Michael J. Gaynor: "GOOD AMERICANS" AND RELIGION

For the very reason that the Framers of the Constitution decided against a religious test for public office: good people of principle would be excluded and bad people whom they would have liked to exclude would take the oath and lie.

Can Satanists be good Americans?

Of course not!

As the Declaration of Independence and The Pledge of Allegiance illustrate, the entity known as the United States of America recognizes both God and its subordinate status.

Thomas Jefferson, whose "wall" between church and state was transformed into official neutrality between religion and irreligion, would not have atheists in his Cabinet when he was President.

His successor, and "the Father of the Constitution," James Madison, in his letter remonstrating against religious assessments favored by George Washington, unqualifiedly proclaimed man's duty to God:

"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. This duty is precedent both in order of time and degree of obligation to the claims of civil society. Before any man can be considered as a member of civil society, he must be considered as a subject of the Governor of the Universe....."

After World War II, however, the incredibly presumptuous United States Supreme Court declared official governmental neutrality between religion and irreligion, between God and Satan, presuming itself to be absolutely supreme instead of a supreme court bound by God's law.

In a letter dated February 28, 1797, John Jay, America's first Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court and one of the three writers of The Federalist Papers, warned of bad choices:

"Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers. And it is the duty as well as the privilege and interest, of a Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers."

Jay was not disputing the Constitution's prohibition on religious tests.

He was pointing out a simple truth: that people should promote their religious values in public life.

In a letter dated April 23, 1811, Jay warned of the then minimal atheist danger:

"While in France . . . I do not recollect to have had more than two conversations with atheists about their tenants. The first was this: I was at a large party, of which were several of that description. They spoke freely and contemptuously of religion. I took no part in the conversation. In the course of it, one of them asked me if I believed in Christ? I answered that I did, and that I thanked God that I did."

The secular extremists are still contemptuous of religion, but the danger they pose has grown enormously.

Even though America's two governing documents, the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution, were each dated "in the year of our Lord."

Meaning Jesus Christ.

The First Amendment was supposed to protect both the free exercise of religion and the private right of conscious.

NOT to permit atheists and agnostics to thwart the PUBLIC right and duty to pay homage to God.

The word "religion" as used in the phrase "free exercise of religion" referred to the worship of God by whatever name.

NOT to the worship of Satan (by whatever name).

"Irreligion," or atheism, is the antithesis of religion, not religion.

The drafters and ratifiers of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights defined religion in terms of Judeo-Christian theism.

James Madison called religion "the duty we owe our Creator."

The First Amendment was "God-centered."

Not an adoption of secular extremism as the official state "religion."

Although the religious clauses of the First Amendment were written with God as the focal point, that God-centeredness has been abandoned in a Supreme Court misruling designed to put the Supreme Court above God in a secular state neutral between religion and "irreligion."

Oliver Ellsworth, a Connecticut delegate to the Constitutional Convention, explained that this clause prohibiting any religious test for public office in a published letter written after the Constitution was written and before it was ratified.

Ellsworth made it clear that the clause was NOT intended to undermine religious values.

Ellsworth wrote:

"Some very worthy persons who have not had great advantages for information have objected against that clause in the Constitution which provides that no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States. They have been afraid that this clause is unfavorable to religion."

Ellsworth assured:

"But, my countrymen, the sole purpose and effect of it is to exclude persecution and to secure to you the important right of religious liberty. We are almost the only people in the world who have a full enjoyment of this important right of human nature. In our country every man has a right to worship God in that way which is most agreeable to his conscience. If he be a good and peaceable person, he is liable to no penalties or incapacities on account of his religious sentiments; or, in other words, he is not subject to persecution."

Ellsworth dismissed "a test in favor of any one denomination of Christians" as "absurd" and an "indignity" to which the majority of American citizens would not submit.

But, Ellsworth rejected a test "requiring all persons appointed to office to declare, at the time of their admission, their belief in the being of a God, and in the divine authority of the Scriptures," even though "it may be said that one who believes these great truths will not be so likely to violate his obligations to his country as one who disbelieves them" and therefore "we may have greater confidence in his integrity," but because England's experience with religious tests showed that "[t]he most abandoned characters partake of the sacrament in order to qualify themselves for public employments," "the most sacred office of religion" should not be "thus prostitute[d]," and "making a declaration of such a belief is no security at all," because it is "easy...to dissemble" for "an unprincipled man who believes neither the Word nor the being of God" and is "governed merely by selfish motives."

Ellsworth further wrote:

"The business of a civil government is to protect the citizen in his rights, to defend the community from hostile powers, and to promote the general welfare. Civil government has no business to meddle with the private opinions of people. "

Note the word private.

"If I demean myself as a good citizen," Ellsworth continued, "I am accountable not to man but to God for the religions opinions that I embrace and the manner in which I worship the Supreme Being."

Those who wrote and ratified the Constitution recognized both a Supreme Being and a distinction between acts and opinions.

Ellsworth explained that it was the atheists, not the religious, who needed to watch what they said in the public square:

"[W]hile I assert the rights of religious liberty, I would not deny that the civil power has a right, in some cases, to interfere in matters of religion. It has a right to prohibit and punish gross immoralities and impieties; because the open practice of these is of evil example and detriment. For this reason, I heartily approve of our laws against drunkenness, profane swearing, blasphemy, and professed atheism."

Now the First Amendment is used to protect blasphemy, and professed atheism precludes public acknowledgment of God.

---------
Email: GaynorMike@aol.com

Top of Page Email this article Printer friendly article

Digg This Article Instant Message this article