State religion

“ 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. ”

“ 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 do not realize the value of such a privilege until some one, or some power, seeks to take it away from us. All through the world men and women and children have fought, and many of them have died, for this privilege. It was the custom of the nations of the world before our Constitution to have an established religion, a National religion, and in many of the countries it was the law that every one must belong to the state church, and must actually believe in the religion of the state. ”

“ 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. ”

“ There was once a time when the philosophy of the Gospel governed States; then it was that that power and divine virtue of Christian wisdom had penetrated into the laws, institutions and manners of peoples—indeed into all the ranks and relations of the State; when the religion instituted by Jesus Christ, firmly established in that degree of dignity which was befitting, flourished everywhere, in the favor of rulers and under the due protection of magistrates ”

“ 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 ”

“ Statesmen are those, doubtless, who, by business methods and practical expedients, seek to realise materially the ends and ideals of the governed. But that which ultimately provides the ends and ideals of any people, and thus regulates from outside the scope of statesmanship, without interfering in its methods and internal economy, is religion. Therefore, the State is, as it were, the adjutant, the bailiff of religion, the general manager of mysticism. It receives its highest ideals from across the religious borderland. ”

“ It has been argued that the religion of the country is likely to become a deeper and more serious feeling as the sphere of State action increases, as the State shows itself more beneficent in its aims than a good king, more effectively moral than the Churches, and more comprehensive and human than King or Church, aristocratic caste or guild of associated workmen. ”

“ In order to determine whether the government entanglement with religion is excessive, we must examine the character and purposes of the institutions that are benefited, the nature of the aid that the State provides, and the resulting relationship between the government and the religious authority. ”

“ Why, then, we now come to ask, should the governing body in a state profess a religion? First, because it is composed of individual men; and they, being appointed to act in a definite moral capacity, must sanctify their acts done in that capacity by the offices of religion; inasmuch as the acts cannot otherwise be acceptable to God, or any thing but sinful and punishable in themselves. And whenever we turn our face away from God in our conduct, we are living atheistically.... In fulfilment, then, of his obligations as an individual, the statesman must be a worshipping man. ”

“ 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; and therefore all men have an equal, natural, and unalienable right to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience, and that no particular religious sect or society ought to be favored or established, by law, in preference to others. ”

“ Now if men were to engage in religion as in politics, commerce, arts; if the absolute religion, the Christianity of Christ, were applied to life with all the might of this age, as the Christianity of the church was then applied, what a result should we not behold! We should build up a great state with unity in the nation, and freedom in the people ”

“ It is that the church and religion shall live both within and upon that freedom. There cannot be freedom of religion, safeguarded by the state, and intervention by the church or its agencies in the state's domain or dependency on its largesse. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Granted that religion is an essential element in education, who is the proper authority to inculcate it? Clearly not the state, for, in our theory of government, the state knows no religion, nor under any pretence can it lay claim to any apostolic authority to preach and teach the Gospel to the nations. ”

“ Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between church and State. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Be it therefore enabled by the General Assembly, That no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities. ”

“ As they built this country, our Founders understood that religion helps strengthen our Nation when it is not an extension of the State. And because our Government does not sponsor a religion—nor pressure anyone to practice a particular faith or any faith at all—we have a culture that aims to ensure people of all backgrounds and beliefs can freely and proudly worship without fear or coercion. ”

“ There is not, there cannot be, a State without religion. Take the freest States in the world—the United States of America or the Swiss Confederation, for instance—and see what an important part is played in all official discourses by divine Providence, that supreme sanction of all States. ”

“ Christianity, by starting religion as an independent moral association altogether separate from the State, at once purified the sphere of the Church from corrupting elements, and confined the State within those bounds which the nature of a civic administration furnishes. Religion in this way was purified and elevated, because in its nicely segregated sphere no secular considerations of any kind could interfere to tone down its ideal, direct its current, or lame its efficiency ”

“ This is the principle on which all national establishments of religion were originally formed. The state thought proper to secure a permanency of religion, that religion might secure the safety of the state; because it was supposed from the general aversion of men from good, that, if left to themselves, they would have no religion at all. ”

“ 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 ”

“ But the free exercise of religion is not restrained by aiding, with equal attention, the votaries of every sect to perform their own religious duties, or by establishing funds for the support of ministers, for public charities, for the endowment of churches, or for the sepulture of the dead. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Now, all State institutions, as I also before maintained, act solely on the substance of the doctrines in a greater or less degree; whilst as regards the form of their acceptance by the individual, the channels of influence are wholly closed to any political agency. The way in which religion springs up in the human heart, and the way in which it is received in each case, depend entirely on the whole manner of the man's existence—the whole system of his thoughts and sensations. But, if the State were able to remodel these according to its views (a possibility which we can hardly conceive) ”

“ and that they mainly attributed the peaceful dominion of religion in their country to the separation of Church and State. I do not hesitate to affirm that during my stay in America I did not meet with a single individual, of the clergy or of the laity, who was not of the same opinion upon this point. ”

“ If it is true that the supremacy of the church over the state disturbs the peace of nations and endangers the very existence of governments, it is equally certain that no religion can long continue to maintain its purity when the church becomes the subservient vassal of the state. ”

“ Where Church and State are habitually associated, it is natural that minds even of a high order should unconsciously come to regard religion as only a subtler mode of police. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The Value of Religion in Politics
The American Church, which imposes no creed but the creed of the Republic, which knows no lines of division—sectarian, political, or territorial—but which seeks the well-being of the individual and the fellowship of all true citizens, will soon wield an immense influence in matters political. It will discuss great ethical questions; it will carry conscientiousness and independence into political action; it will dissipate the weak heresy that Christians are not to take part in national affairs. ”

“ In keeping with this fact it is found that in those countries where the greatest changes and modifications of government and occupation have occurred, there have the religions undergone the greatest modification to fit the new order of things. If it were the religion that determined the matter, civilization and morals would be immovable, and legislation would revolve around, the guidance of the Church. ”

“ We demand that all laws looking to the enforcement of “Christian” morality shall be abrogated, and that all laws shall be conformed to the requirements of natural morality, equal rights, and impartial liberty.
9. We demand that not only in the constitutions of the United States and of the several States, but also in the practical administration of the same, no privileges or advantage shall be conceded to Christianity or any other special religion; that our entire political system shall be founded and administered on a purely secular basis ”

“ Faith is everywhere the support of the laws and the constitution, the foundation, therefore, of the social fabric, which could hardly hold together at all if religion did not lend weight to the authority of government and the dignity of the ruler. ”

“ Let any party in the Church universal advocate the divine institution of their own form of government. But I do not believe that any particular form of government is laid down in the Bible; and yet I admit that church government is as essential and fundamental a matter as a worldly government. Government, then, must be in both Church and State. This is recognized in the Scriptures. No institution or State can live without it. Men are exhorted by apostles to obey it, as a Christian duty. ”

“ A truly wise and equitable government, so far from coalescing with the priesthood of any religion or superstition for mutual support against the justice of equal rights, would not allow itself to know anything whatever about theology and its train of distracting, misery-creating delusions. ”

“ It seems to petrify or congeal national life, placing each individual in the position of a member of a pure theocracy, rather than in that of a patriotic citizen of a country, or member of a nationality. In these States law, government and social customs have no existence apart from religion, and, indeed, they grow out of it. ”