Faith is not faith without believing. No man can conform his faith to the dictates of another. The life and essence of religion consists in the internal persuasion or belief of the mind. External forms of worship, when against our belief are hypocrisy and impiety.
Truth will do well enough if left to shift for herself. She seldom has received much aid from the power of great men to whom she is rarely known and seldom welcome. She has no need of force to procure entrance into the minds of men. Error has indeed often prevailed by the assistance of power or force. Truth is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error.
Encyclical of POPE GREGORY XVI (on Liberalism and Religious
Indifferentism)
August 15, 1832
This shameful font of indifferentism gives rise to that absurd and erroneous proposition which claims that liberty of conscience must be maintained for everyone. It spreads ruin in sacred and civil affairs, though some repeat over and over again with the greatest impudence that some advantage accrues to religion from it.
Here We must include that harmful and never sufficiently denounced freedom to publish any writings whatever and disseminate them to the people, which some dare to demand and promote with so great a clamor.
"We must fight valiantly", Clement XIII says in an encyclical letter about the banning of bad books, "as much as the matter itself demands and must exterminate the deadly poison of so many books; for never will the material for error be withdrawn, unless the criminal sources of depravity perish in flames"
Nor can We predict happier times for religion and government from the plans of those who desire vehemently to separate the Church from the state, and to break the mutual concord between temporal authority and the priesthood. It is certain that that concord which always was favorable and beneficial for the sacred and the civil order is feared by the shameless lovers of liberty.
It is a fundamental human right, a privilege of nature, that every man should
worship according to his own convictions.
It is assuredly no part of religion
to compel religion - to which free-will and not force should lead us.
-
Tertullian, To Scapula (3rd C)
The Religious Liberty clauses of the First Amendment to the Constitution are a momentous decision, the most important political decision for religious liberty and public justice in history. Two hundred years after their enactment they stand out boldly in a century made dark by state repression and sectarian conflict. Yet the ignorance and contention now surrounding the clauses are a reminder that their advocacy and defense is a task for each succeeding generation.
No threat to freedom of conscience and religious liberty has historically been greater than the coercions of both Church and State. These two institutions - the one religious, the other political - have through the centuries succumbed to the temptation of coercion in their claims, over minds and souls. When these institutions and their claims have been combined, it has too often resulted in terrible violations of human liberty and dignity. They are so combined when the sword and purse of the State are in the hands of the Church, or when the State usurps the mantle of the Church so as to coerce the conscience and compel belief.
Similarly, the modern persecutor of religion is but ancient tyrant with more refined instruments of control. Moreover, many of the greatest crimes against conscience of this century have been committed, not by religious authorities, but by ideologues virulently opposed to traditional religion.
History plainly shows that with religious control over government, political freedom dies; with political control over religion, religious freedom dies.
Yet whether ancient or modern, issuing from religion or ideology, the result is the same: religious and ideological orthodoxies, when politically established, lead only too naturally toward what Roger Williams called a "spiritual rape" that coerces the conscience and produces "rivers of civil blood" that stain the record of human history.
The Religious Liberty clauses are a brilliant construct in which both No establishment and Free exercise serve the ends of religious liberty and freedom of conscience. No longer can sword, purse and sacred mantle be equated. Now, the government is barred from using religion's mantle to become a confessional State, and from allowing religion to use the government's sword and purse to become a coercing Church. In this new order, the freedom of the government from religious control and the freedom of religion from government control are a double guarantee of the protection of rights. No faith is preferred or prohibited, for where there is no state-definable orthodoxy, there can be no state-punishable heresy.
Their [the Founders'] task was to defy the past, seeing and securing religious liberty against the terrible precedents of history. Ours is to challenge the future, sustaining vigilance and broadening protections against every new menace, including that of our own complacency.
Condemn no man for not thinking as you think. Let every one enjoy the full
and free liberty of thinking for himself. Abhor every approach, in any kind or
degree, to the spirit of persecution.
- John Wesley
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 legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people, 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. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.
