Religious state

“ For instance, a government may simply declare, that the Christian religion shall be the religion of the state, and shall be aided, and encouraged in all the varieties of sects belonging to it; or it may declare, that the Catholic or Protestant religion shall be the religion of the state, leaving every man to the free enjoyment of his own religious opinions; or it may establish the doctrines of a particular sect, as of Episcopalians, as the religion of the state, with a like freedom ”

“ Religion is of such a personal nature, so wholly a matter of conscience, that it cannot be said in any proper sense to be universal. Yet the need of religions sentiment and freedom in development of that sentiment is universal. The state does well to provide security for religious thought, practices and fostering influences in all governmental machinery. ”

“ When, however, the State is not permitted to derive any further advantage from religion, or when people think far too variously on religious matters to allow the State to adopt a consistent and uniform procedure with respect to them, the way out of the difficulty will necessarily present itself, namely to treat religion as a private affair and leave it to the conscience and custom of each single individual. ”

“ The separation of church and state is powerfully anchored in constitutions and declarations of independence, while new presidents, kings, emperors, state officials, and members of the judiciary still swear on the books of their religious faith, invoke their respective gods as the ultimate judge (or help) , and openly, or covertly, participate in the rituals inherited from theological practical experiences. The dominant symbolism of our day has a religious aura. ”

“ It is the policy of the State to induce the country to accept or retain religious doctrines which seem to me to be erroneous, and an ecclesiastical polity which seems to me to be unfriendly to the free and vigorous development of the religious life. ”

“ Religious and clerical societies, which have no corporate rights, can only acquire those rights by special laws. Article 14. The Christian religion is taken as the basis of those State institutions which are connected with the exercise of religion--all religious liberty guaranteed by Art. ”

“ But such conviction being a mere casual offshoot of the faith-state, it is a gross error to imagine that the chief practical value of the faith-state is its power to stamp with the seal of reality certain particular theological conceptions.132 On the contrary, its value lies solely in the fact that it is the psychic correlate of a biological growth reducing contending desires to one direction; ”

“ Religion is the supreme human interest, government is the supreme human organization; therefore, government ought to take care for religion, and a Christian government should maintain distinctively Christian religious institutions. ”

“ All residents in the Realm enjoy entire freedom of faith and of conscience. The undisturbed practice of religion is guaranteed by the constitution and under the protection of the State. General legislation shall not be affected thereby. ”

“ Religion for us came in general to be a personal matter because the church, separated from the state, lost the visible authority that made it easy—or necessary—to trust to an institution the responsibility for one’s soul. ”

“ In addressing the Saints, I make no distinction; when I say a religious system, I mean that which unites principles of political government and religions, which is perfectly sufficient for, and completely adapted to, all the wants of cities, boroughs, counties, states, kingdoms, empires, or the world, or a million of worlds; that system of religion or government, just which you please to call it, that regulates things in heaven, and for which all professing Christian men pray. ”

“ We may suppose a state religiously constituted—that is to say, wherein the gospel and Christianity are not only the rule of life and the religion of individuals, but, besides, the foundation of legislation, the worship adopted in the manifestations of public piety ”

“ Even with a view to the ascendancy which a more simple and purified religion may ultimately obtain under an improved and free constitution, it is better that a religious feeling of some sort should exist. ”

“ that our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions, more than on our opinions in physics or geometry; ”

“ The republic of the human race is what we demand.”
Such was the work of Christianity in that society of the Middle Ages of which it was the life and soul. It is necessary to follow it in the accomplishment of this varied task, and, if we would thoroughly understand it, we must consider it in itself, in its inward life, in its form of worship and liturgy, in its monasteries, in its clergy, and in its different institutions, for herein lay its means of action. ”

“ Religion is God's legislation. He alone dispenses its sanctions, and these sanctions are mostly of another world. Were the governments of this earth, to legislate for the inhabitants of the moon, the absurdity and inefficacy of such laws would be less, than laws for taking care of human souls, by settling the rights of God, and the religious duties of man. ”

“ If nowhere else, in the relation between Church and State, 'good fences make good neighbors.'
Notes 1 For an exposition of the religious origins of American education, see S. W. Brown, The Secularization of American Education (1912) cc. ”

“ We believe not only that our people are more religious than many nations which have established churches, but also that they are far more religious under their own voluntary system than they would be under any government establishment of religion. ”

“ One of the most remarkable features in the spiritual life of the nation is the clear comprehension of even the least educated among them that the sins of the priests and the Religious Orders stand apart from and leave unsmirched the national religion. ”

“ With the emancipation of Man's higher activities from ecclesiastical control, the distinction between the religious and the secular life has gradually established itself. That this should happen was inevitable. ”

“ By its nature, religion-in the comprehensive sense in which the Constitution uses that word-is an aspect of human thought and action which profoundly relates the life of man to the world in which he lives. Religious beliefs pervade, and religious institutions have traditionally regulated, virtually all human activity. ”

“ And in that place, religion, religious system, its claim to overpower one, presented itself in a way of which even the least serious by nature could not be unaware. Their great church, its customs and traditions, formed an element in that esprit de corps into which the boyish mind throws itself so readily. ”

“ They were men of sterling character, of deep religious convictions, of willingness to make painful sacrifices for the sake of principle, of great reverence for the Bible and the institutions of religion, of purity of life in the home and in their social relations. They believed that religion was the supreme thing and that the commandments of God were of binding obligation upon all intelligent moral beings. ”

