 3 pm Eastern (11 am Central). The toll-free number is 1-888-324-8456 (1-888-FAITH-56). In the event you converse with him about this topic on-air, I’ll post either the transcript of that conversation or an audio link here in this thread. If the program does not air in your area, online listening is available here.
Thank you for taking the time to participate in our discussion threads at ERLC.com.
Carry on,
Matt Hawkins (ERLC Staff)
7 On Feb 27th, 2008, at 3:49pm, Raymond Reinhold Holmes wrote:
Too many countries pass laws that prohibit believers from exercising their rights. For example, Rome killed Christians by feeding them to the lions or lighting them on fire as human torches because the martyrs refused to worship Caesar as God. The believers were inspired by the Apostles who chose to obey God rather than man and considered the LORD to be a greater AUTHORITY. Rome fell to Barbarians and Political Corruption but the Church continued to grow.
Christians should pay taxes and obey laws that do not replace GOD. Being a Christian does not eliminate our citizenship or deprive us of our rights. Paul showed this when he protested in Philippi, demanded a fare trial in Jerusalem, and appealed to Caesar in Caesarea.
We’re God’s ambassadors and share His wonderful Gospel in hope that others will believe in Christ. Galatians chapter 5 presents a wonderful lesson about how we must live under the Lordship of the Holy Spirit by forsaking our sinful nature with its evil deeds.
8 On Feb 27th, 2008, at 9:25pm, Harry Rockefeller wrote:
I’m not looking to reinvent the wheel. Surely, there must already be something. When you cover this paragraph in some SB seminary civil ethics class what and how are Scriptures applied to back it up?
The problem I have with the bold text from the BF&M;is that there is an implicit assumption that civil power is not spiritual. This goes against the Scripture of Romans 13 which says the civil servant is God’s servant to punish the evil doer. The civil servant certainly must know the difference between good and evil in the civil sense. Hebrews chapter 5 says distinguishing good from evil is for the spiritually mature. The whole function of civil power is spiritual. This is what Bahnsen’s Theonomy goes into. So, what book, reference, or ? do Southern Baptist’s have?