The Religion then of every man must be left to the conviction and conscience of every man; and it is the right of every man to exercise it as these may dictate. This right is in its nature an unalienable right ....
We maintain therefore that in matters of Religion, no man's right is abridged by the institution of Civil Society and that Religion is wholly exempt from its cognizance. True it is, that no other rule exists, by which any question which may divide a Society, can be ultimately determined, but the will of the majority; but it is also true that the majority may trespass on the rights of the minority.
Because Religion be exempt from the authority of the Society at large, still less can it be subject to that of the Legislative Body. The latter are but the creatures and vicegerents of the former. Their jurisdiction is both derivative and limited: it is limited with regard to the co-ordinate departments, more necessarily is it limited with regard to the constituents. The preservation of a free Government requires not merely, that the metes and bounds which separate each department of power [executive, legislative and judicial] be invariably maintained; but more especially that neither of them be suffered to overleap the great Barrier which defends the rights of the people. The Rulers who are guilty of such an encroachment, exceed the commission from which they derive their authority, and are Tyrants. The People who submit to it are governed by laws made neither by themselves nor by an authority derived from them, and are slaves.
Religious liberty finally depends on neither the favors of the state and its officials nor the vagaries of tyrants or majorities. Religious liberty in a democracy is a right that may not be submitted to vote and depends upon the outcome of no election. A society is only as just and free as it is respectful of this right, especially towards the beliefs of its smallest minorities and least popular communities.
The right to freedom of conscience is premised not upon science, nor upon
social utility, nor upon pride of species. Rather, it is premised upon the
inviolable dignity of the human person. It is the foundation of, and is
integrally related to, all other rights and freedoms ....
- James Madison,
1785
The Constitution of the United States is a law for rulers and people, equally in war and in peace, and covers with the shield of its protection all classes of men, at all times, and under all circumstances.
No doctrine, involving more pernicious consequences, was ever invented by the wit of man than that any of its provisions can be suspended during any of the great exigencies of government. Such a doctrine leads directly to anarchy or despotism, but the theory of necessity on which it is based is false; for the government, within the Constitution, has all the powers granted to it, which are necessary to preserve its existence.
- An excerpt from an opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States
rendered at the time of the Civil War.
Ex Parte Milligan, (1866)
Our reliance is in the love of liberty which God has planted in us. Our
defense is in the spirit which prized liberty as the heritage of all men, in all
lands everywhere.
- Abraham Lincoln
The magistrate is not to meddle with religion, or matters of conscience, nor compel men to this or that form of religion; because Christ is the King and Lawgiver of the Church and Conscience.
Thomas Jefferson's Draft Bill for Religious Freedom (Proposed in 1777)
SECTION I.
WELL aware that the opinions and belief of men depend not on
their own will, but follow involuntarily the evidence proposed to their minds;
that Almighty God hath created the mind free, and manifested his supreme will
that free it shall remain by making it altogether insusceptible of restraint;
that all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments, or burthens, or by
civil incapacitations, tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and
are a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, who being lord
both of body and mind, yet chose not to propagate it by coercions on either, as
was in his Almighty power to do, but to exalt it by its influence on reason
alone; that the impious presumption of legislators and rulers, civil as well as
ecclesiastical, who, being themselves but fallible and uninspired men, have
assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and
modes of thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such endeavouring to
impose them on others, hath established and maintained false religions over the
greatest part of the world and through all time: That to compel a man to furnish
contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and
abhors, is sinful and tyrannical; that even the forcing him to support this or
that teacher of his own religious persuasion, is depriving him of the
comfortable liberty of giving his contributions to the particular pastor whose
morals he would make his pattern, and whose powers he feels most persuasive to
righteousness; and is withdrawing from the ministry those temporary rewards,
which proceeding from an approbation of their personal conduct, are an
additional incitement to earnest and unremitting labours for the instruction of
mankind; that our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions, any
more than our opinions in physics or geometry; that therefore the proscribing
any citizen as unworthy the public confidence by laying upon him an incapacity
