RELIGIOUS FREEDOM AND THE FIRST AMENDMENT

There are today several ominous movements going on in America and in the Western world, for the most part undetected by Christians, which I think portend great evil for the Church unless we understand them and do something about them. There is, first of all, a tremendous change that is coming about in the relationship of the Church and the state of America …. We have today, dominant in this country and accepted by 99% of the people, a view of the relationship of church and state which is almost diametrically opposite to that which was tallght by the founding fathers of this country and which was expressed in the First Amendment of our Constitution. Yet, how many people are aware of that. If it goes unchecked much further it will, as it is beginning to do right now, bring about the destruction of the liberties of Christians in this land!

Does the First Amendment teach the separation of church and state? I venture to say that 95% of the people in America today have been brainwashed into the place where they would say, “Yes.” But it does not! I think it is vital that we understand what the First Amendment to the Constitution says, becallse the relationship between these two “kingdoms” has been a long and difficult one. The founding fathers of this country, I think, resolved that question in a marvelous way but it is being completely destroyed in our time — and most people are not even aware of it. The First Amendment states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Question: What does that say about what the Church can or cannot do? What does that say about what a Christian citizen should or should not do? Absolutely nothing! It says, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” It says nothing about the Church! The First Amendment teaches the separation of the state from the Church. Well, where did we get this idea of a “wall of separation between Church and state?” That does not come out of the First Amendment. That comes from a private letter written by Thomas Jefferson in 1802 to the Danbury Baptists in Connecticut. He said, there should be “a wall of separation between Church and state.” Now, what is the difference between that and the First Amendment?

Our religious liberties depend on a proper perception of the difference between those two things. The First Amendment is a one way street. It restrains the Federal government. The Bill of Rights was written to restrain the Federal government from interfering with the liberties of the people, becallse they were afraid that the people of this new country would not accept the new Constitution unless the rights of the people were further defined and protected. “A wall of separation,” on the other hand, is most emphatically a two way street. It prohibits and restrains those on one side of the wall equally as much as it restrains those on the other side of the wall. Now we have a two way street. But in the last several decades what has been happening? It has been turned around until now we again have virtually a one way street moving in the opposite direction, so that 98% of the time in the last year (ask yourself if this is not true) when you heard the phrase “separation of Church and state” what was being discussed was: What the Church shall or shall not do. Now the Federal government is unshackling itself from the First Amendment, and the shackles are being put on the Church! Our freedoms are in grave jeopardy today.

Another ominous tendency is seen in the silent legal revolution going on in the Western world today. How many times have you heard it said that you can’t legislate morality? Like the separation of church and state, I am sure that the vast majority of Americans would say to that statement, “Of course you can’t! “ But I would simply like to ask this question, “If you can’t legislate morality, pray, tell me what can you legislate?” Immorality? The fact of the matter is that you cannot legislate anything but morality! We have laws against murder becallse it is immoral to murder; we have laws against stealing becallse it is immoral to steal; we have laws against rape becallse it is immoral to rape. This country’s legislative enactments were founded incontrover-tibly upon the Judeo-Christian ethic of the founding fathers of this country. Even Thomas Jefferson, who certainly was the least evangelical of the founders of this country, said in his Charter for the University of Virginia, that the proofs for God as the sovereign Lord and Creator and Ruler of this world and of the moral requirements and obligations which flow from that, must be tallght to all students. The legislation of this country was based upon Christian morality as revealed in the Word of God. This is where we derived our morality.

However, for the last four decades we have seen in this nation that Christian morality is slowly being replaced by the secular humanist morality as the foundation for legislative enactments. When that substitution is complete you will find yourself living in an America very alien from anything that you have known. When all of their so-called ethical agenda has successfully been transformed into legislation this will be a different country than ever it was before. Such things as abortion (and you might consider the degree of success which they have already had), infanticide, homosexuality, free divorce, euthanasia, gambling, pornography, and suicide are simply a portion of the ethical agenda of the secular humanist, along with the total complete removal of every single public vestige of Christian faith and religion and belief in God that has made this country great. That is their agenda and they are eagerly and determinately and assidiously engaged in enacting it as the foundation of this country’s legislation under the false teaching that the government of the United States is supposed to be neutral concerning God. They are taking the concept that we are not to have an established Church and moving from that to the concept that the government is neutral concerning God.

That is a concept which is worse than heathenism becallse even heathenism is based upon the belief in some deity! All government is based upon some religious or anti-religious system. What that means for us today, I think, is a very serious matter. This nation was never meant to be neutral toward God. James Madison, who wrote the Constitution, said that we cannot govern without God and the Ten Commandments. Now the Supreme Court, in its great wisdom, has said that the Ten Commandments cannot be put up on the walls of the schools of Kentucky — yet they are carved on the walls of the Supreme Court building! And the man who wrote the Constitution that they are interpreting, said that we cannot govern without them!

George Washington said it would be impossible to govern without God and the Bible. The founders of this nation never intended for this to be a nation which was neutral toward God. They did not hesitate to call upon God. They did not hesitate to mention God in their public utterances and in public buildings. They did not hesitate at all to make mention of Him or offer thanksgiving to Him for His goodness and providence; or to set aside special days of praise and prayer and thanksgiving to God, or establish chaplaincies for the Senate and House of Representatives and the Armed Services.

Now we are moving irresistibly toward the Soviet-Communist concept of separation of Church and state, and that is very dangerous. The Soviets pride themselves on the fact that they believe in the separation of Church and state, and America is moving rapidly to adopt their view. What is their view? It is simply this: the Church is free to do anything that the government is not engaged in — and the government is engaged in almost everything! Therefore, the Church is free to stay within its four walls, pray, and sing hymns, and if it does anything else, it is in trouble.

Humanism is a religion. This is declared nine times in the Humanist Manifesto of 1933, and in the second Humanist Manifesto in 1973. It is declared repeatedly that it is a religion. The dictionary declares it to be a religion. The secular humanists declare it to be a religion. The Supreme Court in “Torcaso v. Watkins” has declared that secular humanism is one of the several non-theistic religions operating in this country. You don’t have to believe in God to have a religion. Buddhism is non-theistic, as is Taoism, as is ethical culturism — these are some non-theistic religions, according to the Supreme Court. Yet secular humanism with its tenets of atheism, evolution, amorality, socialism, and one world government, is tallght in virtually all the public schools of this country. Therefore, secular humanism has become an established religion in this country over the last several decades, primarily through the work of such men as John Dewey and other signers of the secular Humanist Manifesto. It has become the established religion of America. Last year $31 billion plus was spent by the Federal government on our public educational system with its establishment of the religion of secular humanism. The Supreme Court has declared that our schools cannot teach any religion, yet the same Supreme Court has declared that secular humanism is a religion!

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