“ What a splendid and perdurable creation is not the glorious union of Church and State—a church regulated by fixed rules of divine origin, deriving influence and beauty from its connection with the secular government ”

“ In an age which settled back upon the Scriptures as the only basis of authority in religious faith and practice, they boldly challenged that course as a dangerous return to a lower form of religion than that to which Christ had called men and as only legalism and scribism in a new dress. ”

“ Wherever they meet to worship, there they will meet to consult of their plans, hopes, and progress, as at once a distinct race and a part of the American people. Their religion is tinged with political thought, and their political thought shaped by religious conviction. ”

“ So also the teachings of Christ, which were at first practised and developed by a small coterie of religious-minded men, acquired, under the conditions of the world, such secular and political influence, that about the time of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, the Church organisations of the Christian society alone were the real political authorities, and discharged all the important functions of the secular states. ”

“ While it respects religion for its beneficial influence upon civil society, it recognizes the right of each individual to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience, without prejudice or interference. ”

“ But although we are fully warranted to consider that church as the mother of harlots, the truth is that by whatsoever arguments we succeed in fixing that odious charge upon her, we shall by parity of reasoning be obliged to allow other national churches to be her unchaste daughters, and for this plain reason, among others, because in their very constitution and tendency they are hostile to the nature of the kingdom of Christ.”—Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge. ”

“ Worship—public and private; reasonableness of both. Recognition of spiritual as well as of physical laws. Recognition of an evolution in religious beliefs. Proper attitude of thinking men. Efforts for evolution rather than for revolution. Need of charity to all forms of religion but of steady resistance to clerical combinations for hampering scientific thought or controlling public education. ”

“ Some, overlooking the twofold agency, partly civil, partly ecclesiastical, by which the Most High promotes his own ends and the well being of his creatures, have resolved each into the other, making religion an affair of the state, and civil government a matter for ecclesiastical influence ”

“ Faithfully clinging to the ideal of a regenerated religious democracy, the early Christian church maintained itself through centuries of persecution and is slowly advancing, amidst almost overwhelming and innumerable difficulties, towards its realization. ”

“ We are under obligations to establish the Zion of our God upon the earth, and establish and maintain its laws, so that the law of the priesthood of the Son of God may govern and control the people.
Go into the world, among the inhabitants of the nations of Christendom, whether Infidels, Episcopalians, Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, or people of any other religious sect, and tell them plainly that the law of God is going to be the law of the land, and they would be terrified, they would fear and tremble. ”

“ The main attractions of these forms of faith lay in their ability to supply men with a personal and spiritual religion, which, being free from State intervention, was able to incite its adherents to rebellion, against any policy of which its priesthood disapproved, on spiritual or even on financial grounds. ”

“ On the principles of Christianity, if this place has for ages enjoyed a spiritual government free from religious error, and a temporal one free from moral fault, and has, in addition, been blessed with the presence of the representative of God upon earth, we shall without fail find it a scene of enlightenment, righteousness, and bliss. It must in these respects be far before places where frail human nature has been in the hands of churches liable to err, and of governments which commit faults every day. ”

“ I deem the present occasion sufficiently important and solemn to justify me in expressing to my fellow-citizens a profound reverence for the Christian religion and a thorough conviction that sound morals, religious liberty, and a just sense of religious responsibility are essentially connected with all true and lasting happiness ”

“ Whatever affects religion in any country, must affect the state or government of that country: true religion alone can dispose men to civil obedience. Therefore, it is the interest of every state to protect and encourage religion. ”

“ We learn how to value order, good government, and civilization founded on religious ideas, as the most precious of all earthly possessions after the faith and the means of eternal salvation. These advantages we possess in the [pg 735] laws and institutions which are summed up in the one word our country—our native land, or the land of our refuge and our children's nativity. ”

“ Let us rather devoutly thank heaven that our fathers loved liberty more than power, and laid broad and deep the foundations of intelligence, virtue and religion,—not superstition, and a bigoted devotion to forms, or a blind [Pg 188] submission to ecclesiastical authority, but the religion which recognizes God as supreme, and all men as equal,—on which to raise the glorious superstructure of rational freedom. ”

“ Long has our common mother called you to her breast.’ The doctrine of ‘the Divine right of kings,’ taught or supported by almost every sect, is the foundation of the old civil system, and has long given authority, dignity and stability to the kingdoms of Europe; and the doctrine of the Divine appointment and authority of the clergy has hindered God's children from progressing in Divine things and bound them by the chains of superstition and ignorance to the veneration and adoration of fallible fellow-beings, and to their doctrines, traditions and interpretations of God's Word. ”

“ Is organized religion too inextricably bound to the status quo to save our nation and the world? Perhaps I must turn my faith to the inner spiritual church, the church within the church, as the true ekklesia and the hope of the world. ”

“ Now this history of what went on in the church of America—for the church, meaning by it all the religious189 denominations, did embody as a general fact, the whole religious and moral force of the country, shows more strongly than anything else what was likely to be going on in bodies that did not profess any moral character or considerations. ”

“ For while the question of a religious establishment proved one of the most exciting issues in politics, influences more truly religious suffered a natural degradation and diminution through their over-close association with secular affairs. ”