of being called to offices of trust and emolument, unless he profess or renounce
this or that religious opinion, is depriving him injuriously of those privileges
and advantages to which, in common with his fellow citizens, he has a natural
right; that it tends also to corrupt the principles of that very religion it is
meant to encourage, by bribing, with a monopoly of worldly honours and
emoluments, those who will externally profess and conform to it; that though
indeed these are criminal who do not withstand such temptation, yet neither are
those innocent who lay the bait in their way; that the opinions of men are not
the object of civil government, nor under its jurisdiction; that to suffer the
civil magistrate to intrude his powers into the field of opinion and to restrain
the profession or propagation of principles on supposition of their ill tendency
is a dangerous fallacy, which at once destroys all religious liberty, because he
being of course judge of that tendency will make his opinions the rule of
judgment, and approve or condemn the sentiments of others only as they shall
square with or differ from his own; that it is time enough for the rightful
purposes of civil government for its officers to interfere when principles break
out into overt acts against peace and good order; and finally, that truth is
great and will prevail if left to herself; that she is the proper and sufficient
antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict unless by human
interposition disarmed of her natural weapons, free argument and debate; errors
ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them.
SECTION II.
WE the [BE it therefore enacted by the]* General Assembly of
Virginia do enact 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.
SECTION III.
AND though we well know that this Assembly, elected by the
people for the ordinary purposes of legislation only, have no power to restrain
the acts of succeeding Assemblies, constituted with powers equal to our own, and
that therefore to declare this act irrevocable would be of no effect in law; yet
we are free to declare, and do declare, that the rights hereby asserted are of
the natural rights of mankind, and that if any act shall be hereafter passed to
repeal the present or to narrow its operation, such act will be an infringement
of natural right.
* Jefferson's bill on religious freedom was enacted into Virginia law in 1785 with minor revision (the text above in italics was deleted, and the text in brackets was added in the final version).
Roger Williams (July 15, 1644)
God requireth not a uniformity of religion to be enacted and enforced in any civil state; which enforced uniformity (sooner or later) is the greatest occasion of civil war, ravishing of conscience, persecution of Christ Jesus in his servants, and of the hypocrisy and destruction of millions of souls.
TRUTH.
I acknowledge that to molest any person, for either professing
doctrine, or practicing worship merely religious or spiritual, it is to
persecute him, and such a person (whatever his doctrine or practice be, true or
false) suffereth persecution for conscience.
But withal I desire it may be well observed that this distinction is not full and complete: for beside this that a man may be persecuted because he holds or practices what he believes in conscience to be a truth (as Daniel did, for which he was cast into the lions' den, Dan. 6), and many thousands of Christians, because they durst not cease to preach and practice what they believed was by God commanded, as the Apostles answered (Acts 4 & 5), I say besides this a man may also be persecuted, because he dares not be constrained to yield obedience to such doctrines and worships as are by men invented and appointed....
(...)
PEACE. I add that a civil sword (as woeful experience in all ages has proved) is so far from bringing or helping forward an opposite in religion to repentance that magistrates sin grievously against the work of God and blood of souls by such proceedings.... So, secondly, violence and a sword of steel begets such an impression in the sufferers that certainly they conclude (as indeed that religion cannot be true which needs such instruments of violence to uphold it so) that persecutors are far from soft and gentle commiseration of the blindness of others....
(...)
...The God of Peace, the God of Truth will shortly seal this truth, and confirm this witness, and make it evident to the whole world, that the doctrine of persecution for cause of conscience, is most evidently and lamentably contrary to the doctrine of Christ Jesus the Prince of Peace.
Amen.
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania
November 19, 1863
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But in a larger sense we can not dedicate - we can not consecrate - we can not hallow - this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.
It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us - that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
- Abraham Lincoln
Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of
religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of
speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and
to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
* 1787 Constitution was framed. 1791 Bill of Rights added.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.
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