Oct 26, 2023 - MeidasTouch
Democratic Congressman Maxwell Frost called out Lauren Boebert for denying the separation of church and state and calling the Constitution “junk.” Francis Maxwell reports.
Not that we haven’t been warned:
Now, here we are,
Mike Johnson’s Christian nationalist track record isn’t a mystery — it’s a tragedy - Oct. 25, 2023, 4:59 PM MDT
The new speaker cut his teeth trying to erode the separation of church and state and abortion and LGBTQ rights as a lawyer for the Alliance Defense Fund.
Americans United for Separation of Church and State is a nonpartisan, not-for-profit educational and advocacy organization that brings together people of all religions and none to protect the right of everyone to believe as they want — and stop anyone from using their beliefs to harm others. We fight in the courts, legislatures, and the public square for freedom without favor and equality without exception.
The first clause in the Bill of Rights states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” …
‘Separation of church and state’ metaphor rooted in early American fears of government involvement
Roger Williams, founder of Rhode Island, was the first public official to use this metaphor. He opined that an authentic Christian church would be possible only if there was “a wall or hedge of separation” between the “wilderness of the world” and “the garden of the church.” Williams believed that any government involvement in the church would corrupt the church.
The most famous use of the metaphor was by Thomas Jefferson in his 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptist Association. In it, Jefferson declared that when the American people adopted the establishment clause they built a “wall of separation between the church and state.”
Jefferson had earlier witnessed the turmoil of the American colonists as they struggled to combine governance with religious expression. Some colonies experimented with religious freedom while others strongly supported an established church. …
… The creation of the United States, with its Declaration of Independence, Constitution and Bill of Rights may be the single greatest achievement of the Enlightenment. In his book, Empire of Reason, the historian Henry Steele Commager argued that Europe imagined enlightened republics, but it was the United States that made that vision happen. In fact, the United States was born at the highwater mark of the Enlightenment, a period of self-conscious skepticism about the divinity of Jesus and about how much of the Bible, if any, to take literally. If the U.S. had been born 50 years earlier or 50 years later, it is likely that the fundamental American documents would have been more overtly religious.
The 1787 Constitution of the United States never mentions God, the Creator, providence, Jesus, any church denomination or salvation. It is an entirely secular document, followed by the Bill of Rights, which further secularizes American civilization.
Many, though not by any means all, of the Founding Fathers were Deists. They believed in a God-created world, but they regarded “the Creator,” as Jefferson liked to call that being, as an omnipotent celestial mechanic (or clockmaker) who created everything — the solar system, the stars, the planets, and of course, the Earth and all its creatures. The Deist God regarded all his creation with general benevolence, but he did not interfere in the affairs of humankind. There was, in short, no one to pray to, because this celestial physicist did not interfere in the lives of his creatures. …
