I hope you had a happy Fourth of July! I love that day – Independence Day. My most recent Fourth was unusually quiet. Most of it was celebrated via television, but was nonetheless exceptionally meaningful – enjoying the sounds of the Boston Pops, the National Symphony Orchestra, as well as Reba McEntire and other musicians, and the sights of fireworks exploding over the Potomac and the harbors of New York and Boston.
Throughout the holiday, I kept thinking about a challenging comment from one of our founders. According to reliable historical records, when Benjamin Franklin left Independence Hall on the final day of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, a woman asked aloud, “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” Franklin replied, “A republic, if you can keep it.”
What have I done to help keep it? I asked myself on the anniversary of our nation’s birth. The question requires careful thought and honest reflection – from all of us. It sent me on an excursion, which I’d like to share with you:
On and off during the Fourth of July, by way of my imagination, I inserted myself into some of the critical moments in the history of our nation to muse over my likely reactions to serious challenges to freedom.
As I imagined myself as a member of the Constitutional Convention, I thought of the disappointment that I would have felt. Neighbors with whom I shared my beliefs in England, where we were all part of a religious minority, were now a majority in this new land. And, they had changed. As a member of a congregation in the Free Church tradition, I was still a minority. Those neighbors in the Church of England were now treating me the same way they had been treated when their beliefs were in the minority. Why, they wanted my pastor to pay a tax to preach and they had thrown him in jail when he refused. Will religious freedom always be only a guarantee for the majority?
I was so grateful that I could vote for a secular government that did not base civil and religious rights on a particular religion. The guarantee was for everybody, regardless of religious affiliation or the lack of one.
At other times in my imaginary race through American history, I smiled, though I felt shame, at how political leaders in the nation had bargained with God from time to time – placing “In God We Trust” on coins as a means of pleading with God to end the Civil War (as if anyone’s conception of God had started it!) and later assuring the same words would appear on paper money as well as a means of rejecting “godless Communism” and asking God to help our nation.
Similarly, President Eisenhower signed into law an order to insert the words “under God” right after “one nation” in the Pledge of Allegiance to the American Flag. Many of my friends celebrated this act as a great victory for Christianity. However, Eisenhower had said he thought religion was important in the nation but he didn’t care what kind of religion it was. The “God” he inserted into the pledge had no affiliation with any one God believed in by man.
I felt discomfort reading attempts to pass a “Christian amendment” to the Constitution. Why did the majority religion in the nation want to verify its power by securing affirmation for it in a political document? Thankfully, all three major attempts at this amendment failed. In fact, in 1957, the last time it came up in Congress, the proposed amendment never even made it out of committee for a vote.
I would have voted against all of these proposed changes – not in spite of my faith, but because of my faith. Religion’s best friend is freedom. Entanglement with government is a venture into bondage – compromising religion and robbing democracy of its vitality.
Revisiting history deepens the amazement with which I read the Constitution and its earliest amendments. Something almost inexplicable happened in the formation of our government that likely could not have been repeated under any other circumstances. Together the architects of the United States reached beyond the furthest reach of any one of them individually. They transcended prejudices to establish a staggering guarantee of rights, liberties, and justice. Knowing full well the dangers of free speech, they insisted on it – even for those speaking truths they could not accept. Having known firsthand the revolution that can come from public gatherings, they voted to establish freedom for public assemblies. Well aware of the dangers of entanglement between the institutions of religion and government, even those skeptical about religion provided independence for religion through a secular government. As people who had been in a harshly criticized minority in another land who now knew the power of being a part of a majority in this land, the founders bucked the historic tendency of minorities who become a majority and demanded rights – equal rights – for every minority belief in this new nation.
Could this same set of freedoms be created today? I see no reason to believe it could.
Today, security seems more important than liberty. Government-subsidized religion strikes many people as more important than fidelity to the Constitution. Incredibly, fair trials no longer seem essential if people are thought to be terrorists. A presumption of innocent until proven guilty has replaced our national bias for justice. Freedom for the press is reeling under the pressure of government officials who want to use the press to advance their policies and religious beliefs, as well as political leaders who condemn the press for stirring controversial conversations that challenge their convictions and authority. Reality sends a shudder down my spine.
When I went to bed on the evening of July 4, 2010, I felt a recommitment to the work of Interfaith Alliance and our mission of strengthening freedom. Particularly our First Freedom, religious freedom – a cornerstone for all freedoms and rights. Passion intermingled with reason to move certain assumptions to the status of convictions:
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A secular state best serves the independence of both religion and government and prevents an entanglement that compromises the integrity of religion and the vitality of democracy, often resulting in rights only for a few and an assault on freedom that affects everyone.
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Neither freedom nor rights should ever be taken for granted. Both are always subject to abuse or loss as a result of a rogue majority with an undue sense of privilege, an imperial sense of religious conquest aimed at taking over the nation, and greed-based behavior that vigorously claims rights for itself but totally ignores rights for others.
- Vigilance and activism best strengthen and protect freedom and rights.
It is a great privilege to live in this land as a beneficiary of guarantees written into a Constitution that likely could not be adopted today. We have this one opportunity to enjoy a liberal government characterized by a commitment to fairness, justice, freedom and civil rights for everybody. If we don’t preserve it now – “keep it,” as Dr. Franklin said – it is unlikely that we will ever have an opportunity to get it back.
I am grateful for your support that allows Interfaith Alliance to work on your behalf to preserve and strengthen our government’s commitment to providing freedom and rights for all people regardless of their majority/minority status, whether viewed from the perspective of economics, gender, politics, ethnicity or religion. Thank you for all that you do, and please join me in saying, “We’re trying, Dr. Franklin, we’re trying!”
