Henry VIII was disturbed that the Pope wouldn’t allow him to divorce the Queen. He wanted a natural heir to the throne and believed that as the supreme monarch of England, he had the right, indeed the duty, to produce a successor. So, Henry did want any crazed ruler would do. He pulled the English church from under the Papal umbrella and created the Church of England, the Anglican Church. With generous crown subsidies, the Church of England became an extension of the British crown, and church and state were intertwined in the affairs of the people. Blasphemy became a crime against the state as well as a violation of church canon. The admonition of Jesus to “render unto Caesar” had become blurred because of the indistinguishable differences between church and state concerns.
Fast forward to the early Nineteenth Century when the Danbury Baptist Association from Connecticut wrote to President Thomas Jefferson and inquired about the nature of their relationship with the federal and state governments as outlined in the Constitution. Although Jefferson had not been an instrumental player in the drafting and ratification of the governing document, he replied to the Baptists that, in his view, the Constitution expressly forbade the government’s interference in the affairs of the church because of a “wall of separation.” In essence, Jefferson appeared to believe that the reason for the “freedom of religion and expression” clause in the Constitution was to prevent the formation of a state-sanctioned church similar to the Church of England. The Baptists were fearful that “unapproved” doctrines or churches might be thwarted, but Jefferson sought to assure them that anticipated role of government was to be one of tolerant indifference rather that one of endorsement or hostility.
As we have noted, the role of the federal government as designed by the Founders has been distorted in many different ways. One of the most egregious perversions of original intent has been the relationship between the government (state) and the believing community (church). The role of the federal government has been transformed from a “hands-off” detachment to one of active hostility. At the same time that the federal government’s anti-religious posture has expanded, the power and self-determining rights of localities have been severely undermined too. The power of federal pronouncements and court decisions has been extended to the states and local jurisdictions. The hostility has been ramped up to the point that a local county is forbidden to display the Ten Commandments in or on its courthouse. According to religious tradition, the Ten Commandments were given by God to Moses and were to be the personal and societal foundation for the people of God. Three of the largest bodies of faith in the world (Judaism, Islam and Christianity) honor Moses and his relationship with God as integral elements of their traditions of faith.
The federal interference in matters of faith and issues of local control are symbolic of the overreaching and oppressive facets of the Too Big Unconstitutional Government. The First Amendment, the Ninth Amendment and the Tenth Amendment are blatantly disregarded as the Nanny State enforces its will. The federal government does not have the constitutional authority, the moral imperative or the popular support to willy-nilly discard critical portions of the Constitution that it does not like. The Feds do not have the authority to implement the desires of the ACLU and other discontented fringe groups by trashing the Constitution. In matters of faith and local control it seems obvious that citizens must become “dumpster divers” in order to retrieve, restore and re-implement the principles of Constitutional government as designed some two and a quarter centuries ago. The biggest obstacle is that the government has the guns…the big ones.
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