Separation of Church and State

As I've written previously on this blog ... before I became a candidate ... my faith is important to me. But so is the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

As a writer, former newspaper reporter and former faculty adviser to college student newspapers, the freedom of the press has been crucial in my life. But that's not all the First Amendment is about.

It reads:

"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."

Freedom of press comes in third in this list. Our founders saw the separation of Church and State as so essential they made it the first clause in the first paragraph of the Bill of Rights.

"But aren't we a Christian nation?" I've heard many say.

We are a nation founded mostly by Christians, but these were Christians of different flavors. The Puritans landed at Plymouth Rock because they fled the persecution of an English king who disagreed with their brand of Christianity. Anglicans and other kinds of Christians landed on other parts of the North American coastline.

They landed here knowing the history of religious strife in Europe. Wars fought between princes on behalf of one Christian sect against the other.

Only a few decades after the Puritans landed in Massachusetts, a Puritan in England named Oliver Cromwell would defy the English king and spark the English Civil War. The king would be captured, beheaded and Cromwell would become Lord Protector of the Commonwealth. He would rule that nation for five years until he died.

With his death, his government collapsed and the British monarchy was restored. When the royals returned, they dug up Cromwell's body and posthumously executed him. His body was hung by chains, thrown into a pit and mutilated. They stuck his head on a pole outside Westminster Hall. Cromwell's head would bounce around England for nearly two centuries, going from owner to owner until finally being buried in 1960.

The British colonists on the shores of North America watched from the sidelines as their home nation tore itself apart with religious conflict. Their descendants would remember this when it came time to write a constitution for a new nation. They knew the only sane choice was to keep religion out of government.

Our founders ensured church and state be separate. This also ensured the everyone could worship as they wanted to because no one flavor of Christianity or any other religion could hold power over any other. The separation of Church and State spared our nation from the religious conflicts that had plagued Europe and the rest of the world for centuries.

As candidates for office and as public officials, we must not allow the government to be used as a weapon to promote a particular theology.