The Outstater
Beckwith Is Right
SOMEHOW, the Declaration of Independence has become controversial once more. When written, of course, it was highly so, laying out the rationale for a people to break free from what was then the default — an oppressive king and a state religion.
But we had assumed — wrongly, it seems — that the Founder’s point had been proven by now, specifically that men should be free to worship as they please, a post-Enlightenment sort of idea. For freedom to worship (a good thing) is quite different from a state religion (a bad thing), a distinction lost somewhere along the way.
In any case, Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith had to argue it anew at a town meeting last week in Zionsville. He reportedly was met with boos and groans during a talk in which he asserted that “separation of church and state” was misunderstood, that America was founded on Christian principles and that the Declaration of Independence, the document that explains who we are, mentions God four times.
Indeed, America’s earliest settlers had fled religious oppression, namely the Anglican Church’s restrictions for holding public office and its mandated “Book of Common Prayer.”
That Beckwith was challenged on these points is a measure of the chasm into which Indiana civic education has fallen. And the “groaners” in the Zionsville crowd seemed to believe along with many Americans that separation of church and state means that those Christian principles should no longer be involved in our governing.
To the degree that Beckwith’s detractors believe that the nation was built irrespective of Christian teaching they divert from any common understanding of its history. A person might wish for one reason or another that America for these two centuries has prospered otherwise but that does not make it so.
The late Paul Johnson, British historian, would have stood with Beckwith in stating that the intent of separation was only to safeguard religious liberty from government interference and not to block Christian influence. Given the makeup of our country in 1776, that last would have been incongruous.
Rather, Johnson points to our foundation being shaped by a broad-based Protestant moral framework, which influenced the culture without requiring a formal state religion. He suggested that this moral consensus, shared by non-Protestants here, allowed religious values to permeate public life while maintaining legal separation.
This is from his “History of the American People”:
“The idea of a ‘wall of separation’ between church and state, first articulated by Roger Williams and later taken up by Thomas Jefferson, was not to banish religion but to protect it from the corruptions of state power. The Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom was a milestone, ensuring that no man could be compelled to support any church, nor penalized for his beliefs.”
And elsewhere in the same work:
“In the late twentieth century, some have interpreted the separation of church and state as a mandate for secularism, but this was far from the Founders’ vision. They saw their religion as a vital force in public life, provided it was not coerced by the state or monopolized by one sect.”
Indeed, if a dangerous mix of church and state concerns you, Beckwith’s inclusive Protestantism is not your problem. Try booing Islam at the all-muslim city council meeting in Hamtramck, Michigan, or, better, travel to central Texas and look over the plans for Epic City, a 400-acre muslim community to stretch across two counties.
The development, initiated by the East Plano Islamic Center, would have a mosque at its center and would follow muslim cultural mores if not strict Islamic law. They say there will be no Sharia or no police “no go” zone, promises broken throughout Great Britain and Europe these last few decades.
Beckwith, not his audience, should have been the one booing and groaning. — tcl
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