Expert: Ed Buckner - 4/21/2008

Question
Dr. Buckner,
I am currently enrolled at Pattonville High School in St. Louis, Missouri and am charged with writing a research paper on what the founding fathers really intended with their thoughts on separation of church and state.  For my research paper, I am required to interview two experts in this field and after reading your profile, you quickly became the first person on my list.  I have read a very similar question that had been posed to you in 2006, and my questions are very similar:

1. Many of the founding fathers made statements concerning the intercourse of religion and government.  What do you believe the founding fathers intended with their comments (focusing primarily on Jefferson and Madison, but feel free to talk about others)

2. Would you say that society today has given a completely different meaning to the founding fathers' statements? (Please explain why or why not)

3. If you believe that society has given an unintended meaning, what can and/or should be done to rectify the situation?

I can state now that if I use your response in my paper, I both cite you and use only direct quotations.  I can also state that I will send you, by email, a copy of my completed paper.

Thank you for your help,
Dakota Jones

Answer
Dear Dakota Jones,

Thank you--and thanks as well for your assurance that you will properly cite your sources and that you will send me a copy of your paper. (Send it, please, to ed@buckners.us --I look forward to it.)

It would quite literally take a book to do justice to your questions and similar ones that I hear all the time (and my son and I are at work on just such a book now.) In the meantime, I'll give you short answers (below) and recommend these excellent books for now:

Why the Religious Right is Wrong About Separation of Church and State by
Rob Boston (Prometheus books, 1993).

The godless Constitution: the case against religious correctness, Norton,
1997.

Quotations That Support the Separation of State and Church, 2nd Ed.,
edited/compiled by Edward M. (yes that's me) and Michael E. (my son)
Buckner, Freethought Press (see www.atlantafreethought.org to order), 1995.

1. Many of the founding fathers made statements concerning the intercourse of religion and government.  What do you believe the founding fathers intended with their comments (focusing primarily on Jefferson and Madison, but feel free to talk about others)

As you probably realize, the founding fathers varied widely in their attitudes towards religion and towards the relationship of government and religion. Many were religious, more or less; some were deists or what today would be called Unitarians, but many were at least nominally Christian. Some, like Patrick Henry of Virginia, wanted government to use tax money to support religion, often preferring a "multiple establishment"--meaning using tax dollars to support various churches or religions (generally only Protestant Christian ones). This is approximately the arrangement in Germany even today. But most founders, certainly including Jefferson and Madison, strongly opposed entanglements between church and state, believing that religious liberty can only be securely protected by keeping them separate. Madison, the "father of the Constitution," wrote "And I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in shewing that religion & Govt will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together."  (James Madison, letter to Edward Livingston, July 10, 1822;  published in The Complete Madison: His Basic Writings, ed. by Saul K. Padover, New York: Harper & Bros., 1953.)

And Jefferson wrote, "The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others.  But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god.  It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg."  (Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, 1782.  From Merrill D. Peterson, ed., Thomas Jefferson: Writings, New York: The Library of America, 1984, p. 285.)

Both men repeatedly expressed strong support for the idea that governments should not make religious decisions for citizens. And the majority of the founding fathers agreed with them, as the Constitution and the First Amendment plainly demonstrate.

2. Would you say that society today has given a completely different meaning to the founding fathers' statements? (Please explain why or why not)

"Society today" is too broad to allow for an intelligent or appropriate answer. Organizations like Americans United for Separation of Church and State or the ACLU or the Joint Baptist Committee (and many others--an internet search or a library for US separation of church and state will produce hundreds of sources) have it right. But many others, most often including demagogic, greedy politicians or unthinking TV preachers, misinterpret and abuse the concepts, saying (incorrectly) that separation is anti-Christian, etc.

3. If you believe that society has given an unintended meaning, what can and/or should be done to rectify the situation?

Education is the only answer: books, web-sites, letters to the editor, fine organizations working hard--all of this and more is needed, but education must be undertaken and supported.

Regards,

Ed Buckner